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FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – The Nova Southeastern men’s basketball team (9-5, 2-3 SSC) will return home to face the Florida Tech Panthers (7-7, 1-4 SSC) Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. at the NSU Arena in the Don Taft University Center. The game will broadcasted live on 640 Sports.
The Sharks will be gunning for its first Sunshine State Conference home win of the season and look to start another winning streak. If NSU takes down the Panthers, it will be the fewest losses the program has had by Jan. 23 since 2009. However, the Sharks will have to snap the program’s three-game losing streak to the Panthers. That streak included two tough losses last season in which the Sharks lost by three points each.
“Florida Tech is the biggest team we’ll see all year, and we’re not just talking height,” said head coach
Gary Tuell. “Tech has more beef on their roster than the menu at a Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse. If you compared our teams to a fast food menu, Tech’s team is the whopper and we’re the kid’s meal. Even their guards are big, strong, thick guys. When they travel to road games they hang one of those yellow banners that says ‘oversized load’ on the back of the team bus.
“They’re not only big, they’re good. In Chris Carter, Jermaine Jackson and Julius Reid they have three of the top-15 scorers in our conference. Their individual size and talent is as good as any we’ll see in the league. On top of that, they are the defending regular season league champs, and some of the guys who won the title last year are still there. They have a coach in Billy Mims and some returners like Reid and Jackson who know how to win. Playing them is always a challenge.”
Although the Panthers still carry the title of SSC regular season champions, they enter Wednesday’s game in last place through five games. Their lone conference win came against Lynn, 62-60, who also has four SSC losses in the books. However, the league is tight this year and the Sharks, in fifth place, are only a game ahead of the Panthers.
“It’s way too early to get hung up on conference records,” stated Tuell. “Clearly – at least in the first half dozen games -- Rollins, Saint Leo and Florida Southern have established themselves as the teams to beat in the league. That probably won’t change much during the season. But how the other six teams shake out is the great unknown. All won-loss records early in league play are as much a product of who you played and where you played them as it is anything else.
“Florida Tech is off to a 1-4 start in the league, but those four losses include an overtime loss at Saint Leo, an overtime loss at Barry, a loss to unbeaten Rollins and a four-point loss to a very good Eckerd team. A whole lot of teams in our league could lose any or all of those four games. The thing that impresses me most about Tech, besides their size and individual talent, is their ability to come back. They came from 16 down to beat Lynn and they came from way behind to get into overtime against both Saint Leo and Barry. Teams get worn out and beat down over a 40 minute game trying to compete against Tech’s size. Just about everybody who plays them is exhausted and hanging on at the end.”
NSU is coming off the program’s most dominant conference win since 2010, as the Sharks defeated Tampa on the road, 68-51. The Sharks led the Spartans by 36 points before easing off the gas and only dropping in two points in the last five minutes. The win snapped a rough run for NSU, in which the Sharks lost to Florida Southern and Rollins after winning in overtime against Palm Beach Atlantic.
“We played okay at Tampa, but I thought we could play better, especially on the offensive end,” said Tuell. “It was a strange game. They had a poor shooting night and we were able to build a big lead, which doesn’t happen very often in this league, especially on the road. Our switching-man defense was pretty good and we were able to sprinkle in some 1-2-2 zone that kept them off balance. I thought our guys did a pretty good job defending them.
Brian Cahill (So., Arlington, Va.) and
Lukas Roesch (Sr., Sugar Grove, Ohio) gave us an offensive lift, but a lot of guys –
Justin Jeangerard (So., Weaverville, Calif.),
Iran Hollis (Sr., Hollywood, Fla.),
Jacob Reed (Jr., Perth, Australia),
Stian Berg (So., Baerum, Norway) – made some nice contributions at different times in the game.
“The thing that concerns me most is that we’re not getting to the foul line enough. We’re last in the league in free throw attempts and some teams have been to the line twice as much as we have. We’re also last in the league in steals. If you’re not scoring on steals and run-outs and you’re not getting to the free throw line, your half-court offense has to be darn near perfect to have a chance of winning. We really don’t have the size to attack teams inside so we have to get to the foul line in different ways. And right now we’re not being aggressive enough, not attacking the basket enough off the dribble. We have guys who can do that, but they’re trying to move the ball and share it, trying to play unselfishly. Having guys who want to share the ball and make the extra pass is a great thing, but we have to find a balance between the two if we’re going to compete in this league.”
Fans can listen to the game live on 640 Sports. The game will also be available via live video
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