640 SPORTS | LIVE STATS
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – The Nova Southeastern men’s basketball team (11-8, 4-6 SSC) will face its third top-10 opponent this season, as the Sharks hit the road to face No. 8 Florida Southern (17-2, 9-1 SSC) Saturday at 3 p.m. The game will broadcast live on 640 Sports.
The game, the toughest remaining contest of the regular season on paper, comes as the Sharks are trying to end their only three-game losing streak of the season. The latest loss came Wednesday night against Eckerd, 63-59.
“We got great effort from all of our guys in Wednesday’s loss to Eckerd, which was a nice improvement over the way we played in our losses to Barry and Saint Leo,” said head coach
Gary Tuell. “The Eckerd loss was disappointing because I thought we played well enough to win and did enough right things at both ends of the court to get the victory. Eckerd’s defense was terrific and dictated the tempo and style of the game. They played very well, as did we. It was a chess match and both teams played well enough to earn the victory. There were some things our guys couldn’t control, but they were excellent in the areas they could control and they gave a winning effort. As a coach, that’s all you can hope for.”
Florida Southern enters the day with all of the momentum and the home court advantage. Florida Southern has won eight games in a row, with their only Sunshine State Conference loss coming on the road against SSC preseason favorites, Saint Leo. They are an experienced group, as most of their impact players are returners from last year’s SSC Tournament Championship team.
“Florida Southern is playing better than anyone in our league right now, and perhaps better than anyone in the nation,” said Tuell. “There’s a good reason they are ranked eighth in the latest NCAA Division II poll. Honestly, that might not be high enough. Based on the film I’ve watched from their recent games I don’t think we’ve faced a team this year – and we’ve faced a lot of very, very good teams – but none who played any better than Southern is playing right now. Their overall team speed and quickness is off the charts scary. Nothing is supposed to be faster than the speed of light, but you could turn the light switch off when these guys, throw the ball inbounds and I swear they would score before the gym was dark.”
The Sharks already hosted Florida Southern this year and lost, 78-68. However, the Sharks played the then-16th ranked Mocs close.
Sean Mullan (Sr., Mangerton, Australia) cut the team’s deficit to five points with less than four minutes remaining, but the Sharks could not complete the comeback in what would have been their biggest home win this season.
“In our first game with Southern we played a very poor and very unintelligent first half, but I thought the second half of that game belonged to us,” stated Tuell. “We got down 19 and brought it back to five and had the ball late with a chance to cut it to two or three, so we battled and hung in there. When you look at opponent turnovers against Southern, just about everyone is giving the ball away 20 or more times against their pressure. Relatively speaking, we handled their pressure pretty well and kept our turnovers (18) to a reasonable number considering the number of possessions and the style they like to play.”
The Sharks, who like to run as much as any team, did play a high-possession game against the Mocs, making the high turnover mark misleading. When breaking down turnovers per 100 possessions, the Sharks only committed two more than their average rate against a team famous for creating turnovers.
“We were able to take advantage of some things in that first meeting because they weren’t shooting the ball particularly well from the perimeter,” said Tuell. “But Saturday will be a different story because they have really improved as shooters and they always shoot it pretty well at home anyway. We won’t be able to defend them the way we did the first time. I think we’re the last team to hold them under 90 points, but a lot of that was their inability to shoot from the perimeter. They aren’t the same team now. They are a much, much improved shooting team. They are scoring off turnovers, scoring in transition, making a bunch of threes and getting into the paint for easy baskets off the drive or the dump inside to Brett Bailey. Defending them is a nightmare.
“Linc Darner has done a great coaching job with this group. I think they have a legitimate shot to win a national championship if they can keep playing the way they have been. We’re just going to go in there and enjoy the opportunity and challenge to play yet another highly ranked team and see if we can compete well enough to make it a good game. They’ve won their last three games by 20, 19 and 23 against some pretty good teams. We understand the challenge. Win or lose, hopefully we can use this game to learn and keep getting better.”
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