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FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – The Nova Southeastern men's basketball team (7-11, 4-3 SSC) will finish the first half of Sunshine State Conference play at home Wednesday against the Saint Leo Lions (16-4, 4-3 SSC) at 7:30 p.m. The game will broadcast live on 640 Sports.
NSU enters the game in second place in the conference and in a tie with Saint Leo at 4-3. The Sharks are coming off a blowout win at Tampa Saturday, 94-65. The win marks the program's largest margin of victory in a road Sunshine State Conference game.
"There's no time to celebrate in this league," said head coach Gary Tuell. "No nights off. Our guys enjoyed the bus ride back from Tampa on Saturday, but the coaches were huddled in the front of the bus discussing Saint Leo and what we need to do against them. We've won four out of our last five in the league and in the lone loss we made a school-record 21 three pointers, so as poorly as we defended in that game we did some things well, probably well enough to win most games. But in this league the next game always seems more difficult and more important than the last game, so there's no time for celebrations."
Although the second-place mark is impressive nearly halfway through conference play, one skid could see the Sharks plummet. NSU is in a three-way tie with Saint Leo and Barry and are only two games ahead of eighth-place Rollins. Both teams will be desperate to set themselves farther from the pack with a win Wednesday.
"Saint Leo lost three or four outstanding players to graduation, but the new faces have blended in nicely with the returnees," stated Tuell. "They are as physically tough to play as anyone in the league because of their style at both ends of the court. They set some very hard screens to free up shooters on the offensive end, they are physical inside and really work on the offensive glass and they shoot it as a team about as well as anyone in the league. They also have a very deep team with different guys coming in to help them from night to night.
"Defensively they still hang their hats on a physical, grinding man-to-man with great pressure on the ball and excellent help off the ball. It's tough to finish inside against them because if you beat them off the dribble you run into a couple of big, strong bodies. In that regard, they haven't changed from the past two years. What is different about this Saint Leo team from the past two years is that they're relying more on some different zone defenses, including a pretty good matchup zone. So preparing for them is a little different than in past years. What's not different is that they're extremely well-coached by Lance Randall and his staff, and, of course, Jerrel Harris is still there. We have a few players in this league who almost cannot be guarded. Kevin Capers at Florida Southern and Jermaine Jackson at Florida Tech are in that category. But Jerrel Harris heads the list. On the bus ride back from Tampa Saturday I told our staff we should consider a triangle and two defense against Saint Leo, and put the two on Harris. They laughed, but I was serious. The problem is I don't think we have two guys who could contain him or keep him from scoring if he really wanted to get a shot."
At 20.5 points per game, Harris trails Florida Tech's Jermaine Jackson by 0.5 points for the SSC lead in points per game. Along with Chim Kadima, the Lions' top two scorers make up for 42 percent of the team's total offense. This is in contrast to NSU, which has six players ranked in the top 30 in scoring, led by
Brian Cahill (Jr., Arlington, Va.) at 13.9 points per game.
"Not only does Jerrel score at will, but he makes his teammates better because he does a great job of getting them the ball off dribble penetration and he attracts so darn much attention that you can lose focus on other players," said Tuell. "And Saint Leo has plenty of other players who can beat you. Chim Kadima has really improved over last year. So has Spenser Mitchell. Both those guys are scoring and rebounding and playing huge roles this year. Ryan Wilson is a knock-down shooter. Ron Foxx is a strong rebounder and finisher in the paint. Devin Crisosto takes ball-handling pressure off Harris. And then you have a host of guys who contribute points or defense or passing or other things that make it all work for Leo. Guys like Cale Girten, Jaylon Bell, Taylor Bassett, Trey Griseck and Marcus Newberry. Coach Randall does a good job using his bench and keeping a lot of people involved. But it starts – and usually ends – with Harris. We've played about 20 different defenses this year, but Jerrel has at least 21 ways to score. Nothing you do defensively seems to faze him, and believe me I've watched a lot of good defensive teams and good defensive players try their darndest to stop him.
"Saint Leo defends the three point shot as well as anyone in our league, so we need to find other ways to score. We don't want to be that team that lives and dies by the 3-point shot, but there's no denying that we're very, very good when we make 3's. By starting five guards –
Stian Berg (Jr., Baerum, Norway),
Maurice Fuller (Jr., Westfield, Ind.),
Chris Page (So., Plainfield, Ind.),
Justin Jeangerard (Jr., Weaverville, Calif.) and Brian Cahill – we put pressure on defenses because all those guys can make threes in bunches and all of them can drive. When we bring in our 'sixth starter',
Casey Carroll (So., Youngstown, Ohio), we add another three-point shooter. Casey is so valuable to us because he plays four different positions and plays all of them well."
The tight rotation and small lineup has paid dividends, as NSU has rocketed up the conference standings in spite of the overall record. After a 0-5 start, NSU has held a winning record against arguably the nation's toughest schedule.
"There are a lot of reasons why we've gone 4-1 in our last five league games," said Tuell. "The five-guard lineup is unique and difficult to match up with. Our guys have learned how to better execute against teams that play a switching man defense. We've continued to improve at finding ways to score other than the 3. Maurice Fuller has come out of his slump and really stepped up his game. Stian Berg has been terrific. But I think the improvement and growth in Casey Carroll and Chris Page has helped us as much as anything. Both those guys have a better understanding of what we're trying to do. And our top six guys are very comfortable playing together, although a couple of freshmen,
Brandon Patchan (Tampa, Fla.) and
Cameron Denney (Norwell, Ind.), have been able to come in in certain situations and help us. They're getting more comfortable and fitting in much better.
"Saint Leo will be very good and we know that. But we're used to seeing very good teams every night we tip it off. We've played the best teams in DII and held our own, despite our size and depth limitations. Those early season experiences have taught us how to compete."
Tune into 640 Sports 15 minutes before the game for the pregame show. Fans can watch the game live
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