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FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – The Nova Southeastern men's basketball team (3-9, 0-2 SSC) will stay on the road but return to South Florida Wednesday to face the Lynn Fighting Knights (6-5, 0-1 SSC) at 7:30 p.m. on 640 Sports.
"It will be good to see my old friend Jeff Price again," said head coach Gary Tuell. "He is a legend at Lynn going back to the days when they started their basketball program and Jeff did such a wonderful job building a championship team there. They have been up and down his first year back at Lynn, but he will get them going again. Lynn has some very good individual players who are learning what Jeff wants and learning a new system. Those things take time but the pieces are there. Kaleb Clyburn and Brandon Smith are veteran guards who have had success in the league. Aaron Harrison, Haki Stampley, Fred Landers, Pavla Raickovic, Michael Birts and Cory Thomas give them size and a lot of athleticism on the front line.
"Lynn holds opponents to 40 percent shooting from the field overall and under 30 percent (27.7) on three point attempts, so you know it's always going to be tough to score on them. They are so athletic and long and do a good job contesting shots inside and outside. And you better block them off the glass because they are an outstanding offensive rebounding team."
Both teams enter Wednesday searching for their first win in Sunshine State Conference play. NSU is coming off a hard fought road loss to the Eckerd Tritons, 75-63.
Brian Cahill (Jr, Arlington, Va.) followed up a career-best night against Amherst by scoring a game-high 20 points on 5-for-10 shooting, including 4-for-7 from 3-point range. He was also a perfect 6-for-6 from the free throw line.
Chris Page (So., Plainfield, Ind.) scored 12 points on 5-for-11 shooting and posted team-bests with six boards and three assists.
"I was disappointed to lose Saturday at Eckerd, but I'm always disappointed when we lose," stated Tuell. "But I wasn't discouraged. I thought Eckerd played as well as I've seen them play this year. They took care of the ball and defended like the old Eckerd teams. They found some guys to knock down three-pointers and when they're shooting well from the perimeter they are as tough to beat as anyone in the league.
"But we played hard and played pretty well. Our effort was good enough to win a lot of games. As long as we play with that effort we'll be fine. We haven't shot the ball as well yet as I think we can but some of that might be us and some of it might be a product of the veteran, talented teams we've played against, including (No. 4) Florida Southern and Eckerd in our two league games. We've had nights where we were lights out, but we haven't been consistent."
Although the Sharks outrebounded Eckerd, 32-28, and doubled the Tritons' offensive rebound total, the home team played too efficiently for the Sharks to overcome. Eckerd only turned the ball over seven times, shot 52 percent from the floor and had 22 free throw attempts. Despite posting solid hustle stats, the Sharks came up cold by shooting 38 percent. Eckerd earned a usual result, after losing at home only nine times over the previous three seasons.
"Of course, when you start five guards the way we do, we're very limited offensively in the low post, and that's no secret," said Tuell. "When we lost
Mike Terry (Fr., Ironton, Ohio) in December for the year we lost our best low post scorer. We have a few guys who are capable of getting things done in there, but they're all young and a work in progress. We're trying to be patient with them as they learn and grow. It would help us though if
Brandon Patchan (Fr., Tampa, Fla.),
Cameron Denney (Fr., Norwell, Ind.) and
Casey Carroll (So., Youngstown, Ohio) could establish a presence inside. I see improvement in all of them so that's a plus. Casey is so versatile and such a perimeter threat that I don't want to limit his other strengths by nailing him to the low post. He's best when he's free to move and play multiple positions. But if you don't have a consistent low post game then you'll never have a very high shooting percentage as a team. Patchan is coming on. We started the season thinking of Cam as a small forward but when we lost Mike Terry it really forced us to use Cam more at power forward and we're slowly making that adjustment. Brian Cahill was our starting point guard in November and now he's our starting center, so that speaks volumes about our need for help inside.
Justin Jeangerard (Jr., Weaverville, Calif.) suffered a concussion at Eckerd so we will be even more short-handed than usual. We hate to play without him but it gives our young players a chance to get some more experience and step up.
"As small as we are, and as young as we are inside, somehow we managed to out-rebound Eckerd. Florida Southern beat us on the boards, but not by much and it certainly wasn't a factor in that loss. We trailed by three with 90 seconds to play against the fourth-ranked team in the country, so we found ways to compensate for our disadvantage inside. That's a credit to our kids and how hard they work. They don't tip-toe around out there. They fight bigger guys in the post every game and do a decent job holding their own. We take a lot of pride in that. We have to fight and compete and find a way to keep bigger, more athletic players from taking advantage of us again when we face Lynn. We're used to that. Hopefully we'll knock down more shots than we did at Eckerd. If we can do that, we'll compete."
Tune into 640 Sports 15 minutes prior to the game for the preshow. Online, fans can watch the game via live video
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HERE.
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