Box Score
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – The Nova Southeastern men's basketball team (11-15, 7-7 SSC) dropped its second-to-last home game Saturday against the Tampa Spartans (16-8, 9-6 SSC), 71-60.
"Tampa's guys hopped off the bus and into our shorts and they turned us inside out from the start," said head coach Gary Tuell. "It was no contest. They dominated us, took everything away from us and made us look helpless. I don't know how we can play with so much heart and determination at Barry on Wednesday and be so emotionally flat today. It's so very, very disappointing."
Chris Page (So., Plainfield, Ind.) was the leading scorer for NSU with 19 points on 7-for-15 shooting. He also had four rebounds and shot 3-for-4 from 3-point range.
Justin Jeangerard (Jr., Weaverville, Calif.) had a team-best seven rebounds and 11 points.
Stian Berg (Jr., Baerum, Norway) also chipped in 16 points and a team-leading four assists.
The Spartans controlled the game from the start and only trailed by a point early in the first half. Despite trailing for a majority of the opening period, NSU kept it close and stayed in the game. Tampa was able to build a 29-21 lead with four minutes left, but NSU stopped the bleeding and cut the deficit in half with two straight buckets in the paint. However, Tampa's Vincent Cornu squashed NSU's momentum before the half and kept his team ahead with two straight layups. Cornu led his team in scoring Saturday with 22 points.
Tampa looked strong at the start of the second half and began with a 5-0 run to give the Spartans their first double-digit lead of the half. Page tried to get his team back in the game by successfully attacking the basket on three-straight possessions. However, an alley-oop dunk from Eric Moraes squashed NSU's momentum.
Tampa would go up by double-digits once again at the 12:42 mark at 48-36. The Spartans held their largest lead of the game four minutes later at 56-40. Looking for a spark, Tuell emptied his bench and pulled all but one starter out of the game. The reserves fought valiantly and worked the deficit down to 10 points, but never threatened the Spartans' lead.
"I've been praising these guys all year," stated Tuell. "I'm not going to abandon their ship now. But I don't know what to say about this other than we won so easily at Tampa (94-65) earlier this year. Maybe our guys didn't have a proper respect for Tampa. That's all I can come up with. Nothing else makes sense. If that's the case hopefully we learned a valuable lesson today. Every team deserves respect regardless of records or past scores."
NSU allowed the road team to shoot 54.7 percent in the game and shot 43.1 percent themselves. The 3-point shot was kind to the Sharks, who shot 10-for-22 from beyond the arc.
Casey Carroll (So., Youngstown, Ohio) came off the bench and added nine points and two rebounds.
Brian Cahill (Jr., Arlington, Va.) earned three assists while
Cameron Denney (Fr., Norwell, Ind.) chipped in three points late in the game.
"We have to make a lineup change before Wednesday," stated Tuell. "We have to find guys committed to the defensive end and to sharing the ball again."
NSU will play its final home game of the season Wednesday when the Sharks host Florida Tech at 7:30 p.m.
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