FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – The Nova Southeastern University men's basketball team (9-10, 5-5 SSC) will look to upset the No. 2 Florida Southern Mocs (20-1, 8-1 SSC) on the road Saturday at 7:30 p.m. on 640 Sports. NSUSharks.com spoke to Gary Tuell prior to the matchup.
 
Q: The Sharks played a grind of a game against Eckerd Wednesday but won 64-59. Can you reflect on that contest?
 
A: Eckerd is always a difficult matchup for us because of their style of play. They are very strong and physical and try to grind you down defensively. They don't give you much room to breathe, much less move, and wherever you go there is someone clinging to you, bumping you, holding you, keeping hands on you. There isn't a lot of freedom of movement out there when you play Eckerd. They're very good at what they do and make it difficult for your offense if you don't have a strong will and a lot of grit and mental toughness. In the old days we used to say a team like Eckerd is very good at making the game "ugly" because nothing comes easily and there is never a lot of rhythm and flow to a game when you play them. 
 
I thought they did a terrific job, especially playing a little short-handed, although I'm not sure their missing players would have played any better or done any more than the guys they had. You might say they would miss a Kevin Walsh to shoot against our zone, but when Keshawn Ingram scores 19 and goes 5-for-8 from the field and 4-for-6 on 3's, I'm not sure they were missing Walsh that much. The guys who played for Eckerd were very good and defended us as well as anyone has all year, so I really didn't notice much of a drop in talent. We were not at our best, but we got big baskets from Brian Cahill (Sr., Arlington, Va.) and Maurice Fuller (Sr., Westfield, Ind.). I thought Harrison Goodrick (So., Sydney, Australia) played well at both ends of the floor and Chris Page (Jr., Plainfield, Ind.) had his moments. It was a tough game, but we found a way to win it and I always say that a mark of a good team is to win games on nights when they're not playing their best. We did that Wednesday and that's a credit to our guys.
 
Q: You were quoted saying the Triton defense was better than the Shark offense, but on the other end, NSU held Eckerd to 59 points. Have the Sharks settled into a good place defensively?

A: Our guys have bought into our defense. They know it's the best way for us to play and when we are locked in and giving our best effort, we're not an easy team to score against. We're small and not very athletic, but we can be good at the defensive end when we're moving and in a stance and active with our hands. We're getting more steals and forcing more turnovers than we did before we changed defenses. We're still susceptible to giving up too many 3-pointers, but that's the nature of zones. We are doing a much better job in transition and we've become a pesky, difficult team to play against in the post when we are alert and rotating properly. Defense is all about recognition and then responding with aggressive effort. On the nights we play our zone well, we're very good. On the nights we struggle, it's usually because the effort isn't there. We are so small that we have a very slim margin for error. If we have one guy failing to give effort it impacts everybody. Our defense is only effective when all five guys do their jobs together. I'd like to see us get a little more sophisticated in some things we do over the last month of the season, but the key to our competing and staying in games against bigger, more athletic teams will always go back to effort. For the most part we've done a good job since Christmas of defending with good effort, and on some nights we've had extraordinary effort.
 
Q: Brian Cahill scored 14 points Wednesday, all of which seemed crucial. Can you talk about Brian coming off the bench and putting the game in his hands?
 
A: Brian is a streaky shooter, but his will to win is always there. Stian Berg (Sr., Baerum, Norway) is our best point guard, and on the nights when Stian is tuned in he can be as good as anyone in the league. But sometimes Stian can struggle with his confidence. He has so much talent and ability but it doesn't show up as often as I wish it would. When Stian gets it going he is so beautiful to watch. Wednesday was one of those nights when Stian was struggling, and I turned to Brian to fill in at point guard down the stretch because I could sense he wasn't going to let us lose. He never lacks for confidence and our team needed a heavy dose of confidence those final five or six minutes. Brian made a few huge baskets for us that gave everybody a lift and gave us a chance to win the game.
 
The beautiful thing about Brian is that it doesn't matter if he starts or comes off the bench. It doesn't matter where you put him… we probably play him at two or three and sometimes four different positions during a game… doesn't matter. He gives effort and he provides leadership, and as his career winds down, I expect him more and more to take on a leadership role on the floor that keeps everyone moving forward in the same direction. For a guy who has suffered as much as he has, endured as much as he has, gone through two back surgeries in his career, it's remarkable what he's able to do. I just hope he can stay healthy down the stretch and be in a position to play his best the last month of his senior year. He deserves it.

Q: You went to your full second unit in the middle of the second half, and as a whole, there were only -4 in over 2 minutes against Eckerd's best players. Overall, six of Cahill's points came on catch-and-shoot 3's from Troy Spears (Fr., Martinsville, Ind.). How has that group gelled in practice lately?

A: I probably put our guys in a tough spot when I pulled the starters but they weren't getting anything done and the longer I sat and watched them struggle the more frustrating it became. I just had to sit them down for a few minutes because I thought I was going to vomit if I had to watch them for another minute. Honestly. It wasn't pretty. They were trying hard. Or at least they thought they were. But the harder they seemed to try, the worse it got for them. The guys off the bench – Jonathan Back (So., Carlisle, Ohio), Mike Chalas (Jr., Pembroke Pines, Fla.), Troy Spears, Brandon Patchan (So., Tampa, Fla.) and Brian Cahill – gave us three or four good minutes during that stretch. It helped the starters to sit for a few and refocus. This is a team game. That includes all 13 or 14 guys. A guy like Jon Back works so hard every day in practice. No one gives more effort or has a better attitude. It's nice when we can get him on the floor for a few minutes and reward him for what he gives the team every day. It's especially nice when guys off the bench come in and produce because that gives the coach confidence to come back and use them again in other situations.

Q: Florida Southern is ranked No. 2 in the nation by the coaches. For those who casually follow DII basketball, can you put into perspective how good Southern is?
 
A: We're very lucky to have two of the top four or five DII teams in America playing in this conference. As a coach, I appreciate just how good Florida Southern and Barry are this year. When I was at Augusta State we had some really outstanding teams that went to the NCAA tournament and had some success. We also had Kennesaw State in our league, including the year they won the national championship, and I thought they were the best DII team I'd ever seen. When I saw Barry early in this season they reminded me so much of that Kennesaw State team. I knew they were going to be a special team with a chance to have a special year.
 
What makes Southern so special is that Linc Darner has done it year after year there. They never seem to miss guys who graduate, they just reload with better players the next year. Southern went on the road this year and beat Southern Indiana and Bellarmine, which is like going on the road and beating Duke and North Carolina. Then they beat Metro State, who – like Southern – is loaded every year and a top five DII team every year. Wednesday they won at Barry, who is without question a top-five team in the country. I don't know if we've ever had a DII team in the history of this division who beat four teams in one season – Southern Indiana, Bellarmine, Metro State and Barry – who are all legitimate national title contenders. And they won three of those four away from home. That's just amazing. 
 
You could put Barry or Southern in a lot of the mid to low DI leagues and they'd have a great chance of not only winning those leagues but also pulling off an upset in the first round of the NCAA tourney. They're that good. What makes Southern so good is they're extremely well-coached, they have a system that they believe in, they recruit to that system and they play at a pace with such great energy that most teams can't match. Southern's defense is outstanding. They have tremendous athletes who can guard you all 94 feet and they run better than anyone. It's a shame Southern and Barry are in the same league and the same region because those two teams could easily wind up in a national championship game if they were coming out of different regions.
 
Q: NSU previously lost to Florida Southern at home, 77-74, but had a chance to send the game to overtime despite not having Brian Cahill. What did the Sharks do well that kept them in the game that night?
 
A: I think, if you look back at the results of their games during that time, Southern was a little flat and not playing as well as they had in December or as well as they're playing now. They had such an emotional December with big games against nationally ranked teams. And they're back to playing that way now, especially since they can smell another conference championship with the win Wednesday at Barry. When we played them we caught them when they were a little flat. But I also believe we played perhaps the best game in our program's history that night. We hung with them for 40 minutes, we defended them extremely well and we did a good job on the boards with them. I don't know many people can appreciate just how well we played that night because the casual observer just looks at who won and who lost. We were outstanding that night. Our defense was locked in and I think we were able to do some things that slowed them down a little, took some things away from them that they do well, and we were focused. From a coach's perspective, the fun part of having a Southern or this year's Barry team in your league is that you get the opportunity to play a special opponent, which gives your guys a rare chance to compete against one of the top few teams in America. If you're playing one of the best, if not the best, team in the country and you can't get yourself up to play in that game, then you should be doing something else with your life. The result may not be what you want it to be very often, but the opportunity to compete at the highest level is special regardless of what NCAA division you compete in. 
 
I hope our guys play well Saturday and we have another competitive game. I know going into it our guys want to go there and play well. And I'm sure we did enough good things the first time around that Coach Darner won't let his team take us lightly. I suspect we'll get their best shot, especially with them coming home and coming off a huge win Wednesday at Barry. The momentum from that win will definitely carry over for them into this game. We need to be at our best or we'll get embarrassed before the first media timeout.
 
Q: After Florida Southern you have Lynn and Barry back-to-back at home. The scheduling gods made NSU the only team in the league that has to face the top 3 teams in the SSC back-to-back-to-back. What is the message you are sending to your guys going into this?
 
A: The message is simple: In the next three games you're going to face Death, Famine and Pestilence. That's what I call Southern, Barry and Lynn. Remember the original "Ghostbusters" movie? The Ghostbusters are telling the mayor what's on the horizon. "A disaster of biblical proportions… Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies! Rivers and seas boiling! Forty years of darkness! Darkness, volcanoes… the dead rising from the grave! Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together… mass hysteria!" The mayor of New York responded, "All right, all right!  I get the point!"
 
When you face Southern, Lynn and Barry in back-to-back-to-back games you better be ready for some bad stuff, because some bad stuff is going to happen to you. And you better keep your sense of humor, because you need to have a healthy perspective to make it through that kind of scenario. But we know we have an opportunity that very few teams in the country will have. We have a chance to test ourselves against three of the best teams in the country. We have a chance to compete against three elite teams, three elite coaches, and that's what you love about playing and coaching in any sport. You want to play the best. You can't be the best if you don't play against – and beat – the best.
 
As improbable as it may seem, who knows that by end of next weekend people might be talking about Nova Southeastern being a pretty darn good little team. We have a chance and that's all you ask for as a player and a coach. I don't need to say much to our guys about these three games. We've played all three of them, we respect them, we know how good they are and how talented they are. We understand what we're up against, but we're ready. Our team has been through so much adversity and so many challenges this year. These three games are big, but they don't compare to the challenges our players and our team have had to overcome this year. One way or the other we'll get through Death, Famine and Pestilence, assess where we are and move on to the next game. 
 
There's a lot of basketball to be played after the next three games, and all the really important games are somewhere down the road, but not in the next seven days.