FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – The sixth-seeded Nova Southeastern University men's basketball team (11-15) will begin the 2015 Sunshine State Conference Tournament Friday at 7:30 p.m. in Kissimmee's Silver Spurs Arena against the third seed, the Tampa Spartans. The semifinal round is scheduled for Saturday at 7:30 p.m. and the finals will be played at 4 p.m. Sunday. NSUSharks.com sat down with head coach Gary Tuell prior to the tournament.
Q: The Sharks end the regular season 11-15 and 6-9 in the SSC. This was a year of adversity from the start, losing Casey Carroll (Jr., Youngstown, Ohio) for the year before dealing with multiple individual tragedies along the way. How has your team dealt with this adversity and how is the chemistry heading into the postseason? A: Losing Casey was a huge blow to our team. We lost several games by one or two possessions, a couple of overtime games that we might have won with Casey on the floor. His basketball IQ, his ability to shoot the 3 and rebound, those things would have made a big difference for us. Had Casey been healthy I truly believe we would have finished in the top four, maybe competed for second or third place. But we'll have him back for two more years and hopefully healthy and better than before. He told me the other day that he hasn't felt this good physically since he was 16 or 17. I'm really proud of the way Casey contributed to our team even without him on the floor. He was at every practice, lending humor and advice and helping any way he could. He's been a big help on the bench with another set of eyes.
His injury is small potatoes to some of the other things we've had to deal with as a team this year, but I think the guys have grown closer and learned a lot of lessons. They may not realize it until later in life, but there have been a lot of opportunities for growth and for the most part our guys have been terrific. I don't know if we can win the conference tournament or not. Certainly the odds are not with us. But if we bring our best effort and play with focus and purpose and energy we'll be a tough out. We're capable.
Q:Along the way, you've repeated several times that it has been an honor to coach the individuals on this year. Outside of talent, coachability, etc., what is it that makes this group special to you? A: They're just a bunch of nice guys who anyone would be proud to call son, son-in-law, brother or friend. They're good guys. They're funny and smart and kind-hearted guys who are a joy to be with. The late, great Rick Majerus, who was the best coach I ever knew, gave me some great advice over the course of our friendship. One of the many things he told me that I never forgot was, "recruit the kind of guys you want to ride the bus with after a tough loss." Our four seniors,
Stian Berg (Baerum, Norway),
Brian Cahill (Arlington, Va.),
Justin Jeangerard (Weaverville, Calif.) and
Maurice Fuller (Westfield, Ind.), are tremendous ambassadors for our university. They have class and they're high character guys who set a terrific example for the other young players.
Q: For the first half of conference season, the league had a three headed monster in Florida Southern, Barry and Lynn. However, Barry has lost two of four and Lynn dropped the third seed to Tampa down the stretch. Has the second tier of the SSC caught up with the top dogs? What will it take for any team to upset SSC regular season champions Florida Southern? A: Florida Southern is the one team that didn't stumble down the stretch. They maintained their focus and gave our league not only the top-ranked team in the country, but also a great regular season champion. Linc Darner has done a terrific job with his team and his players have shown the kind of leadership and drive that makes them a special team. We should all be proud of what Coach Darner and the Southern players have accomplished for themselves and for our conference.
How about Tampa? For the second straight year Richard Schmidt did a remarkable coaching job and was able to spoil the party that Southern, Barry and Lynn were having at the expense of the other teams in our league. Other than Southern, no team has played better in the second half of the season than Tampa. Their only loss was a hard fought eight-point defeat on the road at Southern, and the game was much closer than that. So while everyone, myself included, was trumpeting the virtues of Southern, Barry and Lynn all season, Tampa just kept grinding and finding a way to get it done and earned the third seed in our tournament by beating Barry on the last day of the season. Coach Schmidt has done a great job with that team, and they have the premier leader in our league in senior guard Jordan Davis. He just refuses to let his team take a night off. I don't think the second tier teams in our league caught up with the heavyweights. I just think over the course of a long season teams have a difficult time maintaining their focus and their drive.
It's not a sprint, it's a marathon. And not every runner is good at the marathon. Tampa proved to be. Southern proved to be. And while Barry and Lynn stumbled a couple of times late, don't kid yourself. There's nothing wrong with those two teams. They'll be ready for the postseason tournament. Can anyone take out Southern? Sure, on a given night anything can happen. But somebody will need to play extremely well and hope Southern is having a tough shooting night if that's going to happen.
Q: This is the SSC's third year at the Silver Spurs Arena. Are you a fan of the neutral site setting of the tournament, and if not, what challenges does it present? A: I'm a fan of the neutral site but I'm not a fan of the Silver Spurs Arena. It's a rodeo ring. The lighting is uneven and unusual, the black curtain that encases at least half the arena is dark and uninviting, the seats are not close to the court, and speaking of the court… it's full of dead spots. It's just not an ideal venue in my mind. If I had to choose between playing there or playing on one of our campus sites, I'd probably prefer several campus sites over that place. But it's a neutral court. Whatever quirks that come with the arena, at least it's the same for everybody. It's fair.
Q: To advance to the NCAA South Region Tournament, NSU will have to upset three teams in as many days. Does the marathon tournament schedule play to the Sharks' favor? A: Well, you're assuming that we have to upset three teams but the reality could be something totally different. That's the beauty of a postseason tournament. You never know who's going to advance or who might get hot over the course of a three-day tournament and shock the world. We could do it. I'm sure Florida Tech and Saint Leo and Eckerd are thinking the same thing we are. You might assume that we're going to face Tampa, Barry and Florida Southern if we're going to win two games and advance to the championship on Sunday. That would be the teams who finished three, two and one in the league and that would be a very difficult task for any team. But the reality is we know our first round opponent is Tampa, and beyond that we don't know anything. So we will focus our attention on Tampa and if we're good enough and lucky enough to win we'll move our attention to the next opponent. Traditionally we haven't had a lot of upsets in our postseason tournament. Maybe this is the year.
Q: Tampa, the Sharks' first round opponent, is the only team NSU swept this year (86-82 win at home on Dec. 6, 75-61 win on the road Jan. 31). NSU is the only team seeds 5-8 that has beaten Tampa. What have the Sharks done to pester the Spartans? A: I'm not sure, but whatever it is I hope we can find a way to do it one more time! We create some matchup problems for them when we go small, but that's only a factor when we shoot the ball well and we've been very fortunate to shoot the ball well in our two games against them. With Eugene McCrory inside, they create matchup problems for our small lineup, too. I've heard coaches say we're a bad matchup for Tampa. I don't completely buy that. We have to shoot it well and we have to do a terrific job defending their big guys inside, because they create a matchup problem for us. I just think we've played well at both ends of the floor in our two wins over them.
Give our kids credit for playing hard and playing well and doing what we needed to do to give ourselves a chance in those two games. Over the course of the season, Tampa has proven to be better than us. But on the two nights we played we were very good. Neither game was a blowout. If we play hard and well then we should have a chance, but Tampa is a very talented, very good team and we will need a terrific effort from our players if we hope to beat them a third time. Anything less and we'll be out of the tourney on Friday night.
Q: Is Casey Carroll packing the purple blazer and bow tie? Haha. I don't know. I hope not because I told him he looks like a game show host on a third world TV station in that getup. On the other hand, he's 2-0 in that outfit so maybe he needs to bring it out Friday night. I just hope he's feeling better than he did at Saint Leo. He was very sick the day of the game and spent that game in the training room trying to feel better. I've had the flu for almost a week and I think I gave him what I have. Hopefully it doesn't spread to our other players. We need all hands on deck Friday night.
Q: Can the Sharks win this tournament and why? A: Sure, we can win the tournament. Any of the eight teams in this tournament can win it. A lot depends on matchups and who you play. And a lot depends on who can make shots in that arena. It's a tough place to shoot the ball. We don't have any bad teams in our league, so upsets are always possible. For us to win we need to shoot it well, we need to avoid turnovers, and we need to limit teams to one shot. We have to get all five players competing on the defensive glass. Up until our loss at Saint Leo on Saturday I was very happy with our team, with the progress we've made as a unit and with the growth we've shown in terms of playing together, defending better, rebounding better. We were very good down the stretch. I thought we played about as well as we could possibly play late in the season and I thought we were improving every game. But the effort wasn't there at Saint Leo. They (Leo) did a great job early in attacking our zone and making shots, but as poorly as we were playing we still had multiple chances in the second half to make it a fight. We just didn't give the effort necessary to come back. We got close, but even then we weren't playing with much passion or enthusiasm or energy. They were beating us to every loose ball. We were not blocking out. We weren't rebounding. We missed countless open shots, 3's, layups. It was very disappointing. I didn't feel we respected the game enough.
When you don't play with passion and heart and enthusiasm, when you don't show how much you love the game by giving your best effort, then you disrespect the game. And to me, there's nothing worse. We were lifeless. We looked every bit like a team that was bored and didn't want to be there. I hope that was just a blip on the radar screen and we get back to playing the way we have over the past month. It's been a long time since we've played with so little emotion and pride. Hopefully it will be a wakeup call for our guys and they'll respond with a great week of practice and bring their best to the floor on Friday night. We're too good a team and we have too many high character guys to accept that kind of performance.
I want them to feel good about themselves and be able to look back on this season… and for the four seniors to look back on their careers… with a sense of satisfaction and pride. Saturday at Saint Leo was not a game any of us should want to remember. So let's go make some memories this week in Kissimmee.
