Courtesy of FGCUAthletics.com
DUNK CITY, Fla. – On the strength of a season-high 31 made free throws and another double-double from Marc-Eddy Norelia, the FGCU men’s basketball team (16-12, 7-5 A-Sun) shot 62.5 percent from the floor in the second half to pull away from Lipscomb (10-19, 6-6 A-Sun) and earn an 82-67 victory Thursday night to remain within one game of 1st place in the Atlantic Sun Conference.
Norelia (Orlando, Fla./Tulane/Olympia HS) recorded his fourth 20-point game in the last six outings with a game-high 25, and also added a game-best 12 rebounds to secure his 11th double-double of the year – two more than anyone else in single-season program history. The redshirt junior led a quintet of double-figure scorers for the Eagles, who made 31-39 free-throw attempts (79.5 percent) – tied for the second-most makes in Division-I program history and the most conversions since they made 30 in the 2013 NCAA Tournament victory over Georgetown.
The win moves FGCU into a tie for 3rd place in the A-Sun with NJIT at 7-5. The Eagles currently have the tie-breaker on the Highlanders – who lost 107-71 at North Florida Thursday night – and remain just a single game behind league leaders UNF and Jacksonville. Both the Ospreys and Dolphins are 8-4 and face each other on JU’s campus next Thursday to conclude the regular season. NJIT travels to JU on Saturday night, while UNF hosts USC Upstate (3-9) and FGCU entertains Kennesaw State (6-6).
Sophomore Christian Terrell (Jacksonville, Fla./Providence HS) scored 13 points, grabbed four rebounds and passed out four assists in 38 minutes of action. Redshirt freshman Zach Johnson (Miami, Fla./Norland HS) added 12 points, a season-high seven assists and a pair of blocks. Redshirt senior Julian DeBose (Washington, D.C./Rice/St. John College HS)contributed 10 points, and freshman Rayjon Tucker (Charlotte, N.C./Northside Christian Academy) tallied all 10 of his points in the first half as he helped pace the Eagles to an all-important halftime lead.
Both offenses started slow, but with the game knotted at 19-19 about 13 minutes in, FGCU went on a 9-0 run in 90 seconds to open up a 28-19 lead. However, Lipscomb closed the deficit and went into the halftime break trailing just 33-28. But, a halftime lead for the Eagles under third-year head coach Joe Dooley is an extremely favorable position to be in as FGCU is now 47-3 in the Dooley era when leading at intermission.
Lipscomb remained down just five, 57-52, midway through the second half, but an extended 11-4 run by the Green and Blue – capped by a Johnson fastbreak layup – extended the Eagles to their largest lead of the night at that juncture, 68-56, with 5:45 remaining. The lead blossomed to as much as 18 in the waning stages as the Eagles comfortably held on and avenged a 91-75 loss last month in Nashville to the Bisons.
“We were pretty disjointed early in the game and our offense really hurt us,” commented Dooley, whose Eagles are now 22-3 when scoring at least 80 points in his tenure. “For the most part we guarded really well. They’re difficult to defend with the way they spread you out and shoot so many 3s. It seemed like a slow-paced game and then you look up and have 82 points. And that’s hard to do when you only make one 3. Marc-Eddy was terrific and Christian made some big plays. Antravious (Simmons) gave us a lift for a stretch as well where he carried us and made some plays when he needed.”
That stretch for Simmons (Miami, Fla./VCU/South Miami HS) came early in the second half after Lipscomb had pulled within two, 39-37. The redshirt sophomore scored seven of FGCU’s next 12 points, and assisted on three of those points, as he and Terrell teamed up for what ended up being a 14-7 FGCU run to create a nine-point cushion, 53-44. The 6-9 Simmons finished with nine points, including going 5-5 from the free-throw line in only 13 minutes of action.
In the first meeting between FGCU and Lipscomb, the Bisons made a school-record 19 3-pointers. That wasn’t the case on Thursday as FGCU’s 16th-ranked national perimeter defense limited the Bisons to just 23.3 percent (7-30) from beyond the arc, with one of those makes being a failed entry pass which sailed well high and through the net, and the other came in the closing seconds of the game with the Eagles up 18 and backing off.
J.C. Hampton and Garrison Mathews led Lipscomb with 15 points each as no other team member scored more than eight points. The Eagles used their league-leading defense to hold the Bisons 12 points below their season average as they went 25-60 (41.7 percent) from the floor compared with 50 percent (25-50) for the Eagles, who also held a 40-29 edge on the glass.
FGCU was without the services of freshman point guard Reggie Reid (Harlem, Ga./Harlem HS) as the Eagles’ assist leader sat out with a sprained ankle. Then early in the game, redshirt senior Filip Cvjeticanin (Zagreb, Croatia/American School of Madrid) hit his head on the floor following a Lipscomb illegal screen, and he did not return with concussion-like symptoms.
The 31 made free throws for FGCU are tied with a Jan. 8, 2009 performance at Stetson for the second-most in the program’s D-I history. The most in the D-I era are 41 at Stetson in a triple-overtime contest in 2011, with the all-time record being 42 against North Florida before the Eagles were a D-I member in November of 2004.
FGCU now welcomes Kennesaw State to The Nest for its regular-season finale Saturday at 7 p.m. Prior to the game, the Eagles will recognize DeBose and Cvjeticanin, in addition to senior managers Michael Urban and Dan Thomas.
Leave a Reply