Courtesy of FGCUAthletics.com
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Trailing 21-12 at the 11:30 mark of the first half, FGCU head coach Joe Dooley called a timeout and his team responded in dominating fashion as the 4th-seeded Eagles (19-13) rolled to an 89-56 win at top-seeded North Florida (22-11) Thursday night in the Atlantic Sun Conference Championship semifinal.
The win sends FGCU to the A-Sun Final at Alico Arena Sunday at 7 p.m. against 7th-seeded Stetson in a game which will be broadcast live on ESPN2.
FGCU held the nation’s 3rd-leading offense to a season-low 56 points – 30 below its season average – as the Eagles handed a No. 1 seed in the A-Sun Championship its largest loss in conference history, dating back to 1979.
Led by a 14th double-double of the year from Marc Eddy Norelia (Orlando, Fla./Tulane/Olympia HS) with game-highs of 23 points and 13 rebounds, the Eagles dominated in the paint to the tune of a 42-14 advantage and crushed the Ospreys on the glass, 49-24. In their three games this year, FGCU out-scored UNF in the paint, 146-56.
But it was the performance of redshirt senior Filip Cvjeticanin (Zagreb, Croatia/American School of Madrid) which Dooley called “key” in the outcome of the game. While he scored just 11 points, he knocked down three first-half 3-pointers and gave the Eagles a crucial long-range threat off the bench.
Not only that, but the points were the first for Cvjeticanin in more than a month – since he scored six against Jacksonville on Jan. 27.
“We got off to a little bit of a shaky start, but we played really great basketball after that,” commented Dooley, who was coaching his 100th game at the helm of the Eagles. “I’m proud of the guys, especially Filip who has been hurt and up-and-down his senior season. He was the big key both offensively and defensively. He gave us great energy and a lot of confidence.”
Another player who exuded confidence for the Eagles was redshirt freshman Zach Johnson (Miami, Fla./Norland HS) as the young point guard wasn’t shy in the biggest game of his career in front of a raucous 4,305 fans. Johnson scored eight of FGCU’s first 12 points to keep them in the game early when UNF was threatening to blow the Eagles out. The A-Sun All-Freshmen Team member finished with 15 points, reaching double figures for the 16th time in the last 19 contests.
Playing in front of family and friends, Jacksonville native Christian Terrell (Jacksonville, Fla./Providence HS) stepped up with 16 points on 7-11 shooting, while also grabbing six rebounds and passing out a team-high four assists against no turnovers.
As part of its 21-12 start, UNF – which leads the nation by a wide margin in 3-pointers made – connected on four of its first eight attempts from long range. However, the Ospreys went just 4-23 from long range the rest of the night as FGCU used its top-10 nationally-ranked perimeter defense to frustrate UNF for the second-straight meeting.
Down the aforementioned nine points, it was Cvjeticanin who hit a 3-pointer right in front of the UNF bench to jumpstart the Eagles’ run. That run eventually got to 33-10 to end the half as FGCU took a 14-point lead into the half, 45-31.
UNF scored the first points of the second half, but that 12-point deficit would be as close the preseason league favorite would get the rest of the night as FGCU led by at least 20 points the final 17 minutes of the game, stunning the Ospreys and showing flashes of the team that won the A-Sun title in 2013.
In their last meeting – an 81-65 FGCU win on Feb. 6 – the Eagles held UNF to a season-low 35-percent shooting performance. But the Green and Blue clamped down even more Thursday, holding the Ospreys to just 30.8 percent from the floor (16-52), including a 24-percent clip (6-25) in the second half. UNF entered the game shooting 49 percent for the year from the floor.
UNF – which had five players averaging double-figure points for the year – were held to just two against the Eagles as A-Sun Player of the Year Dallas Moore netted 15 and fellow A-Sun First Team member Beau Beech tallied 10.
The Eagles shot 56.7 percent (38-67) from the floor for the game – its best in an A-Sun Championship game in program history.
The 89 points are the most in an A-Sun Championship game for FGCU, while the 56 points it held UNF to are the 2nd-fewest in program tournament history – second only to the 55 the Green and Blue held Stetson to in 2014. The 33-point margin of victory was the largest over a top seed in A-Sun Championship history, besting the previous mark of 27 by former league member Belmont over ETSU in the 2007 final.
Sunday’s final is a rematch of just more than a week ago when the Eagles let a big first-half lead slip away in DeLand en route to an 80-73 setback to the suddenly-upstart Hatters. Stetson traveled to 2nd-seeded NJIT and upset the Highlanders in the quarterfinals, 82-67, and then flew to Nashville and knocked off 6th-seeded Lipscomb in the semifinals, 96-75. In the A-Sun opener this year, FGCU beat Stetson at Alico, 82-53.
FGCU will be eying its first A-Sun Championship crown since the 2013 club, which went on to become the only 15 seed in NCAA Tournament history to advance to the Sweet Sixteen. The Eagles are now 10-3 in five A-Sun Championship appearances, by far the best record among current league members, and second in total wins only to the 11 Stetson has in 23 appearances.
Stetson is ineligible for the NCAA Tournament because of a postseason ban stemming from APR (Academic Progress Rate) sanctions. Teams must earn a four-year average score of 930, and the men’s basketball team only posted a 927 from 2010-11 to 2013-14. If Stetson were to defeat FGCU, UNF would play in the NCAA Tournament as a result of winning the regular-season A-Sun title.
Tickets to the championship game are available now at FGCUTickets.com and beginning at 9 a.m. Friday over the phone at 239-590-7145 or in person at the Alico Arena Ticket Office. General-admission tickets are $15, while reserved seating ranges from $15-25. An allotment of 1,500 student tickets have been held and are available free of charge with a valid Eagle ID on a first-come, first-served basis at the ticket office beginning at 9 a.m. Friday. Students have untilSaturday at 5 p.m. to secure their tickets before they are released to the general public.
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