Courtesy of FGCUathletics.com
DUNK CITY, Fla. – In a battle between two of the best mid-major men’s basketball teams in the nation, UT Arlington (1-2) dominated the 1st half, but behind a vocal sellout crowd in its home opener, FGCU (1-1) rolled over the Mavericks in the 2nd half to claim an impressive 85-72 win at Alico Arena Wednesday night.
Zach Johnson and Brandon Goodwin keyed the comeback with a game-high-tying 24 points each as the Eagles erased a 13-point halftime deficit, which at one juncture was 16. FGCU – ranked #23 in the CollegeInsider.com Mid Major Top 25 – shot a gaudy 70 percent (16-23) from the field in the 2nd half while UTA – ranked #5 in the poll – was limited to just 31 percent (10-32) after connecting at a 60-percent rate (18-30) in the 1st half.
UT Arlington – the preseason Sun Belt Conference favorite which returned all five starters from a 24-win team a season ago – looked every bit the part of it in the opening 20 minutes. The Mavericks executed inside and out, shooting 54 percent (7-13) from 3-point range and out-scoring the Eagles in the paint, 20-16, to take a 44-31 halftime lead.
FGCU – the preseason ASUN Conference favorite which returned four starters from a 21-win team a season ago – looked every bit the part of it in the closing 20 minutes. The Eagles shot an unconscious 88 percent (7-8) from 3-point range, came out of the intermission on an extended 21-6 run and at one point made 10-straight field goals late to ice the game and out-score the Mavericks by 26 points in the second stanza.
“This was a really good early-season college basketball game. They’re a very good team. They’re experienced, they’re poised and they put us on our heels early,” stated FGCU head coach Joe Dooley. “Thankfully we were able to recover, and Zach and Brandon got us going especially offensively in the 2nd half. Once we were able to get some stops and get running, those two were the biggest difference in the game.”
Making the win even more impressive was that FGCU was again without its leading returning scorer (17.1 PPG) and rebounder (9.3 RPG) Marc-Eddy Norelia (Orlando, Fla./Tulane/Olympia HS) as the redshirt senior missed his second-straight game with a broken left (shooting) hand suffered in practice last month.
Despite the 6-8 forward’s absence, the Eagles posted a dominant +10 advantage on the glass (37-27) against a UT Arlington team which last year led the nation in rebounding at more than 43 per game. Demetris Morant (Miami, Fla./UNLV/Bishop Gorman HS) led the way with a game-high eight caroms to go along with 10 points and finished as the third FGCU double-figure scorer.
The highly-anticipated matchup lived up to its billing right off the opening tip as the two middleweights traded blows and were tied four times in the opening seven minutes. However, UTA slowly gained traction and eventually created a 16-point edge, 44-28, late in the opening half before settling for a 44-31 lead at the break.
Looking to bounce back for the sixth-straight time after suffering a season-opening loss, the raucous green-cladded crowd of 4,415 inside The Nest had plenty to cheer for early in the 2nd half as the Eagles flew around and quickly tied the game at 48-48 not even five minutes into the stanza.
With the game still knotted at 52-52, Johnson (Miami, Fla./Norland HS) made consecutive 3-pointers – the second of which he turned into a four-point play – as the seven points from the redshirt sophomore in just one minute gave the Eagles a 59-52 lead with less than 10 minutes remaining. UTA got as close as four points, 76-72, with 1:20 left, but the Green and Blue finished the game on a 9-0 run – making nine of 10 free throws – to seal the impressive comeback.
Johnson tallied 19 of his points in the 2nd half, including all four of his career-high-tying 3-pointers. Making his Alico debut, redshirt junior transfer Goodwin (Norcross, Ga./UCF/Norcross HS) scored 16 of his points in the closing 20 minutes as together the backcourt duo accounted for 65 percent of FGCU’s 54 2nd-half points, shooting 11-16 from the floor and 5-6 from 3-point range.
Christian Terrell scored nine points for the second-consecutive game and grabbed five rebounds. His point total was matched by sophomore Rayjon Tucker (Charlotte, N.C./Northside Christian Academy), who did not miss any of his three field goal attempts and was responsible for one of the key turning points in the game.
With UTA holding 50-48 lead, Tucker rejected a Mavericks’ shot hard off the backcourt, raced ahead of the field and converted a fastbreak layup at the other end to tie the game. Terrell (Jacksonville, Fla./Providence HS) scored on FGCU’s next possession at the 11:30 mark, giving the Eagles their first lead since 13:12 remained in the 1st half, and then Johnson scored seven-straight after a UTA dunk to create the aforementioned lead which put the game out of reach.
FGCU held Sun Belt Preseason Player of the Year Kevin Hervey in check as he finished with a team-high 13 points, but connected on just 2-10 from beyond the arc. Jalen Jones netted 11 points for the Mavericks – who won at Ohio State and at Memphis last year and returned 87 percent of their scoring from a postseason team – while Drew Charles tallied 10 to finish as the lone double-figure scorers for UTA.
After shooting just 1-12 (8 percent) from 3-point range in the opening half, FGCU still managed to shoot 40 percent (8-20) for the game. It’s the second-straight game to open the season that the Eagles have shot exactly 8-20 from beyond the arc. In Dooley’s first three seasons at the helm of the Eagles, they did not once shoot 40 percent or better from 3-point range when attempting at least 20 shots versus a non-conference Division-I opponent.
UTA was the second of a daunting four-game opening stretch for FGCU against 20-win postseason teams from a season ago. The task only gets more challenging on Friday when the Eagles take on Baylor, which Tuesday dominated #4 Oregon, 66-49, at 8 p.m. Eastern. That game will air on FOX College Sports. FGCU then travels to East Lansing to face #13 Michigan State on Sunday at 7 p.m. on the Big Ten Network.
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