Courtesy of FGCUAthletics.com
NASHVILLE – In a matchup of the only remaining undefeated teams in the ASUN Conference, the FGCU men’s basketball team (14-5, 3-0 ASUN) emerged with a huge 84-80 win over Lipscomb (10-10, 2-1 ASUN) Saturday to win its 7th-straight game overall and position itself alone atop the league standings.
Zach Johnson led a quartet of FGCU double-figure scorers with 23 points, including a career-best 9-12 performance from the free throw line, as the Eagles wrapped up a challenging opening stretch of three-straight road league games with three-straight wins.
FGCU opened up a 12-point lead in the 1st half before settling for a 40-40 tie at the break, and created a 14-point edge in the 2nd half before staving off a late Lipscomb run. The victory gives FGCU an early one-game lead over Lipscomb, USC Upstate and North Florida in the ASUN standings.
“In the 1st half when we had the lead, we got ourselves in foul trouble and had to play out of that,” commented FGCU head coach Joe Dooley, whose team received 20 of its first 35 points from Terrell and Morant. Both of them picked up their second foul and sat approximately the final 5 minutes of the half which is when the Bisons erased an 11-point deficit.
“In the 2nd half when we got up 14, we didn’t do a good job of getting back in transition and had some matchup problems, but they made some tough 3s – which they usually do,” Dooley continued. “But to start on the road 3-0 is great. We’ve got to get back home and tighten up some things, but it’s an ideal start to the ASUN schedule.”
Demetris Morant (Miami, Fla./UNLV/Bishop Gorman HS) narrowly missed another double by a single rebound as the redshirt senior posted 15 points and grabbed a game-high nine rebounds despite being saddled with four fouls. Marc-Eddy Norelia (Orlando, Fla./Tulane/Olympia HS) closed in on what would have been his first double-double of the year with 14 points and eight rebounds, while Christian Terrell (Jacksonville, Fla./Providence HS) added 14 points and six rebounds before fouling out in just 22 minutes of action.
Redshirt sophomore Johnson (Miami, Fla./Norland HS) also added four rebounds and three assists as he missed tying his season high by just a single point. With Lipscomb mounting a late comeback after the Eagles had built a 74-60 lead with 6 minutes to play, Johnson went a perfect 4-4 from the free throw line to help thwart the Bisons’ attack.
Lipscomb came into the game ranked 4th in the nation in 3-pointers made and converted 12 against the Eagles (12-33, 36.4 percent), who entered the contest ranked 11th in the country in 3-point percentage defense (29.7). The Bisons – the ASUN’s leading offensive attack at 84.6 points per game – scored 80 points, but the Eagles’ top-ranked league defense limited the hosts to just 35.8 percent (24-67) from the floor – their 2nd-worst performance of the season.
FGCU – the nation’s 3rd-best shooting team at 52.5 percent from the floor – connected at a 46.2-percent clip (30-65) against the Bisons, who were coming off wins over Kennesaw State (82-79) and Stetson (94-68) to commence league play.
It’s the 13th time this year that FGCU has shot better from the floor than its opponent, and the Green and Blue have now won all 13 of those games. The Eagles – who are 25th in the country in rebound margin at +7.2 – finished with a 45-38 rebounding edge over Lipscomb and moved their record to 12-2 when out-rebounding their foes.
Josh Williams led Lipscomb with 24 points, while Garrison Mathews added 17 points and seven rebounds for the Bisons, who had their six-game winning streak snapped. Rob Marberry tallied 14 points, and Nathan Moran netted 11 and passed out four assists to round out the quartet of Lipscomb double-figure scorers.
Despite Morant being in foul trouble, and fellow low-post threat Antravious Simmons (Miami, Fla./VCU/South Miami HS) scoring just three points in 13 minutes, FGCU still out-scored Lipscomb in the paint, 40-20. The Bisons tallied 58 points in the paint in their win over Stetson Thursday, but the Eagles used their edge in the low blocks. FGCU averages 43.1 points per game in the paint – 2nd in the country behind only Kentucky (44.4).
Making the win even more impressive for FGCU – which is ranked 76th in the RPI and the only ASUN team in the top 200 – is that its leading scorer Brandon Goodwin (Norcross, Ga./UCF/Norcross HS) tallied just eight points, but did pass out a team-best five assists to go along with six rebounds. That’s only the second time this year that the three-time ASUN Newcomer of the Week has not reached double-figure points.
FGCU improves its road record on the year to 6-3 after going just 4-8 away from Alico Arena last season. The Eagles also won in Nashville for just the third time (3-6) in program history.
After opening an ASUN schedule with three-consecutive road games for just the second time in program history, the Eagles will finally commence league action at home on Thursday, Jan. 19, when they welcome USC Upstate to Alico Arena for a 7 p.m. tipoff. The Spartans are 12-8 overall and 2-1 in the ASUN after defeating Jacksonville on Saturday.
That will begin a stretch of FGCU having six of its next eight games at home where it has lost just three times to an ASUN team in the regular season the last four years.
Leave a Reply