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Despite the electricity from another standing-room-only sellout crowd and the emotions of Senior Night, the FGCU men’s basketball team (21-8, 11-2 Atlantic Sun Conference) had its 10-game winning streak snapped at the hands of North Florida (19-11, 11-2 A-Sun) Wednesday evening at Alico Arena, 76-62, in a battle between two teams fighting for the regular-season championship.
On Senior Night, it was redshirt sophomore Marc-Eddy Norelia (Orlando, Fla./Olympia HS/Tulane) who posted a career evening with 19 points on 9-13 shooting as the southpaw scored FGCU’s first 10 points of the game. Redshirt junior Julian DeBose (Washington, D.C./St. John College HS/Rice) and redshirt senior Jamail Jones (Atlanta, Ga./Montverde Academy/Marquette) both added 12 points, while senior Brett Comer (Winter Park, Fla./Winter Park HS) dished out 10 assists to go along with six points and six rebounds.
With the setback, FGCU and UNF are now tied for first place in the A-Sun, but UNF owns the tiebreaker over the Eagles by virtue of two head-to-head wins. Both teams have one regular-season game remaining as the Ospreys hosts Stetson (9-20, 3-10 A-Sun) and the Eagles visit Jacksonville (9-21, 3-10 A-Sun) on Saturday at 2 p.m.
If FGCU and UNF finish tied, the two teams will share the regular-season title, but the Ospreys will earn the No. 1 seed. With an FGCU win and UNF loss, the Eagles will win the regular season outright and secure the No. 1 seed. FGCU has guaranteed itself the right to host an A-Sun Tournament quarterfinal game on Tuesday, Mar. 3, at 7 p.m., and a semifinal game onThursday, Mar. 5, at 7 p.m. (provided it wins the quarterfinal game). However, if everything played out according to seeds, the Green and Blue would have to travel to UNF for the championship game on Sunday, Mar. 8.
UNF – which entered the contest leading the A-Sun in 3-point shooting – connected at a 56.3-percent clip from beyond the arc (9-16) against FGCU’s second-ranked national perimeter defense – the highest percentage any opponent has hit from long range against the Eagles this year. The Ospreys also finished with a +10 edge on the glass, 42-32, as FGCU entered the contest leading the A-Sun in conference games with a +5.7 rebound margin.
Beau Beech finished with a double-double of 22 points and 13 rebounds to lead a quartet of balanced UNF scorers. Jalen Nesbitt tallied 18 points and grabbed seven rebounds, Demarcus Daniels came off the bench to net 15 points and corral seven boards, and Dallas Moore added 10 points as the Ospreys shot 49.2 percent (29-59) from the floor for the game.
“My hat’s off to North Florida for playing a terrific game. From an energy standpoint – especially during a spurt in the second half – they really controlled the game,” said FGCU head coach Joe Dooley. “We let our missed shots control how we guarded, and once we did that they took advantage, made some shots and really played well.”
After a back-and-forth start to the contest had the Ospreys in front, 19-16, at the midway point of the first half, FGCU rattled off 10 straight points to claim a 26-19 lead at the 6:48 mark. Behind a raucous crowd of 4,692 – the second-largest in program history – the Eagles looked poised to fly away as a monstrous Comer to DeBose alley-oop was included in the run. However, UNF countered with a poised 9-1 response to reclaim a 28-27 edge on a Nesbitt layup.
The two teams again traded blows, and on a Bernard Thompson (Conyers, Ga./Rockdale County HS) 3-pointer at the 1:37 mark FGCU took a 35-34 lead. But the Ospreys once again had a response and closed the stanza on a 5-0 run to take a 39-35 lead into the half. From there, FGCU was able to trim the deficit to one, 46-45, on a Norelia layup early in the second half but could get no closer as UNF led the rest of the way and handed FGCU just its second A-Sun regular-season home loss in the last two years (24-2).
FGCU struggled from 3-point range as the Eagles shot just 5-21 (23.8 percent) and finished the evening 24-65 (36.9 percent) from the floor overall. The Eagles – who typically outscore their opponents in the paint – finished -8 in that category as Daniels was a force in the second half en route to a UNF 36-28 edge in the paint.