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Though it was only Florida Gulf Coast University\u2019s second men\u2019s basketball of the season, they looked like they were in midseason form in their 81-75 overtime victory over UC Santa Barbara at the Alico Arena\u00a0on Monday\u00a0Night. With the Eagles 63-51 victory over Nova Southeastern\u00a0on Saturday, this is the first time FGCU is off to a 2-0 start since being a member of NCAA Division 1.<\/p>\n
In a very tight contest throughout the game, the score was 45-45 with about ten minutes to go in regulation. From there, the Gauchos built a 60-58 lead with\u00a01:38\u00a0left to go, before Brett Comer, who finished with a team high 28 points and 11 assists, made a field goal to tie the game.\u00a0\u00a0Shortly thereafter, the Eagles went up by two at 62-58 on a field goal by Nate Hicks, who kept possession alive by getting an offensive rebound, before he got the ball back, off of an assist by Comer to convert the basket.<\/p>\n
\u201cNate Hicks may underrated tonight (in terms of recognition),\u201d Eagles coach Joe Dooley said, \u201cbut he played a great game.\u201d<\/p>\n
UC Santa Barbara (0-2) though would not go down quietly, as they tied the score with about ten seconds left in regulation on Michael Bryson\u2019s dunk. That set the stage for Comers jump shot with 5.9 seconds left that appeared to give FCGU the win and put the crowd of 4,412 into a wild celebration. On the play, Comer said he had options.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was the situation of the game,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was kind of crazy.\u201d<\/p>\n
The effect the crowd had was not lost on UC Santa Barbara coach Bob Williams.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey have a great home court advantage,\u201d he said. \u201cPut the game in a neutral court and maybe it is a different result. Their crowd helps them.\u201d<\/p>\n
While the game appeared to have been over, on Alan Williams\u2019 missed field goal attempt, UC Santa Barbara got new life when a foul was called on Hicks at the buzzer. Williams then calmly knocked down two shots to send the game into overtime.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a dogfight,\u201d said Williams, whose team, a member of the Big West Conference, battled no. 5 ranked Kansas, 69-59 in their opener on Friday. \u201cWe just didn\u2019t have enough fight.\u201d<\/p>\n
FGCU controlled the tempo of overtimes, as they went on a 10-4 run to go up 74-68 and take control of the game for good. That stretch was highlighted by Comer\u2019s four points and two by Jamail Jones, who finished with 14.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was pleased with how overtime went,\u201d Dooley said. \u201cAfter they tied the score like they did it would have been easy to get deflated.\u201d<\/p>\n
Marc-Eddy Norelia also added 14 points for the Eagles and Bernard Thompson chipped in with 13.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a great college basketball game for this time of the year,\u201d Dooley said. \u201cI thought the ebon flow was good. It was a heck of a win.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By BILL LEVY \u00a0 \u00a0 Photos of the game Click here Though it was only Florida Gulf Coast University\u2019s second men\u2019s basketball of the season, they looked like they were… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[114],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33639"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33639"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33639\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33639"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33639"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33639"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}