After FGCU (8-2) opened the game by building a 22-8 lead, FIU then went on a 20-10 run of their own to cut the Eagles margin to four points at 32-28 at halftime.<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>Though FIU (6-4) was able to make it a two-point game on two occasions at 37-35 and 39-37 near the start of the second half, Demetris Morant\u2019s alley-oop dunk from Brett Comer gave the Eagles their four point lead back at 41-37 with just over thirteen minutes left in the game. From there however, the Panthers then went on a 12-0 run to go up 49-41. After the Eagles scored the next four points to make it 49-45, the Panthers outscored the Eagles 18-10 to take control of the game. In that stretch, the Panthers’ Dennis Mavin had eight of his game high 27 points.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n For FGCU, it was the first time they lost a game when leading at halftime since 2012.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI would like to congratulate FIU,\u201d Dooley said. \u201cThey dominated the second half. I thought Mavin took over and we weren\u2019t able to contain him. Our energy level wasn\u2019t great and our shout selection was poor. I can\u2019t understand it. It is disappointing how we finished.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Panthers coach Anthony Evans had an explanation for the turnaround.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWe started playing team basketball and stopped playing as individuals,\u201d he said. \u201cPeople started making contributions that benefitted the team.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n FIU was able to come away with the victory despite three Eagles scoring in double digits: Comer (15) along with Bernard Thompson and Julian DeBose who each had 12. In addition, Thompson had two rebounds and becomes just the second Eagle to amass 500 in their career.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThey are a very good basketball team,\u201d Evans said. \u201cThey are coming off a big win against UMASS. They have tournament NCAA Tournament experience. We knew it would be a tough challenge.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Bill Levy \u00a0(Click here to see other photos) Florida Gulf Coast University men\u2019s basketball coach Joe Dooley has often noted that his teams have gotten off to a sluggish… <\/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\/34077"}],"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=34077"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34077\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"http:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/IMG_4773-300x237.jpg\" "\\"IMG_4773\\"")
Florida Gulf Coast University men\u2019s basketball coach Joe Dooley has often noted that his teams have gotten off to a sluggish start in games this season. The good news is that they got off to a good start in their 69-63 loss to Florida International University\u00a0on Sunday\u00a0afternoon at the Alico Dome in front of 3,511. The bad news is the second half did not go quite as well.<\/span><\/p>\n