![\"\"](\"http:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/FGCU1-300x156.jpg\" "\\"FGCU1\\"")
For the second time in three days on the road, the FGCU men’s basketball team (14-7, 4-1 Atlantic Sun Conference) had its seniors step up late, and the Eagles went a perfect 8-8 down the stretch from the free-throw line to ice a not pretty, but gutty, 54-48 win at Kennesaw State (6-15, 1-4 A-Sun) Saturday afternoon.<\/p>\n
Holding just a one-point lead, 46-45, with\u00a01:36\u00a0remaining, redshirt senior\u00a0Nate Hicks (Panama City Beach, Fla.\/J.R. Arnold HS\/Georgia Tech)\u00a0<\/strong>stepped up and hit the first two of eight-straight free throws in the closing 96 seconds for FGCU. Hicks, a 6-foot-10 center, added two more 40 seconds later before redshirt junior\u00a0Julian DeBose (Washington, D.C.\/St. John College HS\/Rice)\u00a0<\/strong>knocked down two of his own with 33 seconds left and senior\u00a0Brett Comer (Winter Park, Fla.\/Winter Park HS)\u00a0<\/strong>connected on the final pair at the 15-second mark to provide the final margin.<\/p>\n Playing in front of several hometown friends and family, redshirt senior\u00a0Jamail Jones (Atlanta, Ga.\/Montverde Academy\/Marquette)\u00a0<\/strong>led the way for FGCU on a poor-shooting afternoon with a double-double performance of 12 points and 10 rebounds. DeBose added 12 – eight of which came in the second half – and senior\u00a0Bernard Thompson (Conyers, Ga.\/Rockdale County HS)\u00a0<\/strong>contributed 11 – seven of which came in the second half – to finish as the Eagles’ double-figure scoring trio.<\/p>\n Trailing 37-36, with a little more than eight minutes remaining, 16 of FGCU’s final 18 points were scored by seniors, starting with a Thompson 3-pointer to put the Green and Blue momentarily in front, 39-37. The teams went back-and-forth the next few possessions before a Comer fastbreak layup at the\u00a04:25\u00a0mark gave FGCU the lead for good.<\/p>\n FGCU shot just 32.1 percent (18-56) from the floor, its second-lowest shooting percentage this year (27.3 percent vs. Green Bay) and lowest in a win (37 percent vs. San Francisco). However, FGCU once again got after it on the backboard as the Eagles grabbed a season-high 18 offensive rebounds to keep several possessions alive and ultimately turned those into 12 second-chance points – the fifth time in five A-Sun games this year it has produced double-figure points.<\/p>\n “We had some good looks that we didn’t make, and we had some shots at the rim that we didn’t make,” said FGCU head coach\u00a0Joe Dooley<\/strong>. “So we had to depend on our defense, and that’s something we’ve been more consistent with this year than our offense. Julian made some big shots down the stretch, Bernard made a couple and we locked in defensively at the end.”<\/p>\n FGCU limited Kennesaw State to 33.3-percent shooting (18-54) – marking the second-consecutive game in which the Eagles have shot worse than their opponent but still emerged victorious. Yonel Brown scored a game-high 18 points, including a 4-7 performance from 3-point range – the only four 3s FGCU’s fifth-best national perimeter defense allowed all game (4-19, 21.1 percent).<\/p>\n The Eagles passed out a season-low four assists and were also able to overcome their worst 3-point shooting performance of the year (2-18, 11.1 percent). Comer finished with six points, five rebounds and two assists, with the six points surpassing 2014 Chase Fieler for third on FGCU’s career scoring list with now 1,307 points.<\/p>\n Four of Jones’ 10 rebounds came on the offensive end as two other FGCU players – Hicks (2) and Thompson (3) had multiple offensive rebounds. Thompson just missed what would have been his first double-double of the year with a season-best nine rebounds, while Hicks added seven and scored six of his seven points in the final\u00a03:44.<\/p>\n With the win, FGCU guarantees itself a share of second place in the A-Sun standings at 4-1. North Florida and Lipscomb are both 4-0 in league action, but those two teams face off against each other later\u00a0on Saturday\u00a0in Nashville. The victory also caps FGCU’s first A-Sun weekend roadtrip sweep since Jan. 31-Feb. 2, 2013, at UNF and Jacksonville. With now 14 wins, FGCU is tied with Miami for the most wins of any Division-I team in the state of Florida.<\/p>\n FGCU hosts Lipscomb\u00a0on Thursday\u00a0at Alico Arena in what would be a battle for first place in the A-Sun if the Bisons defeat the Ospreys. Tipoff is set for\u00a07 p.m.\u00a0from The Nest on ESPN3. Following that game, FGCU remains at home and welcomes Northern Kentucky (9-11, 3-2 A-Sun) on Saturday, Jan. 31, at\u00a07 p.m.<\/p>\n GAME NOTES:\u00a0<\/strong>The 32.1-percent shooting was the lowest in a win for FGCU since going 24.4 percent in a 47-39 victory over Campbell late in the 2010-11 season … FGCU entered holding opponents to 26.5 percent from 3-point range … in its five A-Sun games, FGCU has now grabbed 76 offensive rebounds … DeBose added three steals as the Eagles produced eight for the game.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" For the second time in three days on the road, the FGCU men’s basketball team (14-7, 4-1 Atlantic Sun Conference) had its seniors step up late, and the Eagles went… <\/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\/34662"}],"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=34662"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34662\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34662"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34662"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34662"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}