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(Click here<\/a> to see other photos of the game)<\/p>\n Backed by three double-double performances and a career-high tying 19 points from\u00a0Marc-Eddy Norelia<\/strong>, the FGCU men’s basketball team (22-9) pulled away late to earn an 81-63 victory over Jacksonville (10-22) in the Atlantic Sun Conference Championship quarterfinal Tuesday night at Alico Arena.<\/p>\n Senior\u00a0Brett Comer (Winter Park, Fla.\/Winter Park HS)<\/strong>\u00a0posted his team-leading sixth double-double of the season with 14 points and 11 assists against just one turnover. Redshirt sophomore\u00a0Demetris Morant (Miami, Fla.\/Bishop Gorman HS\/UNLV)<\/strong>\u00a0continued his upward progression with his first career double-double of 12 points and 10 rebounds. Redshirt junior\u00a0Julian DeBose (Washington, D.C.\/St. John College HS\/Rice)<\/strong>\u00a0also secured his first career double-double with 14 points and a career-best 10 rebounds.<\/p>\n With the win, No. 2-seeded FGCU will host No. 3-seeded USC Upstate (22-10) in the A-Sun Tournament semifinal at Alico Arena on Thursday, Mar. 5, at\u00a07 p.m.\u00a0General-admission $15 tickets are on sale by visiting\u00a0FGCUAthletics.com\/Tickets<\/a>, the Alico Arena Ticket Office or by calling\u00a0239-590-7145<\/a>.<\/p>\n Redshirt sophomore\u00a0Norelia (Orlando, Fla.\/Olympia HS\/Tulane)<\/strong>\u00a0matched his career high on 6-11 shooting which he set not even one week ago against North Florida. The 6-8 southpaw also just missed a double-double of his own with eight rebounds. Despite Norelia coming up just short,\u00a0Tuesday\u00a0marked the first time in program history that FGCU had three different players secure double-doubles in the same game.<\/p>\n FGCU shot a scorching 70.8 percent (17-24) from the floor in the second half as the Eagles finished 55.6 percent for the game (30-54). The 30 made field goals are tied for the most in FGCU’s 10 A-Sun Tournament games, while the 55.6-percent performance from the field is the best by the Eagles in any of their conference tournament contests (30-59, 50.8 percent in the final against Mercer in 2013).<\/p>\n Much of that red-hot shooting in the second stanza was a result of five slams from Dunk City as the Eagles finished with six for the night – four of which were Comer to Morant alley-oop connections.<\/p>\n Jacksonville – which defeated FGCU in the regular-season finale\u00a0on Saturday, 75-67 – only trailed by six, 66-60, with under six minutes to play before FGCU exploded late behind Comer. Like he has all year, the A-Sun First Team selection put the Eagles on his back down the stretch, scoring seven straight for the Green and Blue with a JU layup mixed in to push the FGCU lead to 73-62. A 6-0 spurt – capped by the final Comer to Morant alley-oop connection – knocked the Dolphins out as FGCU held JU to just one point in the final\u00a04:30\u00a0of the night.<\/p>\n “One thing that we did a lot better today was not settling for all 3s,” said FGCU head coach\u00a0Joe Dooley<\/strong>\u00a0as the Eagles entered riding a two-game losing streak. “We did a good job getting to the paint. Early on we didn’t make a lot of shots but we took some good shots. Once we got into a rhythm in the second half we did a nice job of turning stops into transition points which was important. We did a nice job of moving the ball and had a lot of possessions where we passed the ball to give up good shots and got great shots.”<\/p>\n Those great shots for FGCU resulted in a 42-22 scoring edge in the paint as the Eagles are now 29-0 dating back to the 2011-12 season when out-scoring their opponents in the paint by at least 15 points. Also, after finishing even on the glass with the Dolphins in\u00a0Saturday’s\u00a0meeting, FGCU capped\u00a0Tuesday\u00a0with a +17 edge in rebounding, 41-24.<\/p>\n A-Sun Newcomer of the Year Kori Babineaux led Jacksonville with 20 points, while Marcellous Bell was the lone other double-figure scorer for the Dolphins with 15. After shooting 46.2 percent (17-26) from the floor in the first half, including a 43.8-percent clip from 3-point range (7-16), JU struggled in the second half as FGCU’s conference-leading defense locked in and limited the Dolphins to 31 percent from the field (9-29) and 16.7 percent from beyond the arc (2-12).<\/p>\n The triumph advances FGCU to the A-Sun Tournament semifinals for the fourth time in only four seasons of Division-I postseason eligibility. The Eagles have advanced to the championship game each of the previous three seasons and will be looking to stretch that run – which is the only one of its kind in the history of D-I men’s basketball – to four with a win\u00a0on Thursday.<\/p>\n In\u00a0Thursday’s\u00a0other A-Sun semifinal, No. 1 North Florida (21-11) will host No. 5 Lipscomb (14-16). UNF defeated No. 8 Stetson (9-22)\u00a0on Tuesday, 81-67, while the Bisons outlasted No. 4 Northern Kentucky (13-17) in overtime, 76-73.<\/p>\n GAME NOTES:<\/strong>\u00a0FGCU is now a league-best 8-2 in A-Sun Tournament contests … Comer now has 831 career assists, two shy of tying him for 25th all-time in the NCAA record books … the Eagles shot 3-5 from 3-point range in the second half after going just 2-11 in the first half …Jamail Jones<\/strong>\u00a0added nine points, while leading scorer\u00a0Bernard Thompson<\/strong>\u00a0chipped in with seven and is now five shy of reaching 1,800 career points … Norelia went 7-9 from the free-throw line and also added career-high-tying three assists.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" (Click here to see other photos of the game) Backed by three double-double performances and a career-high tying 19 points from\u00a0Marc-Eddy Norelia, the FGCU men’s basketball team (22-9) pulled away… <\/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\/35220"}],"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=35220"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35220\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}