FGCU men drop fourth straight
JACKSONVILLE – FGCU (13-11, 4-4 A-Sun) fought back from a 15-point second-half deficit to pull within one point in the closing seconds, but the Eagles were unable to complete the comeback and suffered their fourth straight defeat, an 83-80 setback at Jacksonville (14-11, 6-2 A-Sun) Monday night.
Redshirt freshman Zach Johnson finished one point shy of matching his career high with a game-high 25 points, and redshirt junior Marc-Eddy Norelia added 22 points for the Eagles (13-11, 4-4 A-Sun), but it is the first time since 2010-11 that the Eagles lost four conference games in a row, and four overall for the first time since 2011-12.
FGCU never led, and faced a 65-50 deficit with 11 minutes remaining before going on a 15-2 run to pull within 67-65 with just under six minutes left. After JU took a timeout, the Dolphins responded with a 5-0 spurt and regained a seven-point lead, 78-71, with 2:30 showing.
The Eagles possessed the ball trailing 79-77, but without a timeout over the final 12 minutes they couldn’t set up a play and Johnson committed a turnover with nine seconds left. A pair of JU free throws were answered by Johnson’s 3-pointer with 1.3 seconds remaining. Two more Dolphins’ free throws with .6 left provided the winning margin.
“We dug ourselves a tremendous hole, but the guys did a nice job of getting back in the game to make it a one-possession contest in the closing seconds,” said Eagles coach Joe Dooley. “There’s a lot of things we can learn with so many young guys. We were more aggressive in the second half, we drove it downhill and didn’t pass it side-to-side. We played East-West the whole first half, took some contested shots and got flustered because of it.”
The Eagles host North Florida at 7 p.m. Saturday at Alico Arena.