With two weeks to go in the regular season and only three games remaining, the Sunshine State Conference is pretty much a two-team race and a win by the Moccasins on Wednesday would make it official. Trying to prevent that from happening are the Saint Leo Lions, one of only three teams to defeat Florida Southern this season, and the only one to do so without a play at the buzzer.
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GAME SPONSORS
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Riley & Claire Short; Bank of Central Florida
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CATERING FOR SIXTH MAN CLUB PROVIDED BY
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Julianne's Fine Dining
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Florida Southern Probable Starters:
F, #15, John Thompson (15.5 ppg., 8.6 rebs., 1.5 asts.)
F, #32, A.J. Hawkins (7.1 ppg. 4.3 rebs., .612 fg%)
G, #1, Brandon Jenkins (12.1 pts., 5.2 rebs., 5.0 asts., .471 3-pt.%)
G, #2, Terry Jenkins (13.2 pts., 3.1 rebs., 2.7 asts., .432 3-pt.%)
G, #20, Rion Rayfield (16.8 pts., 3.0 rebs., 5.2 asts., 1.7 steals, .458 3-pt.%)
Saint Leo Probable Starters:
F, #1, Josue Vazquez (8.6 pts., 4.1 rebs., 2.4 asts.)
F, #20, Jordan Prais (19.3 pts., 8.7 rebs., 1.8 asts.)
F, #33, Saladeem Dewberry (6.5 pts., 4.3 rebs.)
G, #2, Brandon Powell (4.0 pts., 1.6 rebs.)
G, #11, Dominick Robinson (9.4 pts., 2.8 rebs., 2.1 asts.)
SERIES HISTORY... Florida Southern leads the all-time series with Saint Leo, 79-12, with Saint Leo's 91-79 win earlier this season snapping a five-game Moccasin winning streak in the series. Both of last year's games were extremely close, however, as the Lions missed a game-tying 3-pointer at the buzzer in a 79-76 Moccasin win at Saint Leo, and another game-tying 3-point attempt with four seconds left in an 87-82 Moccasin win at Jenkins Field House. Florida Southern is 40-4 against the Lions at Jenkins Field House, and since the teams began playing at least twice a year in 1972, Saint Leo has never swept Florida Southern.
ABOUT FLORIDA SOUTHERN... Since their loss to Saint Leo on January 13, the Moccasins have won eight of their last nine games to take firm control of second place in the SSC standings. They've also locked up a first-round home game in the SSC Tournament, and a win over Saint Leo would assure them of nothing worse than the No. 2 seed. The Mocs' most recent win came on Saturday when they rallied from a 10-point deficit at Lynn in the final 5:30 of the game for a 75-74 victory. It was the fourth time this year Florida Southern trailed by double digits in the final 5:30, but came back to either win or at least force overtime. Rion Rayfield, who scored the winning basket with 5.1 seconds remaining, had 24 points, and John Thompson scored 21. Each player has seven 20-point games for the season, but it was the first time they'd done it in the same game. Thompson also had one of the best games of his career against Saint Leo this season when he scored 30 points with 12 boards back in January. With Rayfield still eighth in the SSC in scoring and Thompson 11th, the Moccasins are still the highest scoring team in the league with an 86.8 average; it's the highest average for Florida Southern since 1988, when the school record of 89.6 was established. The Mocs also have Terry Jenkins and Brandon Jenkins averaging over 12 points per game, with the starting guard combo of Rayfield and the Jenkins brothers still holding three of the top four spots in the SSC in 3-point shooting percentage; Rayfield is 12th in Division II, with a minimum of 2.5 made per game. The Mocs' team percentage of .448 is far ahead of Lynn's .391 in the SSC, ranks first in Division II just ahead of Winona State (MN), and is currently the best in school history. Lately the guards have been getting a lot of help from Damon Ellison off the bench, with the freshman scoring 15 or more points in three of the last four games. They also get production from Cameron Wooten and Jay Hubble, who have combined to go 29-for-55 from behind the arc this year.
ABOUT SAINT LEO... After starting this season 5-10, a record that included three games in the Disney Division II Tip-Off Classic, Saint Leo has gone 6-5 in its last 11 games, and posted two conference wins over Florida Tech, and one apiece over Florida Southern and Nova Southeastern. In their win over the Moccasins on January 13, the Lions were either ahead or tied for all but 52 seconds, and their 91 points represent the most allowed by Florida Southern this year. Jordan Prais scored 24 points and had nine rebounds, Domanick Robinson had 23 points, 10 rebounds and four assists, and Josue Vazquez had 15 points and eight assists. A two-time All-SSC selection, Prais has scored 1,744 points in his career with 838 rebounds, and will likely lead Saint Leo in both those categories for the fourth year in a row. However, he's missed the last three games due to injury, and the Lions have also been without another of their regular starters, Eric Sharper, during that same stretch. Saint Leo still won two of those games though, with Robinson, Saladeem Dewberry and Jeremy Jackson all taking turns as the Lions' top scorer in Prais' absence. Jackson has averaged 10.7 points and 6.0 rebounds during that time, coming off the bench in all of those games. Though he's started only eight games this season, Jackson is still Saint Leo's second leading scorer with a 9.6 average overall, and he leads the team with 35 steals. Despite their sub-.500 record, the Lions have outscored their opponents for the season and rank second in the SSC in field goal percentage defense. They also lead the league in rebounding and are second in blocked shots, with freshman Matt Kendrick a big part of that. He's started the last three games for Prais, and has 27 points, 25 rebounds, four assists and 18 blocks during that stretch. He's averaging 4.4 points, 5.0 rebounds and 2.0 blocks overall.
