Box Score LAKELAND - On the night the national championship rings were handed out and the national championship banner was unveiled, Florida Southern gave a national championship effort en route to posting a 74-72 upset victory over 24th-ranked Barry here Wednesday night in the Sunshine State Conference opener for both teams at Jenkins Field House.
Prior to Wednesday's game, Florida Southern handed out the national championship rings to each team member on last season's school record 36-1 squad that captured the school's second ever national championship in men's basketball and 28th overall national title in school history and they also hung the national championship banner from the rafters of Jenkins Field House.
"It was unbelievable, it really was. The whole night was so special with the group from last year coming down and getting their rings and watching the national championship banner being unveiled," Moccasin first year head coach Mike Donnelly said following his first win as Florida Southern's coach. "Those guys came in the locker room during pregame and talked to our guys, which seemed to inspire them tonight. Just about how important it is to play the right way at Florida Southern. I am really humbled and proud to be a part of such a good program."
Wednesday's victory was the first of the season of the season for the Mocs, who opened the 2015-16 season with back-to-back setbacks last weekend against West Alabama and Delta State at the SSC/GSC Challenge in Livingston, Ala. FSC improved to 1-2 overall and 1-0 in the SSC, while Barry fell to 1-1 and 0-1 in the SSC.
Along with achieving the first win of the season for the Mocs and also giving Donnelly his first win as the Mocs coach, Wednesday's victory also helped the Mocs extract some revenge on the Buccaneers, who handed the Mocs their only loss last season as they collected a 107-102 win in Lakeland on Jan. 3, 2015. After that loss to Barry, FSC won its final 25 games of the season, including capping the year with a 77-62 win over Indiana (Pa.) in the Division II national championship game.
"I thought it was a really good win for our team tonight. I thought we did a great job for long stretches of the game," Donnelly said. "We knew Barry was going to make at least one run, probably two, and that what we told the team at the half. Barry is a great team and great teams make runs, we just have to sustain their runs."
Senior guard Dylan Travis (Omaha, Neb.) paced the way for the Mocs as he recorded his first career double-double as he finshed with 25 points and pulled down 10 rebounds. He also added six assists and hit 5-of-6 free throws in the game's final two minutes to hold off Barry's second half rally.
"Dylan played a tremendous game tonight. He was all over the place," the Moccasin coach added.
The Mocs, who entered the game shooting just 35 percent from the field, connected on 42 percent of its field goal attempts, including shooting 47.4 percent from the floor in the first half to take a 41-31 lead at the half. FSC shot 36 percent from the field and 20 percent from the 3-point line after halftime.
Barry shot 36 percent from the field and 29 percent from the 3-point line in the loss, including shooting 33 percent from the floor and 28 percent from downtown in the first half.
A change in the starting line-up seemed to ignite the Mocs as Donnelly went with size against Barry as he started both Dylan Karell (North Miami Beach, Fla.) and Jarel Spellman (Richmond, Va.) in the frontcourt. Karell is a 6-foot-11 senior and Spellman is a 6-foot-10 freshman.
That change in the line-up helped the Mocs on the boards as they outrebounded the Bucs, 46-43, including holding a 26-16 edge on the glass in the opening half. Karell and Spellman combined for eight rebounds on the night as Spellman had five and Karell pulled down three in the win.
"We outrebounded them by 10 in the first half, but we missed some shots in the second half, which gave them (Barry) more opportunities. But they only got eight offensive boards for the game," the Mocs coach said when asked about his team's rebounding. "That's been our Achilles heel in this young season, we have not done a good job rebounding. We went big tonight Jarel and Dylan and I thought they set the tone defensively for us."
Another Moc that had a big night on the boards was sophomore forward Tyler Ross (St. John, Ind.) as he pulled down a career high seven boards and scored a season high six points off the bench. The Mocs bench outscored Barry's bench, 20-4.
The Mocs defense also bottled up Barry senior All-American forward Yunio Barrueta for most of the night as he scored 18 points and had seven rebounds, but 10 of those points came in the final nine minutes of the game. Barrueta came into the game averaging 26 points and 13 rebounds per game this season.
After trailing by 10 at the half, Barry opened the second half on a 6-2 run capped by a trey from Trey Leonard to pull within 43-39 with 18:10 left in the game.
The Mocs, though, would respond with a 16-7 run capped by a 3-pointer from Travis with 9:11 left in the game to give the Mocs a 59-46 advantage.
Barry, who won a school record 25 games a year ago and were tabbed as the favorite this season in the Preseason SSC Coaches' Poll, answered the Mocs run 9-4 run capped by a lay-up from Undra Mitchem with 5:42 remaining to drop FSC's lead to 63-55.
After a free throw by Travis and bucket by junior guard Sheldon Zablotny (Erie, Pa.) gave the Mocs a 66-55 lead, the Bucs turned to Barrueta as he scored five straight points to jump start a 15-5 run by the Bucs to brought them within a point at 71-70 with 57 seconds remaining.
"We made some mistakes down the stretch that got Barry back in the game, but this group is just learning and for them to pull it out somehow is just fantastic," said Donnelly, who is now 196-154 in his 13th season as a collegiate coach. "We're not there yet, we're going to get a lot better. We're going to be a much better team in the second semester."
On the ensuing possession, Travis drew a foul from Mitchem with 34 seconds left. He hit 1-of-2 free throws to give the Mocs 72-70 lead. On Barry's next possession, Travis made perhaps the defensive play of the night as he blocked a 3-point shot attempt by Anders Haas near the Barry bench with 21 seconds left. The Bucs maintained possession on the block and tied the game 14 seconds later on a dunk by Leonard, who finished the game with 17 points and a game-high 15 rebounds.
With seven seconds left in the game, Travis drove down the lane and was knocked to the floor by Leonard with 0.6 seconds left. Travis stepped to the line and drained both free throws to give the Mocs a 74-72 lead. Barry was unable to get a shot up at the end to seal FSC's first win of the season and extend its home court win streak to 11 consecutive games and its SSC win streak to 16 straight games.
In addition to Travis, Zablotny added 14 points and five boards off the bench, while senior guard Dominique Williams (Haines City, Fla.) chipped in 13 points in the win. Zablotny and Williams combined to score 21 of the Moccasins' 41 first half points.
Along with Barrueta and Leonard's scoring, the Bucs also got a 16 point, six rebound night from Haas.
Both teams committed 11 turnovers on the night and the Mocs blocked five shots, including two apiece by Karell and Spellman.
One area the Mocs continued to struggle with was free throw shooting as they finished the game 11-for-19 (57.9 percent) from the free throw line. Through three game this season, the Mocs are shooting just 70.2 percent from the line. Barry finished 12-for-15 (80 percent) at the line.
The Mocs will have little time to savor Wednesday's win as they hit the road for another SSC game this coming Saturday, Nov. 21 as they travel to Boca Raton for a 4 p.m. game against Lynn (1-1, 0-1 SSC). The Fighting Knights, who were tabbed second in the Preseason SSC Coaches' Poll, opened league play with an 88-80 setback Wednesday at Nova Southeastern.
