Box Score LAKELAND, Fla. – The No. 5 Florida Southern College men's basketball team cruised to a 109-75 victory against visiting Eckerd College on Wednesday night, as the host Mocs celebrated Senior Night. Florida Southern is now 24-2 overall, and 16-2 and in first place in the Sunshine State Conference, while Eckerd drops to 8-17 overall, and 4-13 in the SSC.
All twelve players who entered the game for the Mocs scored, led by senior Brett Hanson with 24, and classmate Jair Rodgers with 21.
Earlier today, Florida Southern was ranked as the No. 1 team in the South Region by the NCAA.
HOW IT HAPPENED
1st Half
- Eckerd jumped out to an early 5-0 lead before the Mocs got on the board on a Hanson jumper.at 17:55. A minute later, a steal by senior Josh Brown led to a three-pointer by classmate Jack Rauch, and the Mocs had their first lead of the game, 8-7, at16:51.
- The Tritons would retake the lead and push their advantage to as many as five points at 13:20, at 19-14.
- Southern would recapture the lead on a Rodgers three pointer with 8:27 to play. Eckerd would retake the lead, and eventually lead 29-28 with 6:00 remaining in the first half.
- A 7-0 Mocs run would give Southern the lead, 35-29, sparked by consecutive buckets from junior Brandon Carroll. The Mocs would eventually outscore the Tritons 17-4 over the final 6:00 to lead 45-33 at the half.
- Carroll would lead all scorers with 12 points in the first half, making six shots from the field on seven attempts.
2nd Half
- The second half continued the Mocs run, as the lead quickly ballooned to 15 on a Rodgers fast-break three just ten seconds in.
- The lead touched 20 for the first time at the 13:07 mark on a Hanson three-point play.
- Florida Southern crossed the 25-point lead plateau when junior forward Jalyn Hinton had a rim-rocking dunk with 7:58 to play, making the score 82-56.
- The Mocs crossed the century mark when Brown made a three-pointer at 3:23. Making the score 100-72.
- Minutes later, the lead crossed 30 points with 2:41 to play, when sophomore guard Xavier Rhodes made a fast-break layup.
- The lead would briefly cross 35 points, when freshman guard Malik Jordan scored the first points of his career on a jumper from just outside the paint.
- A Triton free throw with 25 seconds remaining set the final score, 109-75.
- The Mocs shot an amazing 60.0% in the second half tonight, en route to scoring 64 points.
INSIDE THE NUMBERS
- This was the seventh time this season that the Mocs have scored at least 100 points.
- Brown scored the first points of his career tonight, joining Jordan.
- Hinton, who currently leads the nation in blocked shots per game with 3.48, had five blocks tonight.
- Rodgers scored 21 points tonight, the sixth time this season he has scored at least 20 points in a single game. He now stands at 947 points scored in NCAA competition.
- Hanson added 24 points, and now has 2,115 points for his illustrious career, the third-highest total in school history. He has also tallied 810 rebounds, 207 steals, and 413 assists.
UP NEXT
- Southern will enjoy its second bye of the season this Saturday, before rounding out the regular season next week with a pair of road games, at Tampa on February 26, and at Palm Beach Atlantic on February 29.
