Box Score TAMPA, Fla. – The No. 5 Florida Southern College men's basketball team escaped Tampa with a 90-89 victory. With the victory, Florida Southern claimed its 24th Sunshine State Conference regular-season title in program history. The Mocs trailed the Spartans for all of the first half and most of the second half as they climbed back to win. Florida Southern is now 25-2 overall, and 17-2 in first place in the Sunshine State Conference, while Tampa drops to 7-20 overall, and 4-15 in the SSC.
The second NCAA regional rankings of the season were released today and Florida Southern sits at No. 1 for the second-straight week.
HOW IT HAPPENED
1st Half
- Tampa jumped out to an early 9-3 lead after the Mocs' Jair Rodgers drained a three to open the scoring. The Spartans would use a 9-0 run to maintain the lead over the first four minutes of the game. Southern would answer with a 7-2 run at the 15:11 mark to cut the home teams lead to just one as sophomore E.J. Dambreville hit a three to make it a 16-15 UT lead.
- The Spartans would regrow their lead as they used a 7-4 run to take a 27-21 lead as the first half hit the midway point.
- Jalyn Hinton would slam home a dunk to get something going for the Mocs as they initiated a 5-0 run to cut the Spartans lead to two at 35-33. Once again the Spartans would use a big run, 10-5, to maintain their lead. Tampa would gain six of those ten points from the free-throw line and lead 45-38.
- Hinton would make a much-needed layup for the Mocs to cut the home team's lead to five with 2:28 remaining in the opening 20 minutes. The Spartans would take a nine-point lead twice in the final 90 seconds. Rodgers gave the Mocs a much needed three-point basket to force Tampa to call a timeout. The Moccasins would trail the Spartans by six at the half, 51-46.
2nd Half
- Tampa added two to open the second half and senior Jack Rauch responded with a three to cut the lead down to five, 53-48. Southern's shooting would go cold as they would fall short on their next six shot attempts, including 0-for-3 from long range. Southern's next points would come off a pair of made free throws off the hands of Rodgers to make it 57-50 UT. This would spark a 9-2 run by Florida Southern to cut the Spartan lead to just two, 59-57. However, a wide-open three from the Spartans' Gio Diaz put the home team back up by five.
- The Southern defense would force a pair of missed three-point shots and a turnover by the Spartans keep the Mocs deficit to three. After forcing a turnover, Hinton would gather the loose ball and make it a one-point game at 62-61 in favor of the home team.
- The Moccasins would take their first lead of the game since the opening points as Hinton capitalized on the offensive rebound and made it a 65-64 Moccasin lead. Tampa would take the ball to the other end of the court and regain the lead. Junior Brandon Carroll forced the turnover and sent it the length of the court to a wide-open Brett Hanson, to slam home the dunk and put the Mocs back on top, 67-66.
- Hinton would take a nice feed from Rodgers under the basket to make it 69-68 Moccasins.
- Carroll responded with a timely wide-open three to match the Spartans on the other end of the court. As the shot clock was expiring, Diaz hit a three to give the Spartans a 76-74 lead with 6:40 remaining in the second half. Hinton would tie the game at 76-76 as he hit both free throws. Southern would use a 7-0 run to grow the lead to five as Hanson made one of his famous floating jump shots to make it an 81-76 Moccasin lead.
- Southern would hold on to an 85-83 lead as the Spartans would call a timeout with 1:47 remaining in the second half. With 1:20 on the clock, Tampa's Pat Bacon hit a wide-open shot from just outside the paint to tie the game at 85-85. That would force Moccasin head coach Mike Donnelly to call a 30 second time out. Coming out of the timeout the Mocs' Xavier Rhodes would complete the three-point play to give Southern an 88-85 lead with 1:04 remaining. At the line, Rauch would give the Mocs a 90-87 lead with nine seconds remaining. Three seconds later, the Spartans would pull within one as they sunk both free throw shots. After drawing the foul, Dambreville would miss both free throw attempts in efforts to seal the win but the Spartans would gain possession on the defensive rebound. As time expired and everyone in attendance gasped, Bacon sent up a last-second half-court shot to win the game for the Spartans, but his shot was just left of the basket. Florida Southern would win 90-89.
INSIDE THE NUMBERS
- With the victory, Florida Southern claimed its 24th Sunshine State Conference regular-season title. FSC is the only SSC team with more than ten titles. This marks the first regular-season title since the Mocs memorable 2014-15 season.
- The Spartans outrebounded the Mocs by 10, 44-34. However, Southern brought down one more offensive rebound than the 11 by Tampa.
- Southern saw four student-athletes record double-digit point totals. Hanson (24) and Hinton both totaled 20+ points while Dambreville added 13 and Rodgers totaled another 11 in the victory.
- Hanson recorded 24 points, and now has 2,139 points for his illustrious career, the third-highest total in school history. He has also tallied 816 rebounds, 211 steals, and 415 assists.
UP NEXT
- Southern's regular season will come to an end as they head down to Palm Beach Atlantic for a 4 p.m. showdown with the Sailfish on February 29. Following the conclusion of all conference games on Saturday the SSC will announce matchups for the 2019-20 SSC tournament. All games will be hosted on the campus of the higher seed. As Florida Southern claimed the regular-season title they will be the No. 1 seed for the tournament and will host each game they play.
