TAMPA, Fla. – The Florida Southern College men's basketball team traveled to rival-University of Tampa, who received votes in the latest National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC) poll, and knocked off the Spartans who won the last seven games. The Moccasins earned the Sunshine State Conference (SSC) win 87-83 on the road in the Bob Martinez Athletic Center.
"That was a much needed win for us," head coach
Mike Donnelly stated after the win. "The guys did a great job focusing and I thought we played really hard tonight for 40 minutes."
Donnelly added, "We have had to deal with with a lot of adversity over the last month dealing with injuries and health issues, but I give our guys a lot of credit. We have been practicing and preparing really hard and tonight we were able to get a big road conference win."
Dominick Denny was a welcomed site for the Mocs (7-11, 4-6 SSC) as the guard came off the bench and scored a team-high 17 points in 30 minutes of action. He led five players in scoring where
Luke Anderson and
Jack Casale added 13 points apiece while
Wes Bongiorni and
Tarik Mckelphin tallied 10 points.
Tampa, 11-4, 7-3 SSC, saw their seven-game win streak disappear despite Max Jones dropping a game-high 27 points. Martin Lakovic added 17 points for the Spartans with Mykah Brown at 10. Lakovic completed his double-double with 13 rebounds. The Spartans were coming in off a huge overtime win at then-no. 17 Barry last Saturday.
Florida Southern and Tampa played a tight first opening minutes before the Moccains climbed out to a five-point advantage, 12-7 on a fastbreak layup from
Xavier Rhodes. Again another back and forth period saw the two teams trade leads before the Spartans claimed a 31-27 lead with 4:05 to play. Tampa would push their lead to six, 39-33 with 2:11 to go in the half before the Mocs closed the half on a 6-0 run with four free throws from
Luke Anderson and a dunk from
Wes Bongiorni as the two teams went into the break, 39-39.
Came out of the break took a 51-46 lead on a jump from
Tarik Mckelphin. Florida Southern continued to push its lead to a seven-point gap on a three from
Jack Casale that forced a Spartan timeout with 15:15 to play, 56-49. Out of the timeout, a Bongiorni jumper extended it to eight points off a Tampa turnover forced the Spartans to burn yet another timeout (14 minus to play). The Mocs would control a majority of the second half but the Spartans cut it to eight, 80-72, with 3:23 to play. FSC would hold the lead to a minute to play, 86-78. UT would see a three go in with 15-seconds to play to make it a three-point game, 86-83. A
Jadin Booth free throw would bring the game to its final as the final horn sounded in the Bob Martinez Athletic Center with the Mocs winning, 87-83.
Up Next
Florida Southern will host No. 25 Barry on Saturday, Jan. 22 at 7:30 p.m. where the two teams will Lace Up 4 Pediatric Cancer.
