TAMPA, Fla. – Florida Southern College men's basketball traveled to the Bob Martinez Athletics Center Saturday afternoon for a matchup with the Tampa Spartans, where the Moccasins defeated the Spartans 101-96 to complete the Sunshine State Conference season sweep.
"It wasn't easy," head coach
Mike Donnelly said following the win. "But [we're] happy we hung on to get a big road win. I was really pleased with how we played for the most part, and then we had to hang on for dear life. It was awesome to play in that hostile environment and to get a bounce-back win."
The Moccasins move to 16-6 overall and 10-3 in league play after holding on in the final minutes as the Spartans (6-15, 2-11 SSC) drew a crowd of 500 with a white-out night.
Despite the noisy and hostile environment, Florida Southern saw four players score in double-figures with
Luke Anderson, a redshirt junior from Lakeland, Fla., leading the way with 24 points, pressing past 1,000 collegiate career points (both at the University of South Florida and Florida Southern College).
Dominick Denny finished just behind Anderson with 23 points, as the duo combined for 19 made field goals.
Noah Louis, who got the Mocs on the board first with a slam dunk, notched 14 points in 17 minutes of action with
Akol Arop tallying 10 points while hauling in a team-leading seven rebounds.
Joe Moon IV,
Connor Raines, and
Donovan Smith all contributed eight points in the win while
Trey Jones and
Erickson Bans finished the nine players in the scoring column with four and two points, respectively.
Jesse White paced Tampa, who came off the bench and dropped seven threes and a jumper for 23 points, just ahead of Bryan Williams' 20 points. The Spartans made a combined 17 three-pointers, 10 in the second half to make up the deficit in the score, outscoring the Moccasins 52-42 in the second half.
The Spartans won the opening tip and converted a quick jumper for the early lead. After nearly two minutes of empty possessions by both teams,
Noah Louis received a pass on the wing and rolled towards the rim throwing it down with 18:40 to play in the opening frame.
The battle was one, both teams would either force a tie or take a quick lead through the 14-minute mark before Florida Southern claimed a 15-14 lead with 13:39 to play, and cruised into halftime with a 15-point advantage, 59-44.
The Mocs continued to press the tempo and score gap and rushed out to its largest lead of the night, 25 points (75-50) on a
Luke Anderson layup following a steal by
Erickson Bans.
Tampa would battle back and start chucking threes up, which would fall to cut into the deficit and bring the score to 10 (87-77) with seven minutes to play. The Spartans would not let up, as the three's continued to rain cutting it to five (89-84, FSC) and even just four with 2:41 to go (91-87, FSC).
Trailing by just five with 1:16 to play, Tampa took a quick outlet pass after a defensive rebound to the corner where Drew Knuppel, who had four made threes off the bench, squared up but a flying
Luke Anderson blocked the shot and saved the five-point lead for the time being. Jesse White would drain a second-chance three to make it just a two-point spread but Florida Southern held on with a driving layup from
Dominick Denny to push back to four points.
Akol Arop came up huge with a block at the four-second mark as the Spartans Ian Higdon went in for a layup, watching the ball land in
Erickson Bans' hand. Denny and Bans would go 4-for-4 in the final three seconds as the Spartans made just one of two three-pointers as the game went final, 101-96.
Florida Southern remains on the road, as the Moccasins travel to Daytona Beach, Fla. on Wednesday, Feb. 7 for a 7:30 p.m. tip with the Eagles of Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.
