The UNF men’s basketball teams split two games on homecoming week, defeating Bellarmine on Thursday and falling to FGCU on Saturday.

The Ospreys took care of business against last-place Bellarmine by methodically outscoring the Knights in the first and second half. Just two days later, UNF faltered to first-place FGCU during the program’s annual homecoming game. 

2/6 vs Bellarmine

North Florida scored the first six points thanks to three layups, and two of the layups came from freshman forward Josh Harris. After Bellarmine battled back and took an 11-8 lead, the Ospreys went on a 17-3 run courtesy of four made three-pointers. 

Junior Kamrin Oriol sunk two straight threes, but Bellarmine began to come back once again, cutting the Ospreys lead to just six with under eight minutes remaining. The Knights and Ospreys traded baskets for the rest of the half, giving way to a 45-41 UNF advantage at halftime. 

With 15:30 remaining in the second half, Bellarmine took its first lead, 53-52. But less than two minutes later, Oriol scored a three-pointer to secure the UNF lead for good. Despite cutting the deficit to one, Bellarmine failed to retake the lead, and UNF outlasted the Knights 95-88 for its third win in a row. 

The Ospreys had four players with 16 or more points (Liam Murphy, Oriol, Harris, and Jasai Miles). Two of those players, Miles and Oriol, scored over 20 points. The Ospreys notched its best game from the free-throw line, something head coach Matthew Driscoll emphasized the team needed to do to close out games. The team shot 27-28 from the charity stripe. 

Following the game, Driscoll emphasized how difficult winning is in the ASUN conference. 

“Really super super proud of the fact that we won,” Driscoll said. “You never ever can take for granted, not only how hard it is, but every single night nobody’s going to stop, nobody’s going to quit.”

However, Driscoll said UNF needs to focus on cleaning up self-inflicted turnovers.

“We’re just making it so hard on ourselves,” Driscoll said. 

Oriol, who scored a season-high 21 points, said Driscoll told him to step it up. Oriol has now scored double-digits in the Ospreys’ last three wins. 

“This is why we signed you,” Driscoll said, referring to Oriol. “Be that dude, like you’re really good at it.”

2/8 vs FGCU

North Florida missed their first 14 shots from beyond the arc, only generating 10 points in the first 15 minutes of the game. UNF didn’t make its first three until 5:05 left in the first frame, when sophomore guard Jaylen Smith made a trey. FGCU took advantage of the UNF cold spell by putting up 36 points. This gave the Eagles a 36-10 lead, their largest lead. 

UNF cut the deficit below 20 points and went into the locker room trailing 44-25. Harris scored the last seven points of the half for the Ospreys. While UNF reduced FGCU’s lead to 14, the Eagles led wire-to-wire and never allowed the second half lead to dip below double-digits. 

The Ospreys lost 84-70 despite impressive scoring performances from Miles and Murphy. North Florida struggled from beyond the arc (10-41) and gave up 50 points in the paint. UNF falls to 13-12, and FGCU improves to 14-11. 

UNF will start a three-game road trip on Thursday at North Alabama. Tip-off is at 7:00pm inside Flowers Hall.

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