By Josh Brannock, Sports Editor
Email Josh at [email protected]
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Coming off of its first conference and home loss of the season, the UNF men’s basketball team (8-8, 2-1Atlantic Sun) used one of its strongest all around games of the year to bounce back and dominate Lipscomb University (7-9, 2-2 A-Sun) 82-61 Jan.4 at the UNF arena.
After the game Head Coach Matthew Driscoll gave most of the credit to the teams high tolerance for their ability to come back after a tough loss and win.
“I really just want to give an extreme amount of thanks to these guys [the players] because the one thing these guys have always done is they have always been resilient after a bad loss,” Driscoll said. “One things these guys have always said is ‘the thing that we [the players] have is resolve and we understand we can’t let one game affect another’.”
After losing to Belmont Jan. 2 83-53 the Ospreys had to make a quick two day turnaround and prepare themselves for another conference matchup.
At the start of the Lipscomb game both teams went back-and-forth for the first 4 minutes as they were tied at 8 apiece with 15:48 left in the first half. After that the Ospreys offense exploded and went on a 21 to six run to take a 29-12 lead with 7:44 remaining in the first. The run was fueled by Parker Smith who made his first three three point shots, including a roughly 28 footer, and his first three free throws. With the run the Ospreys continued to dominate the Bison’s and took a healthy 19 point lead into halftime.
“I was just open tonight. Belmont guarded me differently so I didn’t get any open looks,” Smith said. “Jimmy [Williams] kept finding me…I didn’t really have to work to hard to find my shot.”
“I always turn to coach Evans and say ‘what is he doing’ and when he makes it coach Evans turns to me and says ‘ballin’,” Driscoll said when asked what his reaction is when Smith takes a long distance three.
UNF came out of the second half without any let up. The team opened up the half on a 10 to five run and held a twenty plus point lead for nearly all of the second half.
Senior guard Jimmy Williams scored ten of his 15 total points and snagged six of his nine total rebounds in the second half. Williams thought the fan support for the game pushed the team to give an extra effort.
“Every win is good, but like you said our fans were phenomenal. We fed off of them, they [the fans] were like our sixth man tonight,” Williams said. “We know that one loss [can] lead to two so we just forgot about the Belmont lost.”
Forward Charles McRoy, who had 12 points in 15 minutes of game play, left the game late in the first half with an apparent ankle injury, but returned at the start of the second. When asked after the game McRoy stated that the injury was an achilles heel injury that has been nagging him throughout the season.
