Jacksonville University recently issued the following announcement.
Two-minutes into the game, Jacksonville University men's basketball found itself in a 7-0 hole to Southern Miss. Head Coach Jordan Mincy called a timeout to settle the team, who responded by outscoring the Golden Eagles 29-12 for the rest of the half and went on to win 62-51.
The Dolphins (6-3) captured its second win in a row, second road win of the season and fourth victory in the last five games.
Kevion Nolan hit the first basket of the game, a three-pointer, followed by a Tyreese Davis three and a Jordan Davis layup that quickly put JU in front 8-7. The lead changed hands several times over the next few minutes and was tied at 16 with 11:38 left in the opening half.
The defenses buckled down, with neither team scoring for the next two minutes until Bryce Workman hit a free throw to put the Dolphins back on top. A layup gave Southern Miss an 18-17 lead, and again the defenses took over, as the game stayed scoreless until Nolan made a three with 5:18 left in the first.
JU kept Southern Miss off the board for nearly the rest of the half, all while methodically building the lead. Tommy Bruner had a layup, Nolan found Osayi Osifo for a dunk. Nolan had another layup to get to 10 points in the first half and Bruner tacked on a jumper to push the lead to double-figures, 29-18, with a minute to play in the half.
Southern Miss managed one free throw and JU led 29-19 at the break.
After the lead was quickly trimmed to seven early in the second half, JU responded with three-consecutive three pointers, two by Nolan and one by Jordan Davis which extended the lead to 15, 40-25.
With 14:37 left, Jordan Davis hit another three-pointer to push the advantage to 18, the largest it would get on the night, but Southern Miss would not go away quietly. An 11-0 spurt by the Golden Eagles quickly got the crowd back into it and cut the deficit to seven again.
Neither team scored for about two minutes until Rod Brown drew a pair of fouls and converted all four free throws to get the lead back to double-figures. Again, Southern Miss chipped away, and got it to seven again with 4:41 remaining.
After a pair of free throws by Nolan, USM canned a big three to get the JU lead to six, 51-45, the smallest deficit of the half. From there Nolan took over. He made two more free throws, and then made a three for his 23rd and final point of the night with 2:12 left to make it a three-possession game, 56-47, and JU made free throws the rest of the way to ice it.
UP NEXT
Jacksonville returns home on Saturday to host Webber International at 4 p.m. The Dolphins are unbeaten at home this season and admission is free.
NUMBERS YOU SHOULD KNOW
- Kevion Nolan led all scorers with 23 and six assists, both a game-high for any JU player this year
- Nolan also had a career-high tying five steals
- Rod Brown had a season-high two blocks, which also matched his career-high
- JU held Southern Miss to 19 first half points, the third time this season they have held an opponent under 20 in the first half
- The 24 points off of turnovers was the second-most this year and third time JU has had 20 or more points off of turnovers
- The Dolphins committed just eight turnovers, a season-low
Original source can be found here.
Alerts Sign-up