NSU Sharks News

Rollins Advances To Play Florida Southern In SSC Finals

FT. LAUDERDALE, Fla. (Mar. 7, 2009)  The Rollins College Tars ended the season of the Nova Southeastern University Sharks in the BlueCross and BlueShield of Florida Sunshine State Conference Tournament Semi-Final by a 75-67 score in play on Saturday evening inside the Arena at the Don Taft University Center. NSU concludes their season at 16-11 while Rollins, who will advance to play Florida Southern College in the Championship game, improve to 20-9 on the season.

The Sharks and Tars were evenly matched for the initial six minutes of play but NSU was dealt a blow at the 13:43 mark when junior forward David Naylor picked up his second personal foul in less than a minute. Naylor, who was coming off a 27 point, 14 rebound game in the SSC Quarterfinals vs. Lynn, had to be subbed out. Rollins slowly took advantage, gradually building a nine point lead heading into the half.

Rollins shot 48.0 percent (12-25) in the first half, including 9-17 (52.9 percent) from three point range. The Sharks shot 40.9 percent (9-22) and 5-11 (45.5 percent) from behind the arc. NSU held a 14-13 lead in rebounding.

NSU struggled at the beginning of the second half, turning the ball over on their first two possessions. Rollins capitalized, hitting on three, three pointers and connecting on a lay-up to stretch their lead to a game high 18 points with 17:42 left to play.

Nova Southeastern tried to claw their way back into the game but the deficit was too much to overcome. The Sharks got to within five points with 20 seconds to play but simply ran out of time at the end.

"Rollins had an excellent game plan," said NSU head coach Gary Tuell. "They did exactly what they wanted to do at the start of the game. You have to take your hat off to them. On the flipside, this was the poorest defensive effort all year at the defensive end. I have to take the blame for that. Losing Naylor to foul trouble really impacted what we wanted to do. It affected a lot of things. Most of our problems were a lack of effort on the defensive end. I should've done a better job preparing our guys."

For the game, Rollins shot 48.0 percent (22-48), including 48.4 percent (15-31) on threes. NSU shot 46.0 percent (23-50) and 42.9 percent (12-28) on three-pointers. The Sharks held a 33-29 edge in rebounding but were out-scored 17-4 in points of turnovers.

SSC Player of the Year Nick Wolf led Rollins with a game high 19 points and 11 rebounds. He was followed by Craig Reichel and Zach Pancratz with 17 and 16 points, respectively. Pancratz led the Tars with 10 assists.

The game marked the conclusion of the careers of four senior NSU players, Tim Coenraad (Brisbane, Australia), Dionte Perry (Lake Worth, Fla.), Josh Wood (Adelaide, Australia) and Jordan Smith (Alexandria, Ind.). Coenraad scored 14 points and concludes his career as the third best scorer in program history. Perry had five points and a team high 10 boards. Wood had six points and three assists while Smith participated in some key defensive stands down the stretch.

"We will certainly miss the four seniors," Tuell said. "They have been class guys on and off the court. It has been a privilege to coach these four men. I know that everyone of them will do well in life."

Brooks led the Sharks with 15 points. Naylor finished with eight points and four rebounds in just 22 minutes.

Second seeded Rollins advances to play top seeded Florida Southern in the Finals of the BlueCross and BlueShield of Florida Sunshine State Conference Tournament at 3:30 pm inside the Arena at the Don Taft University Center.

Print this page