BOX SCORE, INCLUDING FULL BOOK
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – The University of North Florida men’s basketball team won its home opener Wednesday night, downing Savannah State 57-46 at UNF Arena.
The win moved the Ospreys to 1-1 on the year and was the first win in the Matthew Driscoll era at UNF. Driscoll was named the fourth head coach in the program’s history on April 4, 2009.
Savannah State made a quick spurt to cut the lead to five at 31-26 with 13:12 left but that was as close as the Tigers would get.
North Florida pushed the lead back to 12 with 5:11 to play at 43-21 and converted at the free throw line to put the game away. The Ospreys went 19-22 from the line in the second half. UNF shot 77 percent from the line for the game (24-31).
Freshman guard Jerron Granberry led UNF with a career-high 16 points, going 3-4 from the field, 2-3 from 3-point range and 8-8 from the free throw line. He also grabbed four rebounds and had an assist.
Senior guard Eni Cuka added 11 for the Ospreys and was 3-4 from 3-point range. Nine North Florida players scored in the game.
Freshman forward Andy Diaz led UNF with eight rebounds and three blocked shots. Junior point guard Brad Haugabrook paced the team with three assists.
North Florida out-rebounded the Tigers 35-24. UNF shot 45 percent from the field (14-31) and 50 percent from 3-point range (5-10). The Ospreys held Savannah State to 34 percent shooting in the game (17-50).
The first half saw both teams get after it defensively. The Ospreys were in foul trouble most of the half with two starters, Haugabrook and Diaz, and two reserves, Will Wilson and Matt Sauey, each picking up two fouls.
North Florida trailed 19-16 before scoring the final four points of the half to take a 20-19 lead into the locker room. Senior guard Germaine Sparkes hit a free-throw, and after a Cuka steal and pass, Granberry nailed a 3-pointer with 18 seconds before the break.
Savannah State shot 41 percent in the first half and North Florida 35. Granberry led UNF with six points at the half.
After Savannah State the Ospreys return to the road for the first game of a nine-game road swing at Illinois State on Saturday, Nov. 21, at 5 p.m. ET. Illinois State is 1-0 after beating SIU-Edwardsville 82-60 on Sunday. Saturday’s game can be heard on AM 1320 WBOB in Jacksonville or on-line at 1320WBOB.com. It will air on taped delay at 7:30 p.m. ET.
POST-GAME QUOTES
North Florida Head Coach Matthew Driscoll
"It obviously wasn’t the prettiest game from the fan’s perspective it was an offensive struggle more than a defensive battle I would say in the first half. I’m not sure if it was 20 to 19 in the first half and obviously both teams were struggling a little bit turning the ball over. I really thought we guarded well, I thought we did a really good job being better in our gaps and really making sure we were playing on the outside in and made some tough shots as well too. And give our guys credit they hung tough, making sure they weren’t making any threes like Notre Dame did on us last week. That was the one thing, we have to eliminate the three point line, I thought our team did a really good job. In the second half we stayed out of foul trouble, but Andy Diaz is a huge force on the boards. He can rebound with anyone and he’s able to go up and get key rebounds as well too and down the stretch he made his free-throws going two for two. I think we did a good job on the free throw line, 77 percent, and obviously we need to keep getting better at that and that’s something we have talked about before, that we need to make sure we get to the free throw line and make them. One of goals was to make more free throws than they attempt and we reached that goal tonight. And the other goal was to keep them below their average of 16 offensive rebounds which we did holding them to 11. So our guys did a good job focusing on what it’s going to take to win."
"I told the guys before the season started there are going to be nights when our offense isn’t very good, but we are going to win because we get more stops than they have a chance to get and I think tonight, we had twenty turnovers which is not very good for a team that obviously needs to get better at that, we only hade 12 against Notre Dame so the press hurt us a little bit. I thought we were a little hurried, but you know when your not making shots you've got to be getting to the free throw line and obviously that’s what we did and that’s how we made them."
It’s the first win in the Driscoll Era I imagine you’ll remember this for a long time?
"That night I got the job was a very special night. God really blessed our family to be here and something truly special is going to happen here. This is a little different place, their assistant told me before the game that he always thought this was a diamond in a ruff. A place that really could grow and blossom and get into something special and we have a bunch of guys that are really starting to understand that. It's hard when you have a mixture of older guys that were here and the newer guys coming in and they really don’t know what to do or how to act. We won our first game in the era and these poor cats were in the locker room waiting for me to come in because they didn’t know whether to celebrate yet or wait for me to come in. So the one good thing is that we are all on the same page understanding what we have to do, but it’s a joyous night. One of my dear friends flew in from Balylor, who is a life long friend, and flew in just to see our first game and my first game as a head coach so its definitely going to be a memorable night for the Driscoll family."
What did you say to the team coming out of halftime?
"You know the one thing we did is we told the guys to make them call a time out, that was our big thing coming out of the second half. We said 'hey let's make them call a 30 second time out because we are going to go on a defensive stop and get on a run and we did it. Again it’s a little things but it makes the guys start thinking we did what coach wanted us to do, stop after stop after stop. You can’t press if you don’t score so we talked to the guys about that, now down the stretch. One of the things we've got to work on is we fouled, getting them to the line, which allowed them to press. But coming out of the half that was our goal that they had to call the first time out."
FRESHMAN GUARD JERRON GRANBERRY
Jeron were you feeling any impatience when you weren’t taking shots from the field?
"Our first goal is defense and that’s what we tried to do and you know if our defensive end is going to be great then our offensive end is going to come. You know like coach said we might not execute every play right but you're going to have give effort to the fullest. You can do that all the time, even though we weren’t making shots."
SENIOR GUARD ENI CUKA
Eni what was different about this years team that faced Savannah State than previous teams?
"Well I didn’t get to travel out with the team last time we played them, I was ineligible (due to transfer), but what I saw from the film was we were more aggressive this time. Last time they were the aggressive ones. That’s the difference I saw."