Ospreys Handle Rattlers, 90-63

Wednesday, December 21

Tallahassee, Fla.

7 pm

University of North Florida

6-7

Florida A&M

2-11

North Florida

Florida A&M

12/21/2011 9:02:00 PM | Men's Basketball

Box Score

Final Boxscore (PDF)
Game Book

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- The North Florida basketball team scored a season high 90 points led by career best performances from Travis Wallace and Will Wilson en route to a dominating 90-63 road victory Wednesday night over Florida A&M at the Al Lawson Center.

UNF (6-7) earned their first road win of the year and snapped a three-game losing skid with the win, which matched the largest margin of victory in the program's Division I era. The loss was the fourth straight for FAMU (2-11) and their first in program history against the Ospreys.

Wallace, who began his collegiate career at FAMU, scored 18 points including 12 in the first half to lead a trio of UNF players in double digits. Jerron Granberry added 15 and Jimmy Williams finished with 14. Will Wilson, whose grandfather was a Hall of Fame football standout at FAMU, scored a career best nine points in front of many members of his family including William "Chicken Shack" Wilson.

Amin Stevens led the way for the Rattlers with 24 points in his season debut.

“We played together and I was proud of how we played tonight,” said UNF head coach Matthew Driscoll. “I was impressed how we guarded them and executed the game plan. Our bench was superb again tonight. This was a great way to head into our Christmas break.”

UNF raced out of the gates quickly scoring eight straight points during an opening 17-4 run. Jerron Granberry got the flurry started with a trey while Will Wilson and Matt Sauey chipped in four points each.

The Rattlers battled back trimming the margin to seven, 18-11, with 8:14 left in the half. The Ospreys answered with a 10-2 surge paced by six points from Wallace. UNF twice led by as many as 15 in the opening stanza and carried a 39-27 lead into the halftime break.

Wallace finished the opening stanza with 12 points while FAMU's Amin Stevens collected over half his team's production scoring 14 points.

Following a back-and-forth first five minutes of the second half, UNF used an 11-2 spurt to take a 59-40 lead with 11:46 left in the game. The Rattlers would only get as close as 16 points before a 14-3 run minutes later by the Ospreys put the game out of reach.

For the game, UNF shot 57 percent from the floor (64 percent in the second half) while holding FAMU to a 39 percent clip. The Ospreys also won the battle of the boards 46-30 and connected on eight three-pointers.

The Osprey bench finished with 50 points as paced by Wallace and Williams' performances. The duo along with Charles McRoy each pulled down a team-leading six rebounds in the contest.

After a brief break from competition for the Christmas holiday, North Florida returns to the hardwood Dec. 30 against Palm Beach Atlantic for the first of three home games at UNF Arena.