CHAMPS!!! Ospreys Ground Eagles, 74-46, to Claim Las Vegas Classic Title

Sunday, December 23

Las Vegas, Nev.

3:15 pm (PT)

University of North Florida

5-8

Georgia Southern

5-7

North Florida

Georgia Southern

Photo by: Todd Drexler

CHAMPS!!! Ospreys Ground Eagles, 74-46, to Claim Las Vegas Classic Title

12/23/2012 8:54:00 PM | Men's Basketball

Box Score

Boxscore (pdf)
Game Book

LAS VEGAS, Nev. -- For the third time in as many appearances, the North Florida basketball team claimed a regular season tournament title under head coach Matthew Driscoll after pounding Georgia Southern, 74-46, Sunday afternoon in the championship game of the Continental Tires Las Vegas Classic held at the Orleans Arena.

The Ospreys (5-8) held the Eagles (5-7) to just 19 first have points then outscored GSU 41-27 in the second half en route to earning another tournament crown. Junior Travis Wallace was named the tournament MVP after posting back-to-back games with 20+ points.

Senior Parker Smith collected his first career double-double finishing with 25 points and 10 rebounds to lead the UNF attack. Smith made a season best seven three pointers. Wallace poured in 20 points extending his double-digit scoring streak to 10 games.

As a team, North Florida dropped in 12 treys and pulled down 39 rebounds which allowed the squad to overcome 17 turnovers and just five free throw attempts for the game.

Tre Bussey finished with 12 points and Eric Ferguson added 10 for the Eagles in the loss.

"I'm just so proud of this group for staying the course and earning this tournament championship," said Driscoll. "I thought the whole staff did a great job getting the team prepared and the guys were really locked in and executed the game plan extremely well. This was another total team effort with everybody filling their role for us to be successful. It's nice for our team to finally start reaping the benefits from the hard work we sowed earlier this year. We are going to enjoy this win over Christmas, but when we come back we are going to get focused and ready for the next part of the season -- Atlantic Sun play."

From the start, North Florida jumped on Georgia Southern grabbing a quick 15-4 lead that included an 11-0 spurt. The Ospreys would earn their first double-digit lead, 17-7, on a basket from Beau Beech with 10:43 to play in the period. GSU would trim the margin to six points but UNF finished the half aggressively to carry a 33-19 lead into the halftime break.

UNF shot 50 percent from the floor in the opening stanza while limiting the Eagles to just 27 percent on 7-of-26 shooting. Smith had 16 points at the break including a quartet of three-pointers.

David Jeune connected on back-to-back treys to start the second half sparking the Ospreys on a 21-8 surge that put the game out of reach midway through the closing period. Beech, Smith and Charles McRoy also dropped in threes during the run.

The Ospreys held their largest lead, 68-32, following another McRoy trey at the 7:31 mark and never allowed the Eagles to pull closer than 26 points the rest of the way.

UNF shot over 50 percent from the floor for the second straight game finishing at 53 percent overall and 50 percent from beyond the arc. The Ospreys held GSU to just 31 percent shooting and only surrendered one three-point shot.

North Florida now enjoys a break for the Christmas holiday before returning to action Dec. 31 against Lipscomb in the Atlantic Sun opener at UNF Arena at 4:30 p.m.