Ospreys Falter Later in Loss to Rival Jacksonville

Thursday, January 24

Jacksonville, Fla.

7:00 p.m.

University of North Florida

9-13, 3-4ASUN

Jacksonville

9-12, 2-4ASUN

Jacksonville

North Florida

Photo by: Todd Drexler

1/24/2019 11:29:00 PM | Men's Basketball

Box Score

By: North Florida Athletics

OPENING TIP
Score: North Florida 81, Jacksonville 86
Records: North Florida (9-13, 3-4 ASUN) | Jacksonville (9-12, 2-4 ASUN)
Location: UNF Arena (Jacksonville, Fla.)
The Short Story: Despite 23 points from both Noah Horchler and JT Escobar on Thursday night in UNF Arena, North Florida came out on the short end of a back-and-forth battle with crosstown rival Jacksonville, 86-81.

GAMEDAY MEDIA CENTER
Final Boxscore

NOTABLE NUMBERS
- Noah Horchler netted his ASUN leading 11th double-double of the season finishing with 23 points and 10 rebounds
- JT Escobar matched him with 23 points including 4 three-pointers
- Fellow starters, Wajid Aminu (14 pts) and Ivan Gandia-Rosa (11 pts) also reached double digits
- JD Notae led the Dolphins with 22 points
- Both teams shot better than 50% from the floor for the night: UNF - 53.0% | JU - 50.8%
- Jacksonville's bench outscored the Osprey reserves, 27-6

HOW IT HAPPENED
First Half Notes
- The opening 5 minutes featured a fast-paced tempo with both squads able to score consistently
- Wajid Aminu led the charge for UNF scoring 8 of the team's first 12 points
- JT Escobar drained back-to-back treys followed by another three from Noah Horchler, giving the Ospreys a 21-15 advantage (12:23)
- Jacksonville chipped away and trimmed the margin to two on several occassions before a 7-2 spurt featuring baskets from Horchler and and Garrett Sams sandwiched around a triple by Ryan Burkhardt pushed UNF to its largest lead, 32-25 (7:58)
- Minutes later the Dolphins rallied behind a 9-2 surge of their own to knot the score at 36
- North Florida closed the half on a 9-4 run and held a 45-40 halftime advantage
- Escobar had 13 points in the period going 3-for-4 from long distance

Second Half Notes
- Jacksonville scored the first five points out of intermission to erase the Osprey lead
- The rivals exchange baskets the next couple possessions until UNF got five straight points including a Horchler trey and Sams floater
- JU responded with eight consecutive points to earn their largest lead of the game to that point
- A Horchler free throw along with a three-pointer from Ivan Gandia-Rosa and layup for Escobar flipped the score in UNF's favor
- Leading by four (68-64) with 7:14 left in the contest, JU went on a 14-2 run to grab control of the game and build an 8-point edge | The Dolphins tallied eight points from the free throw line in the run
- The Ospreys continued to compete and extended the game by sending JU to the line while converting three-pointers on the other end
- North Florida cut the margin to three (84-81) with 13 seconds left but the Dolphins were able to secure the game from the charity stripe

INSIDE THE BOXSCORE
- North Florida has now lost three straight to Jacksonville after winning the previous nine meetings
- Marks the first three-game losing skid of the season for UNF and is just the second home loss
- Ryan Burkhardt has now made a three-pointer in seven consecutive games off the bench
- Horchler's 23-point effort matched a season best total
- JU scored 20 points of 13 UNF turnovers

LAST WORD
"When you can't get stops and give up 46 points in the second half things probably aren't going to go in your favor. Early in league play and early in this game, we got to a good place by getting stops but for whatever reason we've started to let our offense dictate how we play on the defensive end. Give them credit because they just kept putting it on us. Giving up 20 points off turnovers is pretty hard to play defense against in the open floor. I'm not sure where this group is mentally on our plan and desire to make the corrections we need to make. Noah and Wajid were 17 of 23 combined from the floor and we turned the ball over several times trying to get them the ball in the post and that baffles me because they had smaller guys guarding them. Seems like an easy thing to do but I guess with the pressure in the game it just becomes much more difficult. JU came at it and came at us and our guys didn't respond. I liked our fight at the end and the fact that we were able to get it to a one possession game was awesome. However, it wasn't that great for me personally, especially giving up 46 points." -- Head coach Matthew Driscoll

NEXT UP
North Florida heads out of town for the first of two straight road games on Sunday for a rematch with in-state rival FGCU in Ft. Myers.