Ospreys Bested by Balanced Hatter Performance

Saturday, February 27

DeLand, Fla.

2:00 p.m.

University of North Florida

8-14,6-6ASUN

Stetson

10-13,7-9ASUN

North Florida

Stetson

2/27/2021 6:49:00 PM | Men's Basketball

Box Score

By: North Florida Athletics

OPENING TIP
Score: Stetson 85, North Florida 68
Records: North Florida (8-14, 6-6 ASUN) | Stetson (10-13, 7-9 ASUN)
Location: Edmunds Center (DeLand, Fla.)
The Short Story: A hot shooting Stetson Hatter squad proved challenging to a scrappy North Florida team in Saturday's regular season finale as the Ospreys dropped an 85-68 decision in DeLand, Fla.

BY THE NUMBERS
- Freshman Josh Berenbaum matched his career high with his second straight 15-point outing against the Hatters to lead UNF
- Josh Placer added 11 points and Jonathan Aybar chipped in 10 for the Ospreys
- Aybar also led the team with 5 rebounds while Emmanuel Adedoyin handed out a team high 5 assists
- North Florida finished the game with 11 three-pointers made
- Stetson had five players in double digits including three starters led by 20 points from senior Christiaan Jones
- Point guard Stephan Swenson dished out 11 of the Hatters 22 assists in the contest
- Hatters shot 54% from the floor and were even hotter from long range, making 9 of 16 three point attempts (56%)
- Stetson won the battle of the boards, 33-23, and forced 14 UNF turnovers including 9 in the decisive first half

NOTABLE MOMENTS
- Despite making four of their first five three-point attempts, North Florida still trailed 13-12 at the first media timeout of the game with Stetson benefiting from an 8-0 run of their own
- Jose Placer was the catalyst early, making a pair of treys in the Ospreys scoring spree
- Hatters would widen their lead over the next several minutes
- Another Placer three sparked an 8-2 spurt that saw UNF tie the score at 23-23 with 10 minutes left in the half | Carter Hendricksen had a pair of FTs and Jacob Crews capped the spurt with his second trey of the half
- From that point, Stetson closed the period on a 28-8 run that included a 9-0 surge to get it started
- Hatters built a 51-31 halftime advantage
- Ospreys raced out of intermission on a 12-1 run that saw UNF holding Stetson without a basket for nearly five minutes | North Florida surge cut their deficit to single digits
- Stetson answered with the next seven points and North Florida trailed by double figures for the remainder of the contest

INSIDE THE BOXSCORE
- North Florida saw its 8-game win streak versus Stetson come to an end with the loss
- Berenbaum finished with weekend with 30 points after netting just 11 points in his 10 previous game appearances
- Placer extended his streak of double-digit efforts to 9 games
- Stetson was the only ASUN team to play a full 16-game schedule and earned a split in 7 of their 8 conference sets

LAST WORD - Head Coach Matthew Driscoll
"Really proud of the way these guys have worked their way through this regular season. Today, is what it is, but to finish fourth or higher in the ASUN for eight straight seasons says a great deal about these guys and about their ability to persevere playing in just our fourth game in February. Everybody has had different scenarios and situations to deal with that weighed you down or changed how you did things. To our guys credit, they fought their tails off yesterday and we had guys who hadn't played a lot of minutes have to play a lot of minutes. Having to come back in a 24-hour swing was something several of those guys had not experienced yet. We appeared to have some weary legs but give Stetson credit for coming out ready to fly with a chance to earn another series split. They had really strong purpose and came out with some nice energy. We made a bunch of threes to start the game but were still losing at the first timeout and that's not a good sign. We had some fight in the second half and cut it to single digits but we just weren't able to complete the full comeback. We are really excited and looking forward to the tournament and the next chapter of our season."

NEXT UP
North Florida begins play in the ASUN Championship Tournament with a quarterfinal matchup against North Alabama on Thursday (Mar. 4) at 2 p.m. in Swisher Gym.