BATON ROUGE, La. - North Florida men's basketball couldn't get its offense going on the road, as they suffer a 75-63 road loss to LSU on Friday afternoon.
The Ospreys found themselves down early with scoring hard to come by in the first half. UNF fought their way back to make it a single-digit game with a 14-0 scoring run, but it was too little, too late in the end in the road battle against the SEC foe.
Freshman
Jaylen Smith led in scoring with the most points in his career thus far with 13 total in a hostile environment.
Max Hrdlicka followed Smith with nine points in only five minutes of playing time shooting 3-for-3 from the field with a pair of threes.
FINAL SCORE
UNF | 63
LSU | 75
INSIDE THE BOX SCORE
First Half
Oscar Berry got the Ospreys going in the road test with his first points coming off a trey ball...another three-pointer was made by
Jah Nze to tie the game at six a piece within the first five minutes...
Chaz Lanier and
Dorian James had back-to-back scores to keep the deficit within five points...Berry came back with another score near the eight-minute mark to keep UNF within single digits of the Tigers...a late three by Lanier ended the opening half with the Ospreys down by 16 on the road.
Second Half
Berry started his second half much like the first with a made three within the first minute out of the break...the Osprey point guards went on a run with
Ametri Moss and Smith combining for 11 straight points...a trio of three-pointers were drained by
Jasai Miles, Smith and
Nate Lliteras to make the score 65-45 with just under seven minutes remaining in the game...Hrdlicka wielded the team back within single digits with an and-one bucket, followed with back-to-back deep threes...late scores from the Tigers made the deficit too large to come back from with the game resulting in a 75-63 defeat to LSU.
COACH DRISCOLL'S COMMENTS
BY THE NUMBERS
NORTH FLORIDA
Jaylen Smith | 13 points, 2 rebounds, 2 steals
Max Hrdlicka | 9 points
Jasai Miles | 8 points, 7 rebounds
Oscar Berry | 8 points, 4 rebounds
LSU
Will Baker | 18 points, 8 rebounds
Jordan Wright | 15 points, 4 rebounds, 2 assists
Tyrell Ward | 14 points, 3 rebounds
Mike Williams III | 11 points, 6 steals, 2 rebounds
NOTABLES
- First Power Five opponent played in the 2023-24 season for UNF.
- Second double-digit scoring total for Smith through first seven games of his career.
- Hrdlicka also totaled a carer-high in his ninth career game played, as well as his first appearance this season.
- Another balanced game for Miles with eight points and seven rebounds to nearly match his totals from his last game played.
- Ospreys held the margin for offensive rebounds, 14-10, second chance points, 13-7, and bench points, 35-29.
- UNF also shot 48.6% from the field and 44.4 from three-point range in the second half.
UP NEXT
UNF continues its Power Five road trek with a date against Iowa on Wednesday, Nov. 29, at 9 p.m. ET, in Iowa City, Iowa.
