Trailing by 15 at the half, Florida Gulf Coast University rallied to take the lead with 9:27 to go, then held FIU to just four points over the final five minutes en route to a 68-65 win Wednesday night in men's basketball action from Miami.
"Really gutsy effort by this group," exclaimed an excited FGCU head coach
Pat Chambers after his short-handed team earned the win to snap a five-game losing streak. "No
Chase Johnston, no
Andre Weir, and FIU was relentless on the defensive end. To come out and compete in the second half the way we did, I'm really proud of our resilience and grit. We had great contributions from all eight players that stepped on the floor. That's attitude!"
Dallion Johnson scored 16 of his 19 points in the second half to help spark the rally. Down 53-40, a 23-3 run over nine minutes of the second half helped the Eagles take a 63-56 lead on the hosts with 6:58 remaining in the contest. The exclamation point came on a
Cyrus Largie dunk that gave FGCU its first lead.
With the Eagles ahead 64-61,
Dakota Rivers capped off a season-high night in scoring as his basket in the paint off an
Isaiah Thompson feed restored the lead back to five with 4:28 to go. While that would be FGCU's final field goal of the night, FIU (2-7) would only get four points the rest of the way as the Eagles held FIU to just six possessions over the final four minutes, with five of those possessions coming up scoreless.
FGCU (2-6) saw Thompson keep the side in the game offensively in the first half, scoring his 1,000th career point en route to 13 over the opening 20 minutes. While FIU's Arturo Dean had nine steals in the first half on the way to 10 total, the Golden Panthers only scored 11 points off of FGCU miscues. Still, FIU would connect on 18-of-31 from the field en route to a 44-29 lead at intermission.
But Wednesday's game would be a tale of two halves. After making only eight shots from the field in the first half, FGCU held the hosts to 8-of-25 from the field in the second. FGCU would also take better advantage at the foul line, going 9-of-13 compared to FIU's 2-of-7.
The Eagles will be back in action Sunday afternoon at 1 p.m. against the University of Cincinnati, with the game set to stream on ESPN+.
