Panthers Outplayed in Basketball Opener

The Florida Tech Men’s basketball team got their season underway Friday at the NCAA South Region Tipoff Classic, in Atlanta Georgia. It was not the start the Panthers were hoping for, as they fell 79-68, to Morehouse.

The big three of Sam Daniel, Patrick Anderson and Jordan Majors, scored 23, 12 and 10 respectively, but the Panthers let things get away from them a bit early and they couldn’t recover, mainly because Morehouse had five guys in double figures.

“I thought we were outplayed all night long,” said Panthers coach Billy Mims, during his postgame interview with Jim Mitchell. “The first 12 points that Morehouse scored, they got off of transition lay-ups and offensive rebounds… second chance put-backs.”

Florida Tech turned the ball over 17 times in this contest, leading to 23 points for Morehouse. The most surprising thing on the stat sheet was that the Panthers were outrebounded 46-35, despite a size advantage for Florida Tech.

“We might have been the bigger team, but we didn’t rebound the basketball,” Mims said. “We were outworked on the glass all night long.”

The Panthers led 17-16 with 10:49 left in the first half, after a jumper by Anderson, but they were down by seven, 29-22 with 2:27 left and got it to within two, 29-27 when Derek Murphy hit a free throw with 59 seconds left.

After a basket by Omar Alston of Morehouse, made it a four-point game, Majors turned it over with 24 seconds left in the half. Morehouse called a timeout with 17 seconds left and their set play out of the timeout was a three-ball by Jordan Wallace, at the buzzer. That turned a manageable four-point deficit into seven at the half.

"The change in defense on that last play killed us and I’ll take responsibility for that,” Mims said. “We were in man-to-man most of the half but went to a three-quarter pass-and-trap to try to make them eat up some clock and from the trap we went into a two-three zone and didn’t rotate very well and they kicked it and on the last play of the half, the best shooter on the team took a three.”

Up until that last shot of the half, Morehouse was 1-for-12 from downtown and that last one made all the difference.

In the second half, Morehouse came out and shot 53 percent overall and 50 percent behind the arc. For much of the half, the Panthers kept it between eight and nine points, but did go down by as many as 1, with 10:44 left in the game.

“You can’t dig yourself that kind of hole on the road and not get stops and scores,” said Mims. “We were nonchalant with the basketball and had 10 turnovers in the first half.”

Mims thought the fact that Morehouse had one game under their belt already, probably helped them. On the flip side, this was the first game the Panthers played another opponent, after 23 practices.

“I think it’s so important that you get an exhibition game, even against a DI,” he said. “We tried… we called every division one team in a four-state radius and just could not get an exhibition game this year.”

Mims in no way was using the lack of an exhibition game as an excuse. He gave all the credit to Morehouse, saying they were tougher than us and quicker than us. “That’s what we’re gonna find most nights in the Sunshine State Conference,” he said. “When we go to Eckerd next Wednesday night, if we’re not tougher than we were tonight, it’ll be a tough loss for us.”

For more info: Florida Tech @ Morehouse Box Score

Next up for the Panthers is a meeting with Clark Atlanta, at 2:00 p.m. Saturday, as the South Region tournament continues. Florida Tech will open their home schedule this Monday at 7:00 p.m., against Puerto Rico-Mayaguez

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