Brown’s 31 Points Not Enough As Sharks’ Comeback Falls Short Against SCF
By: Alejandro Aguirre- Freelance Writer
The Miami Dade Sharks dropped their third straight game in conference play after losing a close battle against State College of Florida, 68-67. The last time these two teams squared off was on January 24 and the Sharks came out victorious in a thrilling overtime victory. During that game, the Sharks' offense erupted for 85 points, but then went cold the next two games being held under 60 points.
Although the losing streak continued after last night, the Sharks offense showed much improvement in the second half of the game. Last night's game was another thriller down the stretch, but Coach Fernandez thought the team could have avoided a nail biter.
"We didn't take care of the ball. Turnovers hurt them. We probably had about 15, 20 turnovers," said Coach Fernandez after the game. "And that's what happened. You turn the ball over, you can't score. And it helped them [SCF] because they got easy baskets off of them but we didn't turn it over the last ten minutes. That was the difference. Just a tough loss."
Coach Fernandez changed the starting lineup he used the previous two games by deciding to go with a "small ball" lineup. Going up against a quick team in SCF, James Horton was inserted into the starting five in place of Matthew Khoury.
Things didn't go as planned for the Sharks to start off the game. In the opening minutes, Miami native, Dante Pace came down with a knee injury after colliding with an opposing player on the defensive end. Coach Fernandez had to go to his bench early with Horton and Khalil Turner sharing the playmaking duties.
"We don't know yet. We'll probably do an MRI tomorrow," said Coach Fernandez on the status of Pace's injury. "It didn't look good, he was hurting. Wish we could have had him there at the end because he's a shooter."
The Manatees were able to hold the Sharks to 25 points in the first half and they did not have many answers on offense other than Dashaun Joseph and D' Monte Brown. The Sharks were down by 14 after one half in the books. Going into the second half, Coach Fernandez added more size on the floor with Girardi Cubillan joining the rest of the starters in place of the injured Pace.
Things were starting to click offensively for MDC as they nearly tripled the amount of points they scored in the first half. Brown was the man of the second half taking on the scoring responsibilities and finishing with a team high 31 points. Brown and the rest of the team rallied from 17 points down to make it a one possession game in the last minute.
The Sharks were able to force a five- second inbounding violation on SCF to give themselves one last chance for the win. Without any timeouts remaining, the Sharks had one more chance to win the game but their strong comeback fell short as they missed the game winning shot.
"Just play. Obviously today was a tough loss because we did fight back. When you fall in the hole 17, it's too big of a hole. But they did fight back, they competed, it's just a tough loss. I hate the way it ended," said Coach Fernandez.
The Sharks will be back in action on the road as they go up against Hillsborough Community College next Wednesday, February 16. This is the final stretch of the regular season for MDC's men's basketball team with three crucial conference games left to play.