Maybe Jacksonville University is a team no one would want to play in the first round of the upcoming ASUN men’s tournament.
If JU plays as well as it has in the last two games, look out.
The University of North Florida didn’t score a point over the first 5:08 and it took another minute and five seconds for them to get their first basket in River City Rumble II on Feb. 28 at UNF Arena. JU scored the first 11 points, had leads of 30-7 and 44-18 before taking a 49-20 lead into the locker room and went on to overpower the Ospreys 85-61 in front of 2,529 on Senior Night.
Jacksonville (12-19, 7-11) finished the regular season with victories over Stetson and UNF (7-24, 5-13), averaging 87 points and shooting 48 percent from the floor, 42 percent from beyond the 3-point arc and, always important come tournament time, making 86 percent of its free throws.
Throw in two losses by a combined six points to regular-season ASUN co-champion Austin Peay and Florida Gulf Coast since JU beat UNF at home on Feb. 14, and it may be a team yet to reach its peak.
The Dolphins shot 58 percent in the first half and held UNF to 18 percent. JU had 20 assists on 34 baskets, out-rebounded the Ospreys 46-21 and had eight steals and four blocked shots.
Nine players scored, led by Chris Lockett Jr., with 23 points (including 5 of 8 from beyond the 3-point arc). Chris Arias, a Providence graduate, and Hayden Wood had 12 points each and Jason Thirdkill Jr., and Donvan Rivers both came within one rebound of double-doubles, with Thirdkill collecting 11 points and nine rebounds and Rivers 10 points and nine rebounds.
“They had an unbelievable level of confidence and connectivity,” Dolphins coach Jordan Mincy said of the game that gave JU a season sweep of UNF in men’s and women’s basketball for the first time since 2018. “They were playing for each other. We’ve been searching for it all year.”
Arias echoed Mincy with one word.
“It’s confidence,” he said. “We made shots. We made open shots. We’re moving the ball, feeding the post but the main thing is confidence.”
Jacksonville finished the season in a four-way tie for seventh with Eastern Kentucky, Bellarmine and Stetson. The conference tie-breaker format shook out EKU as the seventh seed, Bellarmine eighth, JU ninth and Stetson 10th.
The Dolphins will play Bellarmine (12-18) in the opening game of the men’s tournament on March 4 at UNF Arena at 12 p.m. UNF is the 11th seed and will face No. 6 West Georgia (14-16), at 7:30 p.m. that day, at JU’s Swisher Gym.
If JU wins, it will play top-seeded Central Arkansas (20-11) in a quarterfinal game at 12 p.m. on March 6 at the VyStar Veterans Memorial Arena. A UNF victory would land the Ospreys a 7:30 p.m. quarterfinal that day against No. 3 Queens (18-13).
The other first-round games at UNF Arena pit No. 5 Florida Gulf Coast (14-17) vs. No. 12 North Alabama (9-20) at 2:30 p.m. and No. 7 EKU (11-20) vs. No. 10 Stetson (11-20) at 5 p.m. No. 2 Austin Peay will play the EKU-Stetson winner and No. 4 Lipscomb will face the Gulf Coast-North Alabama winner.
Ospreys coach Bobby Kennen said he will encourage his team to “wash this out.”
“This time of year, everyone is 0-0,” he said. “We’ve got to have a short memory and get ready for our next game.”
There were positives. Senior center Nestor Dyachok scored 13 points, nine at the beginning of the second half when the Ospreys went on a 12-3 run that was doused when Lockett made a pair of 3-point shots. After a slow start, senior guard Kamrin Oriol finished with 22 points.
“He [Dyachok] was fantastic,” Kennen said. “He has a tremendous passion for this game and he’s worked really hard this year. He gave us a lift, gave us some hope for the second half.”
Kennen was on the UNF staff in 2022 when JU closed the regular season with a 71-39 romp over the Ospreys at Swisher Gym. The Ospreys went on to beat Stetson in overtime in Deland and then lost a competitive game at Lipscomb in the conference tournament, both games on the road.
“Our focus is on West Georgia,” Kennen said of the Wolves.
UNF split with West Georgia during the regular season, winning 81-73 in Carrolton, Ga., on Feb. 5.
This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: JU men’s basketball enters ASUN tournament off two victories in a row
