GAMEDAY CENTRAL
#1 Embry-Riddle (9-0, 1-0) at #8 Northwood (3-1, 0-0)
DATE: Thursday, Dec. 5, 2013
CITY: West Palm Beach, Fla.
SITE: Countess de Hoernle Student Life Center
START: 7 p.m.
SERIES: ERAU leads 10-9
LAST MEETING: ERAU def. NU 91-81 (2OT) on Feb. 26, 2013 in TSC Tournament Championship
LIVE STATS: Stretch Internet
LIVE AUDIO: Stretch Internet
LIVE VIDEO: Stretch Internet (Northwood feed)
TWITTER: @ERAUMBasketball
TEXT ALERTS: Sign up at erauathletics.com
THE OPENING TIP
• Embry-Riddle and Northwood are meeting in men's basketball for the 20th time.
• At 9-0, the Eagles are off to their best start since 2007 when they opened that season with 13 consecutive wins
• Their No. 1 rating marks the 18th time the Eagles have held the top spot in the NAIA II poll.
• Thursday's contest marks ERAU Head Coach
Steve Ridder's 812th career game. He is 589-222 in 25 seasons with the Eagle basketball progam.
THE EAGLES
The top-ranked Embry-Riddle men's basketball team improved to 9-0 on the year by pulling away from Webber International in the second half of a 72-58 road win on Tuesday. Freshman
Dalton Barnes paced the Eagles with 18 points on 7-for-10 shooting, also managing eight rebounds as Embry-Riddle turned a two-point halftime advantage into a 14-point cushion by the end of the contest.
DeForest Carter (17) and
Cesar Pastrana (10) also scored in double-figures for the Blue and Gold with Carter adding seven assists, five steals, four rebounds and two blocks to the Eagle effort.
All five Eagle starters are averaging in double-figures offensively, led by junior
DeForest Carter's 13.9 points per game. Barnes chips in 12.7 points per game for Embry-Riddle, while
Rico Saldana brings 11.8 points and 6.6 rebounds each contest.
Cesar Pastrana adds 10-2 points and 7.0 rebounds while
Jason Powell averages 11.6 points per contest and 3.3 assists per game.
As a team, the Eagles average 83.8 points per game while holding their opponents to just 60.9 points per matchup. Embry-Riddle leads NAIA II in field goal percentage defense at .359 and ranks second in three-point field goal percentage defense at .228. Against NAIA opponents, Embry-Riddle has allowed just 55.8 points per game.
SCOUTING NORTHWOOD
Rollie Massimino is in his eighth season at Northwood, and was recently inducted into the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame. Massimino's Seahawks are nearly a completely new team from last season's Sun Conference regular season champion squad. Senior Jake Lockhart is the leading returner for Northwood and currently is second on the Seahawks with 11.2 points and 11.2 rebounds per game. Transfer junior Chris Solomon has been the Seahawks' leader offensively, averaging 25.0 points for NU, including a pair of 30-point performances against Madonna and Trinity (Fla.).
Northwood averages 82.5 points per game and holds opponents to 67.8 per contest. The Seahawks' lone loss came at the hands of NCAA II Palm Beach Atlantic, 75-65 on the road. The Seahawks have not played since Nov. 22, a layoff of two weeks.
THE ERAU-NU SERIES
Arguably the most competitive all-time series in Embry-Riddle history, the Eagles hold a slim 10-9 advantage all-time over Northwood. With the lone exception of ERAU's three-game win streak in 2010, neither team has won more than two in a row against the other. Northwood is 7-4 at home against the Eagles while Embry-Riddle holds a 6-2 advantage in the ICI Center.
THE LAST MEETING
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – In a game that Eagle fans, players and coaches will be talking about for a long time the 16
th-ranked Embry-Riddle Eagles earned the 2013 Sun Conference Men's Basketball Tournament title with a remarkable 91-81 double-overtime victory over the third-ranked Northwood Seahawks on NU's home floor on Feb. 26, 2013. The Eagles (25-8) secured an automatic bid to the NAIA II Men's Basketball National Tournament in Point Lookout, Mo. with the upset victory.
The game featured the two best teams in The Sun Conference over the past several years and was the third time the two squads had met in the conference tournament title game in four seasons, all three going in the Eagles' favor. Embry-Riddle played in its fourth overtime game in the last six contests, including the second in as many nights after the semifinal win over Webber International on Monday,
Sophomore
DeForest Carter followed the best statistical game of his career on Monday night, in which he recorded just the second triple-double in Embry-Riddle history (22 points, 11 assists, 10 rebounds), with an incredible performance against Northwood, pouring in a career-high and team season-high 30 points, pulling down a game-high 13 rebounds and dishing out eight assists to lead the Blue and Gold to the 10-point victory. Carter became the single-season record-holder in total assists on Tuesday night, breaking Ryan Rothrock's 2000-01 record of 242 with an assist on
Daniel Kiesling's jumper with 1:58 to go in the second overtime period. Carter now has 244 assists in 2012-13, averaging 7.4 per contest.
The heavyweight bout started in the home team's favor as the Seahawks jumped out to a 15-4 lead when Patrick Horstmann hit a jumper with 13:19 left in the first half. The Eagles started just 1-for-11 from the floor before Carter got a runner in the lane at the 12:28 mark to cut the lead to 15-8.
Northwood held a comfortable lead through most of the first frame, going up 24-15 on another Horstmann jumper at the 6:43 mark. However, the visitors finished the half on a 22-6 run, getting three-pointers from Kiesling,
Billy Serle and Carter during the span to sprint into the break, up 37-30.
Carter had 12 points in the first to pace the Blue and Gold, while
Jason Powell held the 2012-13 Sun Conference Player of the Year, Ra'Shad James, scoreless during the first 20 minutes.
The Seahawks came out of the locker room firing on all cylinders, going on a 10-2 run to open the second half and retaking the lead at 40-39 on a pair of Tyrone Davis free throws.
Both teams went back-and-forth with each other over the final 20 minutes of regulation, neither team leading by more than four after the Seahawks' initial run to begin the frame.
Jeremiah Applin came off the bench to hit huge three-pointers for Embry-Riddle, including two in a row around the 13-minute mark. After hitting two straight threes, Applin was fouled twice by Northwood in the act of shooting treys, going 5-for-6 from the charity stripe.
Davis gave his team a two-point lead at 61-59 with a jumper in the paint at the 2:27 mark, and Horstmann increased the advantage to four with two free throws with just 23 seconds showing on the scoreboard.
A pair of free throws from Carter cut the lead to 63-61, and after Davis went just 1-for-2 from the line after he was fouled, the stage was set for the Eagles to attempt a three to send the game to overtime.
With 10 seconds on the clock, Carter dribbled the length of the floor, handing the ball off to Powell on the wing before slipping to the corner where Powell hit him with a pass for the potential game-tying trey. Carter set his feet and drilled the three from the corner as time expired, sending the Eagle crowd into a frenzy and the game into an extra frame.
The first overtime featured five lead changes, but when Powell hit two free throws with 66 seconds left, the visitors looked like they might escape with the win. However, James, who had been held in check by Powell, got an and-one layup to go and converted the three-point play to knot the score at 73-73.
James had a chance to win it for the Seahawks in the first OT, but great defense by the Eagles pushed him five feet past the three-point line where his attempt was well off the mark, leading to another overtime period.
Senior
Daniel Mondragon started the scoring in the final frame with a three-ball off a Carter assist, and Carter followed that with a layup to keep the lead at three. Kiesling's jumper at 1:58 was the Eagles' answer to free throws from James and when Mondragon hit his second trey in the second overtime with 1:02 remaining, the Eagles' free throw shooting did the rest as the Blue and Gold finished 6-for-6 from the line over the last 45 seconds.
Sam Ford accounted for the final score with an emphatic dunk with 11 seconds on the clock and as the buzzer sounded, the scoreboard showed 91-81 in favor of the visitors.
Carter was joined in double-figures by Applin's 14 points and Mondragon and Powell's 12 points each. Embry-Riddle out-rebounded the Seahawks 42-31, shooting 46 percent from the field and 90 percent from the free throw line. The Eagles were 7-for-8 from the floor in overtime and a perfect 10-for-10 from the charity stripe.
"I am incredibly proud of the effort and overall desire to make big plays that out guys showed tonight," Head Coach
Steve Ridder said. "Tonight, we showed a lot of courage and I think this win has to go down as one of the best we've ever had in the history of our progam. Our seniors deserved this conference championship, they've done everything the right way."
AMONG THE NATION'S BEST
Heading into his 25th season at the helm of the ERAU men's basketball program, Head Coach
Steve Ridder ranks fifth on the NAIA Division II men's basketball winningest active coaches listing. Ridder has 580 wins in 24 seasons as the Eagles' head coach.
LEADING THE LEAGUE
In addition to leading The Sun Conference players in assists per game (6.9),
DeForest Carter also tops the league listings in total assists (62), is second in steals per game (2.8) and first in total steals (25).
AS #1
The Eagles are 48-6 all-time as the top-ranked team in the land. Embry-Riddle spent the entire 2000-01 season at No. 1, going 32-4 and went 15-2 in 2006 as the top-ranked squad. ERAU recorded its first win as the No. 1 team on Tuesday evening when they beat Webber International.
PRESEASON CONFERENCE FAVORITES
The Sun Conference coaches chose Embry-Riddle as the favorite to win the 2013-14 Sun Conference regular season title according to the coaches' poll, which was conducted in October. The Eagles received75 total points, including four first-place votes, followed by Northwood (72), St. Thomas (70), Southeastern (49) and Warner (47).
