"I think regardless of who you're playing to get the first game of the season, it always feels really good," said head coach Tom Parks. "And last year, we were on the flip side of it where we lost our first game and I think if you lose your first game, you tend to put a lot more pressure on yourself, which isn't a bad thing but obviously we love to come out and win the first game. It was nice to have a Florida reputable junior college at Hal Chasey Gymnasium for the season opener, so that was really cool they came up."
"Palm Beach State's first-year head coach Rich Grant is going to do a really good job there with a lot of talented guys with a lot of injuries. They're scrappy and play hard where they'll figure it out. In the end, it was a good win and we're definitely proud of how our team stepped up for the first game."
"It feels good to get the win after coming off of a good season last year," said sophomore D'Moi Hodge. "We didn't know what to expect as a team. We know we're good, but Palm Beach is also a good team, so we came out to play hard and we got the win. We could have played better however. We didn't get many stops that we wanted and had some bad shots, but we played good as a team. I feel we could be much better than we were."
"It was really fun," said freshman Marshal Kearing. "For the first game of the season, it was up and down and close throughout the whole game, but we continued to push to keep the lead, which we wanted to do earlier so we can enjoy it a bit more. Overall, we got the win but we still need to work on some things for the next practice."
"It feels good," said freshman Jordan Clark. "We've been working all off-season and during the season we practiced hard and it just felt good."
Prior to the game, I was given an opportunity to sing the national anthem for the opening game in success.
The Panthers started the tipoff off of an and-one by Nick Edwards before a 3-point shot by Hodge tied the game at 3-3, but after Hodge's 3-pointer the Panthers went on a 5-0 run from shots by Donald Green and Emanuel Hylton made it 8-3 PBSC before Hodge cut the deficit to two with another 3-pointer. After four Panther points made it 12-6, redshirt freshman Calvin McCutcheon hit a layup before sophomore Isiah Dasher clocked a dunk to cut PBSC's lead to 12-10.
After a Mohamed Fofana layup made it 14-10 PBSC, sophomore Max Bell-Ramos cut the deficit to two again with a layup of his own before Hodge gave the Manatees their first lead after drawing a foul behind the arc to shoot three successful free throws. Strong defense and a Hodge layup with an assist by McCutcheon extended the Manatees lead to 18-14 before the first timeout.
After the timeout, the Manatees played strong on the rebounds from Bell-Ramos and sophomore Christnoff Scarborough while staying maintaining to hold the lead, but with less than nine minutes left in the first half the Panthers regained the lead after free throws made by Edwards made it 22-21 PBSC.
The Manatees and Panthers went back-and-forth to retake the lead. Eventually, back-to-back 3-point shots by Clark and freshman J-Quon Ferrol gave the Manatees a 29-24 lead before Clark extended the lead to five with a mid-range jumper. At the end of the first half, the Manatees were able to hold down the first half by a score of 47-43.
"Coach (Rob) Beckman has been talking to the team a lot about how there is typically three runs in the game of basketball," said Parks on the team's performance. "Sometimes there's more, but there's a philosophy out there that says 'If you win two out of three runs, then that means you're going to win the game' and that was our whole mentality where we went on a run first, then they went on a run and got it back even and then in the second half, we had an early timeout and basically said 'The third run is ours' and we're going to win it and they went out on a run and I thought we sustained the lead for a while."
During halftime, the SCF Wave, the Manatees cheer team, did a performance of their routines with Latin dance. It was really amazing how a group of young women expanded from last season from only five members to about 10-12.
At the start of the second half, the Manatees got off to a sloppy start beginning with five straight Panthers points from Fofana and Tim Holland gave them a 48-47 lead before Green extended the Panthers' lead to three with a layup. A Kearing block and a Dasher steal that led to two successful free throws and a made basket on a goaltend by Dasher gave the Manatees back the lead by a score of 51-49.
Once again, it went back-and-forth on lead changes with Dasher going to the free throw line again before an eventual steal and assist by Hodge that led Dasher to another thunderous dunk gave the Manatees a 55-52 lead before Clark was issued with a foul. In fact, in the first four minutes, the Manatees issued only one foul. A Kearing hook shot gave the Manatees a 57-54 lead before the Aussie came up with a big block of his own before PBSC burned another timeout.
After the timeout, Tyrus Johnson made one of two free throws before Fofana tied the game up at 57-57. Scarborough would then regain the Manatees lead with two successful free throws and a and-one layup gave the Manatees a 61-59 lead, which was then followed by a Clark steal and layup to extend the lead. While Scarborough continued his dominance on the boards, the Manatees' defense was attempting to grow. After Hodge got a steal, he attempted to get the assist with a pass to an open Remy Robert II, but the sophomore was fouled hard by Hylton and had to leave the game due to a knee injury with Hodge making his free throws for him. Hylton's foul was issued as a flagrant one foul.
With the score 65-63 SCF, Clark would extend the lead to five with a 3-point shot before Parks called for a full timeout.
After the timeout, Hodge secured the rebound and passed to an open Bell-Ramos for a successful basket, however it was waved off due to Bell-Ramos touching the net as he was making the basket with eight minutes left, but was able to make up for it with a successful and-one to make it 71-63 SCF. Another successful and-one by Hodge then made it 73-65 SCF. Two minutes later, after a Scarborough block, Dasher attempted an alley-oop dunk to no success and a lead to a small cramp in his leg before quickly recovering.
With five and a half minutes left, freshman Michael Gavin secured his first three points behind the arch as he gave the Manatees a 10-point lead. After another two successful free throws by Clark, the Manatees continued to hold on to the 10-point lead. Dasher then made a layup for a 12-point lead before PBSC burned another timeout.
For the final five minutes and a final Clark dunk, the Manatees were able to hold on to the 10-point lead and secure the win to open the season.
"Towards the end it got ugly, but these opportunities are great ways to learn because situations like this allow us to learn and still get a win," said Parks. We don't want to just look at the scoreboard to see it's a win and realize there's nothing we can do to work on things, so we definitely have some things we need to work on in practice this week and clean up to prepare for our next three good performances next week."
"Our defensive system is completely new," said Parks on the team's defense. "We worked on it really hard, but when you play against yourself every single day, you learn how to defend yourself where that is really important in the beginning of the season and seeing where your defense is at against somebody else or a team that runs completely different things than you. It also helps exploit weaknesses so that we can learn different things that we need to work on in practice other than what we've been doing. Defensively we need to get better because 86 points is too much to give up. We want to hold teams down to a maximum between 70-72 points as our goal."
"We need to get better, but they (PBSC) are talented, made some tough shots down the stretch, they're scrappy and had some big time hustle plays, so hats off to Palm Beach State."
It was Hodge that led the offense for the Manatees as he finished with 27 points (8-for-13 FG, 5-for-9 3PT, 6-for-6 FT), seven rebounds, seven assists, four steals and two blocks.
"I played alright," said Hodge on his performance. "I didn't do the best because I missed several shots and had some bad plays thrown over me. With a lot of experience, I got to comeback from that."
Clark followed Hodge with 24 points (8-for-13 FG, 3-for-5 3PT, 5-for-5 FT), three rebounds, an assist, two steals and a block.
"I did try to help my team win," said Clark on his game. "We had a good shootaround before the game, so I was feeling in the zone and just started shooting."
"Jordan Clark was the most underrated player in the state," said Parks on Clark. "I have no idea why he's at SCF and why he didn't have 10 division one offers out of high school. I have my own philosophies, but he's super talented."
"Jordan is very savvy when making winning plays and does it with passion. Sometimes I find myself watching him because he's just so fun to watch play the game. Sometimes I forget I'm coaching and not a spectator because he does things that are unbelievable that you can't teach so I'm definitely thankful he suited up with us,"
Dasher finished with 16 points (5-for-16 FG, 6-for-6 FT), six rebounds, four assists and a block.
"Isiah and D'Moi are always going to bring their A-game to the court," said Parks on his players. "I think people that have come to Hal Chasey have seen them and have almost come to expect it, but I think what's really cool about this group is we're really deep."
Scarborough was two rebounds shy of his first collegiate double-double as he finished with 10 points (4-for-5 FG, 2-for-3 FT), a team-leading eight rebounds and two blocks, while Kearing finished with four points, five rebounds, a steal and a team-leading three blocks.
"Obviously, I started a bit slow," said Kearing on his performance. "The first game jitters really got me there, but after a while, once I got into a groove, I started playing much better defense and being a little more aggressive on offense."
"Marshall (Kearing) is one of the most skilled big men in the country," said Parks on Kearing. "I don't think he really showcased a lot today, but Chris (Scarborough) stepped up and was playing so hard that we kind of had to roll with Chris down the stretch."
Bell-Ramos (five points, five rebounds and a steal), Robert II (one rebound and one assist), McCutcheon (two points, six rebounds and four assists), Gavin (five points, a rebound, an assist and two steals) and Ferrol (three points and one rebound) also contributed in the game.
The crowd buzzed with overwhelming support inside Hal Chasey, mainly from the SCF volleyball and softball players in attendance.
"It was good and I loved the energy," said Hodge on the other teams' support. "They could have done anything on a Saturday at 2 pm, but chose to come see us and it was such a blessing for us on the support they gave us today."
"It was really to see everyone come down and support us on the first game," said Kearing on the attendance. "We' do the same thing for all the other sports and stuff like that. Having everyone there brings a lot of energy to help us play better."
"I love seeing that the other teams came to support us," said Clark on the other teams' support. "It makes us play better and we went to a lot of their (volleyball) matches to support them and was happy to see them support us."
"I think it's early," said Parks on the support. "If we have one fan that was in the gym, then by all means, we're gonna put on a show for that one fan. If the capacity is 904 and 904 people show up, then there will be a lot of energy, but we'll put on a show for that one person, but the student-athletes here at SCF are extremely supportive and coaches don't even have to tell them to support the other athletes and it's cool because I don't think you get that in other places. I think the sports are a little more separated in terms of their interest and here at SCF, you have basketball players hanging out with softball players, baseball with volleyball players and baseball players with basketball players. When you have that, those relationships that can crossover in different sports, you get a lot of support on game days."
"We're super thankful for all the people that come out and definitely if they haven't seen SCF in the last season or this season, they got to come out and watch because we got some high level players, competitors that are scrappy, play hard the right way and at the end of the day, the fans are getting a great show for $5."
Holland led the Panthers with 25 points and seven rebounds while Hylton followed with 22 points, four rebounds and four steals before fouling out in the second half. Edwards finished with a double-double of 14 points and 11 assists while adding seven rebounds.
The Manatees shot 33-for-78 (42.3%) and were 20-for-24 (83.3%) at the free throw line, while PBSC was 36-83 (43.4%) and 9-11 (82%) at the free throw line.
Notes:
Tonight's game marked the debuts for Clark, McCutcheon, Ferrol, Kearing and Gavin.
Freshmen Sam Grayson, Jean-Pierre (JP) Frederick, Jamal Qualls, Rae Miller and Christian Nieto and redshirt freshman Jaylen Jones did not play in the game. Grayson was injured, while Miller and Nieto are redshirting to maintain their two years of eligibility and Qualls is redshirting for academic reasons. Frederick was unable to play due to eligibility issues.
"We got a lot of guys who can play on both sides of the ball," said Parks on his recruits. "Michael Gavin averaged almost 30 points a game in high school and can play. We got some freshman that got to get healthy that are on the bench that have a lot of nagging injuries. Sam Grayson is another one. When he's does make a return, you'll see the excitement around him and is the opposite of Marshall (Kearing). Sam is super physical and aggressive and kind of nasty. We got a good mix of different guys that can do a lot of different things, but definitely excited for the freshmen that got their first win under the belt."
Suncoast Scores:
Florida Southwestern State (2-0) opened their season at home as they played in the two-day FSW Tip-Off Classic where they defeated Broward College 80-63 (Nov. 1) and Eastern Florida State 72-60 (Nov. 2) to open their season. The Buccaneers will travel to Davie for the two-day Broward Tournament (Nov 8-9) and face Baltimore City Community College and Wayne County Community College.
Hillsborough (2-0) opened their season at home with an 81-71 win over Pasco-Hernando State before defeating ASA Miami 81-78. The Hawks will remain at home to welcome Santa Fe Tuesday night, November 5 at 7 pm.
Polk State (1-0) opened their season at home this past Friday with a 101-67 win over Advance Prep Academy. The Eagles will welcome Warner University's (NAIA) JV team Monday night, November 4 at 7 pm.
St. Pete College (1-1) split their first two games at home losing 72-57 to College of Central Florida before winning 82-70 over 4A Sport Academy. The Titans will remain at home to welcome Miami Dade and Pasco-Hernando for the weekend.
Up Next:
The Manatees will be on the road for the next three games as they travel to New Port Richey to take on DII Pasco-Hernando State (2-0) Wednesday, November 6 at 7 pm before heading to Fort Pierce to take on Indian River State (1-0) and Daytona State (2-0) in the two-day Veteran's Classic November 8-9.
"With Pasco, coach (Micheal) Jones does an awesome job up there," said Parks on Pasco-Hernando. "He gets those guys playing really hard. They typically play the right way and are intense. You got to realize Pasco-Hernando State College has the opportunity to play against a division one junior college. It's like USF playing at Duke, it's a big deal. It's their game, it's their time and the spotlight is on and we're going to give our best effort from them. It's a game that I think on paper we're more talented, but they're going to work and we got to outwork them and we got to win 50-50 balls, out-rebound, be scrappy, take care of the ball and not give them extra possessions. I'm really looking forward to it. Coach Jones is a good coach but we can't underestimate them."
*Side note: Kearing and Clark are the first two newcomers to be interviewed.
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