Florida International Panthers

[LIONS90045]

Florida International Panthers

Member: Conference USA

www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/teams

Record: W 1 - L 6

www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/team/schedule/_/id/2229

Roster:

Jonathan Aybar21 F 6' 9" 200 lbs JR Kissimmee, FL
Jayden Brewer11 G 6' 6" 155 lbs SO Indianapolis, IN
Arturo Dean2 G 5' 11" 163 lbs SO Miami, FL
Dashon Gittens1 G 6' 3" 178 lbs SO Hartford, CT
Jaden Grant24 G 5' 11" 161 lbs JR Davie, FL
Travis Gray10 G 6' 5" 180 lbs JR Syracuse, NY
Javaunte Hawkins3 G 5' 11" 160 lbs SR Lee's Summit, MO
Petar Krivokapic23 G 6' 4" 214 lbs JR Budva, Montenegro
Jaidon Lipscomb5 G 6' 5" 175 lbs JR Columbus, OH
Okechukwu Okeke0 F 6' 9" 230 lbs JR East Chicago, IN
Onyx Pastoriza22 G 5' 8" 145 lbs SR Miami, FL
Seth Pinkney4 C 7' 1" 200 lbs SR Philadelphia, PA
George Pridgett Jr.31 G 5' 11" 160 lbs JR Boston, MA
Renato Ruiz15 G 6' 1" 180 lbs JR Plantation, FL
Mohamed Sanogo33 F 6' 9" 200 lbs JR Pittsfield, MA
Dante Wilcox12 G 6' 6" 220 lbs SR West Palm Beach, FL

Leading scorers:

Arturo Dean 13.4
Dashon Gittens 12.0
Petar Krivokapic 10.2
Jonathan Aybar 8.0

Finally we have met our match in the Islands. (Hopefully not wishful thinking.) Let's get on the plane with our heads held high.

Gametime: Tuesday, Nov 21, 8 am (tbc).
Video: FloHoops.

[LIONS90045]

Lions favored by 5.5

[LIONS90045]

McBride enters game with 2 offensive boards

[thx4leavinjimlynam]

Great energy from Graham and McBride helps us overcome a rough start. Up 14-10.

[LIONS90045]

Keli starting to break out of his slump but has to sit with 4 fouls. Looks promising for Keli.

[LIONS90045]

9 guys have scored for the Lions

[LIONS90045]

Our turnovers are letting the Panthers back in the game.
Let’s win this one!

[golions1444]

We do not look anywhere close to a good, let alone great, basketball team. We should be blowing out this FIU team. Everyone looks tentative out there, lots of mistakes, no defined roles, lack of confidence.

[thx4leavinjimlynam]

This is a very humbling game. Only up by 3. If we don’t win this one it will be a LONG flight home.

McBride just bailed us out. C’mon Lions. Don’t play to the level of the competition

[slblions08]

This team was not very prepared or they’re out there partying with the women’s teams. Either way, there is tons of talent but they don’t look like winners. I get the sense there’s no leadership. When you play the transfer portal game, you get players that are disgruntled at their last spot and are coming for playing time. You can’t play 12 guys meaningful minutes every day. Is that what he promised? This isn’t NJB which is developmental. I mean, there’s transfers everywhere but those guys come into be the star. Stan has to make a difficult decision and start benching guys if he wants to win and cut down that rotation. That’s the double edged sword with LMU. You want to promise as many guys so that they show up to perennial losing school, but now he had too many that want to play. If you bench guys, they don’t want to rot on the bench for a mid tier WCC school so they’ll ruin the chemistry of the team. That’s where leadership comes in, but who is it? They have to be good, long tenured and respected and that’s nobody other than Keli.

Regarding Keli, don’t forget what happened to Eli. Both of them lost a Covid season, wanted to make it up and left too late.

The bummer with removing the NIT from mid majors is that the the whole season now seems pointless for us, no hope of winning the WCC, and now even finishing 3rd seems useless. What destruction for college ball by getting rid the NIT.

[thx4leavinjimlynam]

Glad we held on, I think everyone knows that we need to play much better than that, definitely thankful we will be working on things following a win, than another loss.

Today Wright had the hot hand. Nice to see someone different can step up every game.

Go Lions!

[cs17]

A win is a win! Now get the gents back in the states and reset.

I personally hate these tiny “gym” tournaments.

Excited to see them come back and get practice days at Gersten before taking on UTEP Saturday.

[dedicatedlionfan]

I use Bartovik rankings, the free version of KenPom, and basically we have a good offensive ranking, but an absolutely terrible defensive ranking. Is CSJ hoping for “good offense is a good defense”? I hope not because this is not going to get us far in conference! Here is the link if you want to explore yourself. It predicts our record to be .500 15-15 👎

barttorvik.com/conf.php?conf=WCC

[golions1444]

Nov 21, 2023 12:54:13 GMT -5 slblions08 said:

This team was not very prepared or they’re out there partying with the women’s teams. Either way, there is tons of talent but they don’t look like winners. I get the sense there’s no leadership. When you play the transfer portal game, you get players that are disgruntled at their last spot and are coming for playing time. You can’t play 12 guys meaningful minutes every day. Is that what he promised? This isn’t NJB which is developmental. I mean, there’s transfers everywhere but those guys come into be the star. Stan has to make a difficult decision and start benching guys if he wants to win and cut down that rotation. That’s the double edged sword with LMU. You want to promise as many guys so that they show up to perennial losing school, but now he had too many that want to play. If you bench guys, they don’t want to rot on the bench for a mid tier WCC school so they’ll ruin the chemistry of the team. That’s where leadership comes in, but who is it? They have to be good, long tenured and respected and that’s nobody other than Keli.

Regarding Keli, don’t forget what happened to Eli. Both of them lost a Covid season, wanted to make it up and left too late.

The bummer with removing the NIT from mid majors is that the the whole season now seems pointless for us, no hope of winning the WCC, and now even finishing 3rd seems useless. What destruction for college ball by getting rid the NIT.

Unfortunately, in my opinion, there is a lot of truth here. But it’s also still early in the season so let’s see how we feel 3 or 4 games from now.

[LIONS90045]

I had to leave home before the second half ended and missed watching the end of the game. Looks like a lucky thing for me or I would not have any finger nails left.
Fortunately for the team and the program, we won this game which should not have been this close.
We had a disgraceful 19 turnovers in the game. The announcers commented several times about the Lions "dribbling the air out of the ball" trying to break the Panthers' aggressive press. I remember attending a pre-season practice when Mike Dunlap was coach and the drill was bring the ball up the court without dribbling. Where has this concept gone under Coach Johnson and his staff? We needed to pass to someone near or over midcoast and maybe even get a few easy layups to break the press. Instead, our guards (talented as they are) too often dribbled into trouble and turnovers. Coach Johnson needs to develop better plays to get the ball up court or opposing teams will exploit this current weakness.
We made 19 free throws - our FT shooting is great - to the Panthers 3. That contributes a lot to winning right there. On the other hand, the Panthers measly 3 FTs in 6 attempts speaks of our lack of defense. Right now it is too easy to attack the basket and score on the Lions. In this regard, we miss Issanza's athleticism and defensive/rebounding skills.
On the bright side, Keli finally made a nice 3 and a difficult reverse layup. Hopefully this will be a breakout game for Keli whose confidence had been low. I said earlier like slb that perhaps Keli has stayed one season too long. I would like to be proven wrong.
McBride is a monster on the boards with his uncharacteristic Freshman strength. He is a real contributor right now and I'm looking forward to seeing his steady development as the season goes on.
Luckily we won and can come home with that win under our belts.
On a side note, the $29.99 FloHoops fee covered 3 games which works out to $10 per game. Not so outrageous but I did have to tune in at 8 am.