The Fishburne postgrad basketball team was focused on its game Tuesday night at nationally-ranked Hargrave. The Bridgewater College JV team was living in the here and now.
“These guys came to play,” a visibly angered Ed Huckaby, the coach of the FMS PG team, said after his Caissons escaped with a 104-100 win over the Eagles Monday night at Alumni Memorial Gym.
Escaped may be generous, if that’s possible. Bridgewater jumped out to a 12-3 lead in the first three minutes, led by as many as 13 midway through the first half and went into the break up 46-35.
And then it got worse for the home team, with Bridgewater opening the second 20 minutes on an 8-0 run to lead 54-35 with 17:08 to go. Huckaby called a timeout and lit into his team, and changed strategy with a full-court press aimed at speeding the game up.
It worked, to say the least, as FMS outscored Bridgewater 41-10 over the next 8:16 to turn that 19-point deficit into a 12-point lead at 76-64 with 8:52 to go.
But the Eagles JVs were not done, fighting back to tie the game at 84 with 4:15 left and forcing the Caissons to close out the final minute at the free-throw line.
“Bad effort by us. We came out slow, started slow, ended slow. We’ve got to pick it up,” said Jeremy Harris, a Coastal Carolina commit who led Fishburne with 32 points.
Huckaby did not mince words after the game.
“Our effort stunk,” the sixth-year coach said. “We’re supposed to be a national team. I got one guy that showed up to play. That was Jeremy Harris. The rest of this crap, I don’t know what to say. We stunk.”
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