TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (Dec. 19) – The FAMU Rattlers dropped their home opening basketball game Friday night to the visiting North Florida Ospreys, 83-65 at the Al Lawson Center.
Junior Jermaine Ruttley (Radcliffe, Ky.) and freshman Dalvin Roberts (Miami, Fla.) each scored 15 points to lead the Rattlers, with Ruttley just missing a double-double, tying Emanuel Pellot-Valentin (Miami, Fla.) for high rebounding honors with nine (9) each. Craig Bowman (St. Petersburg, Fla.) added nine points, followed by eight from Pellot-Valentin.
Head coach Byron Samuels felt he saw a good effort from his players. "Our kids fought. We had a good week of practice. I thought we competed. The slow start hurt us. Obviously North Florida is a very good basketball team. They shoot the ball well and they've got good size. They've been together a while. Matt (Driscoll) does a great job, so give them an awful lot of credit.
But, I'm proud of our guys. I thought Jermaine (Rutley) and Dalvin (Roberts) and Craig had a good game. I thought our post guys competed probably as good as they've done all year," Samuels said.
FAMU trailed 38-21 at the half, as North Florida (7-4) came out hot, shooting 58.3 percent from the floor, while hitting five-of-11 shots from three-point range, versus 26.7 percent floor shooting for the Rattlers.
The second half proved a different story, as the Ospreys barely outscored FAMU, 45-44, thanks to an opening 11-3 Rattler run which cut the UNF lead to nine points, 41-32 on a Pellot-Valentin jumper with 16:42 left.
In fact, the Rattlers shot 62.5 percent in the second half (15 of 24) from the floor, but the visitors didn't slack off much, hitting 52 percent of their floor shots, while sinking five more three-pointers to keep FAMU at bay, leading by as much as 21 in the final minutes.
Trent Mackey led UNF with 22 points, highlighted by a 5-of-8 three-point performance, followed by Jalen Nesbitt's double-double of 20 points and 10 rebounds. Dallas Moore added 17 points, with Beau Beech hitting 11.
Samuels expects the team to continue working on improving. "We're a work in progress. I thought we turned the ball over We just want to continue teaching and building and giving great effort and competing.," he said.
WHAT'S NEXT: The Rattlers (0-10) travel to Greenville, North Carolina for a Monday night bout at East Carolina, a game to be televised by ESPN3.
