Box Score BIRMINGHAM, Ala. -- The Samford University basketball team fell prey to a 55.6-percent shooting performance from 3-point range from the Florida Gulf Coast Eagles on Wednesday as the Bulldogs dropped an 86-62 decision at home in non-conference play at the Pete Hanna Center.
 
“They made it look real easy against us tonight,” said Samford head coach Bennie Seltzer. “Once again, we took a fall in the toughness stats. We gave up 17 offensive rebounds and we allowed them to shoot 57 percent from the field in the second half. It's tough to win when you're not doing those things.”
 
Samford (1-7) moved to 1-2 when playing at home this season and will conclude its three-game homestand Saturday against Southern Conference-rival Georgia Southern. The upcoming league battle is slated to begin at noon (CST).
 
With Wednesday's road victory, Florida Gulf Coast (5-3) improved to 5-2 in its last seven games, with its losses coming at No. 9-ranked Duke, 88-67, and at St. John's 79-68.
 
Against Samford, the Eagles were led in scoring by shooting guard Sherwood Brown, who finished with a game-high 22 points on a 7-of-13 performance from the field. Florida Gulf Coast's senior native of Orlando, Fla., also went 4-of-6 from 3-point range and 4-of-5 from the free-throw line.
 
The Bulldogs finished Wednesday's contest with three players scoring in double figures and were led by sophomore guard Raijon Kelly's 13 points on 4-of-8 shooting from the floor. Samford's 6-foot-4 floor general knocked down a trio of 3-point baskets and handed out an assist in 31 minutes of playing time.
 
True freshman forward Tim Williams finished in double figures for the eighth straight game this season and tallied 12 points, three rebounds, an assist, a steal and a blocked shot. The Bulldogs' talented native of Chicago, Ill., went 4-of-6 from both the field and the charity stripe.
 
Samford's best performance of the night was achieved by fellow true freshman Jaylen Beckham, who scored a career-high 10 points on 4-of-7 shooting from the field. Beckham, a highly-touted recruit from Lexington, Ky., logged a career-high 24 minutes off the bench and also registered three rebounds, three assists and a trio of steals.
 
“Jaylen has worked very hard to get some good playing time,” said Seltzer. “Tonight, he played a good game and took advantage of his opportunity. I'm happy to see that he played well, but there's still a lot of improvement that he has to make, as well as everybody else on this team.”
 
The Bulldogs forced Florida Gulf Coast into 15 turnovers Wednesday, but were out-rebounded 44-25. The Eagles missed a total of 27 shots and were able to grab 17 offensive rebounds. Florida Gulf Coast also scored 36 of its 86 points in the paint.
 
“We've had three keys in every single game we've played this year,” Seltzer said. “No. 1 is to get back in transition to stop their fast break. The second one is to box out on rebounds and the third is to get defensive stops. Taking care of the basketball has also been another one of our keys and we did a pretty good job of doing that tonight, but when you give up 17 offensive rebounds and a team shoots 57 percent in the second half, it's almost impossible to win.”
 
Florida Gulf Coast jumped out to an early 20-5 advantage Wednesday and led by as many as 19 points, 31-12, with 6:18 left to play in the first half.
 
Down the stretch in the opening period, Samford used a pair of buckets from Beckham, a deep 3-pointer from Kelly and a layups from Levi Barnes and Tyler Hood to trim the Eagles lead to 34-24 at the intermission. The Bulldogs only shot 37 percent from the field in the first 20 minutes of play, but only trailed Florida Gulf Coast by 10 points at the half.
 
“We made a nice little run at the end of the first half, but it's hard to maintain that type of consistency,” said Seltzer. “Again, consistency is built through those toughness stats, and until we can win those toughness stats, wins are going to be difficult to come by. We have to go back to the drawing board tomorrow. We'll practice tomorrow and Friday and then we'll toss it up again Saturday.”
 
A little over a minute into the second half of play Wednesday, Samford's Clide Geffrard, Jr., scored on a layup to cut the Eagles' advantage to 36-28.
 
Florida Gulf Coast kept maintaining its double-digit lead throughout the final period, before it used a 7-0 run at the 6:37 mark to move the score to 65-47. From that point on, the Eagles were able to hold off any late Samford rallies en route to its final 86-62 victory.
 
The Samford University basketball team will next be in action Saturday at noon (CST) as the Bulldogs begin play in their critical SoCon schedule at home against the Georgia Southern Eagles. The contest will be held at the Pete Hanna Center.