College basketball: 3 Things To Know about FGCU men's loss vs. Liberty

One of the popular things on social media site Twitter is to just put a name or a phrase, followed by "That's it, that's the tweet."

Darius McGhee. That's it.

The 5-foot-9 guard epitomized all of that for Liberty against the FGCU men's basketball team on Saturday.

The reigning ASUN Player of the Year and Preseason Player of the Year erupted for 48 points, and the Flames edged the Eagles, 78-75, at Alico Arena.

"He proved tonight that he can go beat you by himself," FGCU coach Michael Fly said. "We tried to no-catch him. The kid went 8 of 14 from the 3-point line and 16 of 25 from the floor with our whole defense designed to stop him. When you run into a situation like that, you tip your hat."

Liberty coach Ritchie McKay wasn't surprised that despite back-to-back losses, the Eagles were right there with the Flames.

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"We knew how difficult that this was going to be coming in here as well-coached and talented and tough to beat as they are," McKay said. "We felt like that this was going to be a hard-fought game, and it was.

"Without this guy (McGhee) we're in a for a long night. He had one of the best individual performances that I've seen in my 30-plus years of coaching, and he did it against good defense."

It was FGCU Athletics Hall of Fame weekend, and Red Sox pitcher Chris Sale and Olympic beach volleyball player Brooke Sweat were both honored at halftime, along with the late Ben Hill Griffin III, Bill Merwin and Duane Swanson Sr. All five were inducted at a ceremony Friday night.

McGhee had nine points early, then was held to two the rest of the first half, and FGCU built a 40-31 lead.

The Flames (12-6, 3-0 ASUN) went off — make that McGhee did — to start the second half, completing a 20-2 run that resulted in a 49-42 lead. McGhee had the first 13 points of the second half all by himself before Kevin Samuel followed his own miss with a dunk for FGCU's first points of the half.

"Honestly I had no idea what the total points was," McGhee said. "I wasn't really concerned about it."

The Eagles rallied though, taking a 52-51 lead on a Luis Rolon 3-pointer with 10:37 to go. Then came another scoring drought — one that McGhee didn't experience. He made back-to-back 3-pointers and a drive. On the other end, Samuel was struggling mightily from the free-throw line, missing five straight on three of four possessions and finishing 0 of 7.

FGCU kept battling, and Caleb Catto's 3-pointer gave the Eagles a 65-64 lead with 2:31 left. But the Flames scored the next eight points, six by McGhee. Catto made a 3 with 3 seconds left to cut it to 78-75, but after a timeout, the Flames were able to get the ball in and run out the clock.

The loss was the third straight for FGCU (11-7, 1-3 ASUN), and they've all come in different, but painful ways.

"I think that's basketball," Fly said. "I'm sure when we were 10-3, I'm sure the teams that playing us were frustrated. There's ebb and flow to every season. I told our guys, there's been no championship banners hung in January."

The Eagles lost on a last-second 3-pointer at Jacksonville after an inbounds pass initially looked like it was going to be a Dolphins turnover, and likely send the game to overtime. Then in a game delayed two days because of COVID-19 issues with Kennesaw State, the Eagles came out and laid an egg, getting blown out 77-53, on Thursday.

Some of the team didn't return to Fort Myers until Friday, and had to practice and get ready to face the ASUN favorite.

"I just told our guys, it's frustrating, it's disappointing. We played well enough to win the game," Fly said. "We were put in a little bit of an adverse situation, obviously having to change the Kennesaw game. For these guys to travel, come back and prepare the same day on a travel day, play who's been the best team in this league for three years, and go toe to toe with them all night, I thought we played well enough to give us a chance to win."

FGCU plays at Stetson on Tuesday.

"You've just got to keep showing up, regardless of how tough it gets," Catto said.

3 Things To Know

1. They game-planned to stop McGhee. It wasn't like the Eagles didn't know McGhee was good, he was simply better than whatever they could come up with. He got Cyrus Largie in foul trouble. The Eagles ran Catto, Matt Halvorsen, and 6-foot-7 Zach Anderson at him. McGhee even hit a pair of buckets with the 6-foot-11, shot-blocking Samuel's hand in his face.

"It's just a matter of reading space, reading how the defense is playing," McGhee said.

"He's a really good player, Player of the Year for a reason, has been successful over past years for a reason," Catto said. "When a player hits tough shots like that, shoots 16 of 25 from the floor, you definitely tip your hat."

McKay couldn't help but have a little fun with McGhee.

"He won't say it but he's watched his head coach and some of his old tapes, and he's trying emulate some of that," McKay said, as McGhee put down his head trying not to laugh.

2. Dunn-Martin struggling. Everything from the boxscore would be indicative of an Eagles win, except Dunn-Martin is in a two-game shooting slump. He was 0 of 11 and 0 of 8 from behind the arc at one point, and finished 2 of 17 and 1 of 10. He was 4 of 12 and 1 of 6 in the KSU loss.

"I don't ever worry about his confidence," Fly said. "His confidence is fine. He's a really good player. I think tonight he had some really good looks that just didn't go in."

3. Catto comes through. With Dunn-Martin struggling, the senior needed to step up and more than did so. He made 5 of 6 3-pointers and scored a season-high 23 points, nine higher than his previous one this season. His five 3-pointers also were a season high.

"We did have a lot of fight toward the end," Catto said. "That's good for us, something we can notes from down the stretch. Those type of games, you want to win those games, close those games out."

"I'm proud of our group," McKay said. "I know how difficult it is to win, and it will be to win in here."

Greg Hardwig is a sports reporter for the Naples Daily News and The News-Press. Follow him on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter: @NDN_Ghardwig, email him at ghardwig@naplesnews.com. Support local journalism with this special subscription offer at https://cm.naplesnews.com/specialoffer/

This article originally appeared on Naples Daily News: 3 Things To Know about FGCU men's basketball's loss vs. Liberty