Jacksonville 65, Belmont 64

Do not -- I repeat, do NOT -- go to sleep on the Jacksonville Dolphins this year.

While Mercer has been the headline-maker this December, Jacksonville has quietly posted five near-misses against NCAA and NIT teams from last year. They opened the year with five straight losses, but in every game they have battled back from significant deficits to make the game competitive. Still, they needed a win.

Last night they got one.

Down 19 to Belmont at halftime, Jacksonville rallied, holding the typically-reliable Bruin shooting to 5-for-22 in the second half. The Dolphins also hit 22 of 26 second-half free throws, including 2 by Ben Smith in the last 10 seconds.

But the game was as strange for Belmont as it was typical for Jacksonville. For instance, Rick Byrd usually runs a 9 or 10-man rotation, with the bench accounting for an average of almost 80 minutes of playing time. Last night non-starters only played a total of 49 minutes. Belmont came in averaging 12 turnovers per game. Last night? 22. Belmont also missed the front end of a one-and-one twice in the second half, a bad sign when you're playing a good team on the road.

Player of the Night: Marcus Allen (JAX) -- 21 points, 5 rebounds, 3 blocks, and 3 steals for a PEG of 24.

Other games: Lipscomb cruises to a 69-54 win over North Florida. Adnan Hozdic led the way for Lipscomb with a PEG of 19. North Florida had Stetson on the ropes and should have had the huge road upset, but 6 turnovers in the last 2 1/2 minutes resulted in an 18-0 Stetson run to turn a 13-point deficit into a 5-point win. This just in: A. J. Smith and Garfield Blair are pretty good.

Weird stat of the night: Stetson and FGCU combined for 29 offensive rebounds, but only 7 second-chance points. Another fun stat: Teams that lost last night were only 3-of-8 on the front end of a one-and-one in the second half. Winning teams were 6-of-9.

Coming up: ETSU is at Mercer tonight. The Nashville schools swap gyms in Jacksonville Saturday afternoon.

Memo to Eric Yutzy and Steve Wrigley: Take the sock out of your mouths and REPORT THE LOCAL SOCREBOARD! I'm not asking you to send 2 camera crews to Jacksonville to cover A-Sun road games in December. I'm not even asserting that a Belmont or Lipscomb (or MTSU, or Austin Peay, or whoever) game tonight is bigger news than a Titans game yesterday or tomorrow. But can we at least 7 seconds for scores, even on title cards? About the only sports reporting ESPN doesn't do is to cover local teams. Please, do your job. In this media age, it's all you have left.