Soaring to new heights: the rise of North Florida basketball

In college basketball, we often love mid-major programs due to their Cinderella runs in the March Madness. We learn about the team and their journey through the year all in the span of about a week. Some programs, however, have stories coming into the season that deserve attention.

Some of those stories deserve the spotlight. Take this team for example, a mid-major school only 20 years old. The team finished 16-16 last season and their best player to a power conference team. They only have one NCAA Tournament appearance to their name and lost in the first round.

They were picked seventh in both the media and coaches polls in the preseason.

Now imagine this. The aforementioned team not only won their first three games of the season but also beat two power conference teams in those contests. The team is fun and exciting, and the basketball team has been division one for only 20 years. The team I just described is the North Florida Ospreys.

A bit of history first, the Ospreys play in the Atlantic Sun and have done so every season since they moved up to the Division 1 level back in 2005. To put that in perspective, if the North Florida basketball program was a person, that person would be a freshman in college this year.

In those 20 seasons, the Ospreys have managed one NCAA tournament appearance, which happened in 2015, where they lost in the first round as a 16 seed. The number 16 is also the number of seasons that head coach Matthew Driscoll has been at the helm of the program. He led that team to their first NCAA Tournament berth. As the head man, he has led the team to three winning seasons and a program-high 23 wins during the 2014-15 season.

You may be asking yourself, why is a team that only has three winning seasons, one tournament appearance and picked seventh in their preseason conference poll so special? Why have you dedicated an article to them? You ask, and I will tell you.

The Ospreys opened the season on the road against South Carolina in what is referred to as a “buy game” where a power conference team will pay a mid-major school to come and play them, typically before conference play. Mid-major teams typically collect the check, play the game, lose and then go home.

Apparently nobody told North Florida this, as they went into Columbia, facing off against a team that went to the NCAA tournament last year and beat them 74-71 despite being down at halftime.

They outrebounded an SEC team, shot 42 percent from the floor and limited the Gamecocks to making five threes on 16 shots. Ok, so that was one upset. These things happen in college basketball. There was no way they could follow that up with another upset, right? Wrong.

After a second win over Charleston Southern, the Ospreys flew into Georgia Tech and did it again. Instead of a mere three-point win, this one was by 12, 105-93.

North Florida took the lead with 3:25 left in the first half and never let up. The team shot 53.6 percent from the floor and outrebounded the Yellow Jackets 41-38. Yes, that is a small margin but remember this is a mid-major team on the road against a power conference opponent.

They did all of this after their best player, Chaz Lainer, left the program to transfer to Tennessee.

Overall, the Ospreys currently sit at 3-1 after a 13-point loss to Georgia on Nov. 12.

The Bulldogs are expected to be a tournament team and North Florida did an admirable job of staying in the game. Keep an eye out for these birds of prey, as they may find some more victims to upset very soon.

Nate Johns is a first-year majoring in broadcast journalism. To contact him, email jzn5275@psu.edu.