Mercer Bears at Florida Gulf Coast Eagles

Mercer earns 1st NCAA tournament berth since 1985

"Man," Hall said, "that could have been us."

This time, it will be. Mercer will do the playing, FGCU will have to do the watching.

Everyone knows what happened next: Little-known FGCU ran and dunked its way into the Sweet 16. This time, it's Mercer's turn to try and make some magic happen, getting its NCAA ticket after seeing what was an 18-point lead cut all the way down to one, but hanging on to hand the Eagles their third home loss in 33 games over the last two seasons.

A year ago, Mercer coach Bob Hoffman predicted that FGCU would win NCAA games. This time, he sees no reason why his club can't do the same.

"We have a great league and it's underappreciated and it's unbelievable how it continues to be underappreciated," Hoffman said. "Our teams have to play so many money games. That's why the records are so bad. But we have great coaches and great players in our league and it was witnessed today. That was a great college basketball game."

Bernard Thompson and Brett Comer scored 14 points each for FGCU (22-12), which got 13 from Chase Fieler. The Eagles missed 14 of their 16 3-point attempts, gave up 15 second-chance points and were handcuffed by foul trouble all game.

"It's not easy to play with expectations," FGCU coach Joe Dooley said.

The Eagles are assured of a berth in the NIT, and hope to host at least one game.

"We never really felt like we weren't going to win," said a red-eyed Fieler, who congratulated every Mercer player he could find before leaving the court as the Bears commenced their net-cutting celebration.

Thanks largely to a 20-2 run and an 0-for-11 effort by FGCU on jumpers in the opening 20 minutes, Mercer's lead was 16 points at the half. But the Bears seemed stagnant offensively to open the second 20 minutes, almost looking to burn clock instead of score points.

FGCU took advantage.

Over a 6½-minute stretch, a 16-point deficit got trimmed to one on a score by Fieler with 8:50 left. After the Eagles missed their first 10 tries from 3-point range, Brett Comer and Filip Cvjeticanin made consecutive tries from beyond the arc, then Comer added a three-point play and Fieler's basket made it 43-42.

Mercer has thrived in close games all season, and it showed. Very much on the ropes, the Bears ripped off the next seven points, needing only 59 seconds to do so, and simply held on from there.

"They love road kill," Hoffman said. "They love to go get it."

"It was actually calming to get out of that stretch of how loud they were," White said.

Not long afterward, the Bears were cutting down the net, just like they planned.

When Mercer lost at Florida Gulf Coast on Feb. 21, Gollon said the Bears figured they would be back in Fort Myers for the title game, and their chance at avenging the hurt of a year ago.

He walked off the court Sunday with the net draped around his neck.

"It really hurt last year," Gollon said. "We thought last year was our year. ... But we knew that coming back in here and cutting these ones down might be a good last chapter to the story that we've written thus far."

How can I watch Mercer vs. Florida Gulf Coast?

• TV Channel: Mercer at Florida Gulf Coast 2021 College Basketball, week 18, is broadcasted on ESPN2.
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