Men's Basketball | 1/3/2020 11:00:00 AM
LAKELAND, Fla.—The non-conference portion, and 2019 portion of the Southeastern University men's basketball schedule came to a close last week with the Fire dropping their game to No. 1 Morningside during the Hoop City Classic.
The Fire trailed by 16 at halftime and by as many as 19 during the game.
Riley Minix had a career-high 32 points, going 12-of-20 from the field, and made five 3-pointers. With the Fire down 19, Minix went on a 7-2 run himself, then senior
Jeremy Oppenheimer scored six straight points to get the deficit to single digits with 5:55 to play.
SEU got as close as three in the final three minutes, but couldn't close any further.
The second game during the classic for SEU was scheduled to be against No. 7 Dakota Wesleyan, but was canceled due to weather in the area.
The Fire won seven of their 11 non-conference games, which included five of six at home.
Conference play resumes on Saturday as Southeastern heads to Miami Gardens to take on Florida Memorial.
Southeastern is 4-1 in Sun Conference play which has it in third place behind 5-0 Ave Maria and 4-0 Keiser.
The Lions have struggled under second-year head coach Ansar Al-Ameen and are 3-9 overall and 1-3 in conference play. However, FMU's lone conference win came against Webber International by one in Babson Park, which is SEU's lone conference loss this season.
Individually, Mubashar Ali averages a double-double at 18.6 points and 13.3 rebounds per game. The junior seven-footer from Helsinki is shooting 57.4% from the field, and is 80% at the line. He's also the national leader in offensive rebounding (4.3 per game) and total rebounding (13.3 per game).
Over the last three seasons, the series is tied at three wins each. The Fire won both matchups last season and the Lions won both during the 2016-17 season, which included a wild triple overtime win at The Furnace on February 9
th. Each team won its home game during the 2017-18 season.
