Gene Frenette: Excruciating season-ending finishes for JU, UNF basketball in ASUN tourney

March Madness turned out to be a double gut punch for the city of Jacksonville’s crosstown rivals at the ASUN tournament.

Both Jacksonville University and North Florida suffered the twin pain of their basketball seasons ending by buzzer beaters.

When JU lost in excruciating fashion — on a step-back, three-point shot by Stetson’s Stephan Swenson to beat the Dolphins 88-87 in the ASUN semifinals Thursday night at the Edmunds Center — no coach outside the JU program felt that pain more than North Florida’s Matthew Driscoll.

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Just 48 hours earlier, it was the Ospreys who experienced a similar dagger on the road at Austin Peay. The Ospreys were one second away from a quarterfinal win, only to allow a Governors’ game-tying basket by Isaac Haney before falling 101-98 in overtime.

Here’s how eerily similar the twin nightmares unfolded for JU and UNF in their win-or-go-home scenarios: the Dolphins led 77-67 with under five minutes remaining and couldn’t hold off Stetson.

The Ospreys were up 80-75 on Austin Peay with 1:15 left to play and failed to close it out, missing two crucial free throws in the process.

UNF led the entire second half until Haney’s game-tying layup. The Dolphins led for the last 16 minutes until Swanson made the last of his four consecutive three-pointers with 4.3 seconds remaining.

Afterwards, JU coach Jordan Mincy minced no words in describing the scene in the team’s postgame locker room.

“Terrible. I couldn’t get them to lift their heads up,” Mincy told the Times-Union. “Everybody was crying. It’s hard to swallow when you’re a couple seconds away from going to the championship game.”

Driscoll knew that dreary scene all too well. He watched the JU-Stetson game while returning from a recruiting trip to Lakeland to watch future Ospreys’ 6-foot-7 forward Josh Harris of Pembroke Pines.

Emotionally, It was like reliving the way UNF’s season came crashing down against the Governors.

“The [ESPN] announcer said when Stetson was down 10 points that they’d have to be perfect the rest of the game, and they were,” Driscoll said.

Talking about the JU-Stetson finish opened some wounds for Driscoll that will need more time to fully heal.

“So many emotions were going through me at one time after we lost, which created a lot of frustration and disappointment,” Driscoll said. “A loss for words. It was almost like, ‘I can’t believe what just happened and unfolded.’

“It’s depressing, just going back through every single thing. What happens is you beat yourself up with what-ifs. At the end of the day, we didn’t get a stop [on defense]. You go through this whole barrage of mental lows and negatives.”

That soul-crushing experience may cut even deeper for JU because it was on the verge of a miraculous story — reaching the ASUN championship as a No. 10 seed. It had upset top-seeded Eastern Kentucky 67-65 on Tuesday, so being within an eyelash of taking down No. 2 Stetson only magnified the sense of disappointment.

The Dolphins haven’t been to the NCAA tournament since 1986. Making JU's run more improbable is it was two seconds away from not even qualifying for the ASUN tourney, needing an Austin Peay overtime win over Central Arkansas in the final regular-season game.

But the Dolphins were a totally different team this week, transforming from what Mincy called an “awful” offense into a formidable attack that averaged 82.0 points in the ASUN tournament.

Thanks to Robert McCray and Bryce Workman, who combined for 152 of JU’s 246 points in three games, JU almost pulled off the unthinkable. McCray averaged 30.3 points on 28 of 49 shooting, including 12 of 19 from three-point range.

An hour after his team’s season ended so stunningly, Mincy showed his class by paying tribute to Swenson (29 points, 7 assists, hitting 7 of 9 three-pointers) for how he brought the Hatters back after JU seemingly had all the momentum.

“I give all the credit to [Swenson] for staying at Stetson four years when people were trying to pull him out of the transfer portal,” said Mincy. “You don’t ever want to lose a game like that, but against a kid with such great character, it makes it easier to swallow.”

Still, it’s going to take a while for JU and UNF to numb the pain from basketball seasons ending just seconds away from a glorious celebration.

Jaguars preserving O-line over defense

When Jaguars GM Trent Baalke and head coach Doug Pederson started making decisions on who to keep for 2024 and who to cut for salary cap purposes, you had to wonder whether a suspect defense or porous offensive line would feel the most attrition.

The early returns followed the same pattern as the season’s immediate aftermath when most of the defensive coaching staff got the ax.

Defensive tackle Foley Fatukasi, safety Rayshawn Jenkins and cornerback Darious Williams, a Creekside High product, all got kicked to the curb for salary cap relief. It also seems unlikely that cornerback Tre Herndon, soon to be a free agent, will return.

But the Jaguars appear hellbent on retaining most, if not all, of their key O-line pieces. As Baalke strongly hinted after the season, media reports have the team signing guard Ezra Cleveland to a three-year, $28.5 million contract.

Furthermore, an NFL Network report by Ian Rapoport says the Jaguars are set to restructure the contract of starting right guard Brandon Scherff, who has a whopping $24 million cap figure.

It remains to be seen whether the Jaguars do the same thing with left tackle Cam Robinson, who has a $21.168 million cap hit (per Ourlads) in the final year of his deal.

Judging by these early transactions, the Jaguars figure to use free agency and the NFL Draft to replenish a ton of holes on defense (two cornerback spots, defensive tackle, pass-rush depth), plus receiver if impending free agent Calvin Ridley winds up going elsewhere.

Meanwhile, an offensive line that underperformed and missed too much playing time in 2023 at left tackle and left guard looks to be getting a mulligan. It’s a risky move, but the Jaguars couldn’t afford to let go of too many starters.

It just better hope the O-line, particularly center Luke Fortner, makes the most out of getting another chance.

Will AFC South be big spenders?

As NFL teams prepare to get a head start on free agent shopping Monday, one of the bigger questions is how much the Jaguars and their AFC South competitors will be willing to spend to fortify their rosters.

According to Spotrac, the Jaguars are currently middle-of-the-pack with approximately $20 million in cap space, which might allow them to pursue one high-priced free agent and maybe a couple others in the moderate price range.

It’d be a huge lift for the Jaguars’ defense if they could land Miami Dolphins defensive tackle Christian Wilkins or Minnesota Vikings pass-rusher Danielle Hunter, but the interest in their services figures to be intense. The Jaguars may be reluctant to get into a bidding war.

Among the suitors could be the other three AFC South teams, all of whom have plenty of cap space to make splash moves. The Tennessee Titans ($80 million), Houston Texans ($70 million) and Indianapolis Colts ($52.9 million) can go big-game hunting with those resources.

The Jaguars were big spenders two years ago, doling out nearly $260 million and over $150 million guaranteed to seven players. Many of those acquisitions, including Christian Kirk, Foye Oluokun, Evan Engram, Zay Jones and Scherff, paid dividends and led to a 2022 AFC South title.

It’ll be interesting to see if one of the Jaguars’ division rivals is bold enough to follow that formula.

Quick-hitting nuggets

The passing last week of ESPN NFL reporter Chris Mortensen to throat cancer at 72 is a massive loss for many of us in the sports media industry because he was an exemplary role model. Mortensen was among the first wave of sports writers, making his mark at the Atlanta Constitution, who made a successful transition to television as an impactful information man. What made Mort a true standout was his humility and willingness to help anybody in the business. He never allowed his media stardom to inflate his ego, and Mortensen’s lengthy, courageous battle with a cruel disease further elevated his stature. RIP, Mort. …

Russell Wilson saying on the “I Am Athlete” podcast that he wants to win “two Super Bowls in the next five years” is NFL hubris at its highest level. The declining 35-year-old quarterback, soon to be released after a pedestrian 2023 season with the Denver Broncos, will be lucky to regain a starting job, let alone double his current ring collection. …

Netflix is scheduled to stream a boxing match between legendary former heavyweight champion Mike Tyson and the polarizing 27-year-old Jake Paul, scheduled for July 20 at AT&T Stadium. Tyson hasn’t had an official fight in nearly two decades and turns 58 before the bout. Paul said in a statement this “will be the fight of a lifetime.” Correction, Jake, it’s a fight so lame that even 92-year-old Don King would be too embarrassed to promote it.

Gfrenette@jacksonville.com: (904) 359-4540; Follow him on X, formerly Twitter, at @genefrenette 

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Twin killing: JU, UNF feel each other's pain after heartbreaking ASUN finish