Get ready for the cold, North Florida. You might want to bring your parkas... unless you're extremely lucky and get one of those rare "warm" winter spells.
The UNF Ospreys and Syracuse Orange basketball programs will meet for the very first time, in the Carrier Dome on December 3. After winning the Atlantic Sun regular season title for the second straight year, North Florida was bounced from the conference tournament semifinals by our favorite NCAA Tourney darling Florida Gulf Coast. They earned a spot in the National Invitational Tournament (NIT) as a result. The Ospreys made their first NCAA Tournament appearance in 2015 after winning the A-Sun, but lost 81-77 to Robert Morris in their "First Four" game.
North Florida has the reigning A-Sun Player of the Year in guard Dallas Moore who averaged 19.8 points per game. The team is led by eighth-year head coach Matthew Driscoll and the two-time A-Sun Coaching Staff of the Year.
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Adding North Florida gets Syracuse to 10 games on the 2016-17 slate with a few more to go. Those confirmed games are as follows:
Friday, November 11: Colgate Raiders
Tuesday, November 15: Holy Cross Crusaders
Friday, November 18: Monmouth Hawks
Tuesday, November 22: South Carolina State Bulldogs
Saturday, November 26: South Carolina Gamecocks (at Barclays Center)
Tuesday, November 29: at Wisconsin Badgers
Saturday, December 3: North Florida Ospreys
Monday, December 5: Connecticut Huskies (at Madison Square Garden)
Saturday, December 17: Georgetown Hoyas
Wednesday, December 21: St. John's Red Storm