FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- In a battle of play styles, Miles was hoping to control the tempo against Nova Southeastern in hopes of pulling off a stunning upset in the opening round of the NCAA Division II South Region Tournament on Saturday evening.

But an early lead quickly fell by the wayside and the Sharks, the No. 1 team in the country, used their uptempo attack to subdue Miles 97-55 at Rick Case Arena, The Golden Bears, who were the No. 8 seed, saw their season come to an end with a 23-7 record and SIAC championship in tow. Despite the loss, head coach Fred Watson said there was no reason for the anyone in the program to hang their heads.

"This was a bad match up for us. But we're blessed. I told the team coming into this that nothing that we do here will diminish what we earned last week," Watson said. "We'll go home and see what we can do better. But we got beat by a very good team tonight."

Miles got a couple of quick shots up early and grabbed a quick lead. Rodney Battle drained a 3-ball on the opening possession. The next time the Golden Bears got the ball, Eddie Smith drained a triple and it was 6-2 a minute into the contest. The Sharks (31-0) tied the game but Smith (six points, two rebounds) scored again to give Miles an 8-6 advantage three minutes into the contest.

Unfortunately, the next three minutes were all Nova Southeastern's. Four turnovers in 56 seconds led gave the Sharks the lead. Three more missed shots helped feed a 10-0 run which was stopped by a bucket from Yasim Hooker that shortened the deficit to 16-10 less than six minutes into the game. A minute later, NSU had its first double-digit lead of the contest but thanks to a jumper from Truitt Spencer, Miles trailed just 27-18 midway through the first half.

The Golden bears continued to hang in during the opening half. A dunk by Anthony Latty and a four-point play by Battle, who was fouled as he splashed another 3-pointer, had Miles to within 30-24 with eight minutes left before halftime.

"You've got to be tough. Against a good team like that, you've got to be ready to get your shot," said Battle, who scored a team-high 15 points. "They get shots all the time. To get better, we've got to get more shots like them."

Nova was not only putting up the shots, but making them. The Sharks closed the half on a 17-4 run, which started to dampen any dreams of an upset. Chase Ballard's bucket right before the horn sent Miles into the locker room trailing 53-31. One of the main culprits in the first half were turnovers, as Miles let the ball go 20 times that turned into 18 points for the Sharks.

Once NSU scored the first seven points of the second half, the writing was even more on the wall for Miles. Any offensive success for the Golden Bears was met with a flurry of points on the other end. The Sharks are the top scoring team in the country but the Golden Bears could take solace in the fact that they held them under their 104 point-per-game average.

"I told our guys there were no losers in this game. They won and we're going to try and learn from it and get better," Watson said. We're ultimately going to be judged on the final result. But no one knows what we went through to get here. How hard we worked. How much they sacrificed. So I'm just proud that we were here. We, in that locker room, don't judge ourselves on this result.

"We judge ourselves on our camaraderie, our brotherhood, how we played the game and the manner in which we play the game. We just ran into a good team. We played as well as we could. They were prepared. They were game. We just didn't get it done. No excuses."

Hooker had six points, five rebounds and a steal and Ballard had six points, five assists and three steals for Miles.