{"id":162241,"date":"2026-02-20T06:00:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-20T06:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/162241\/"},"modified":"2026-02-20T06:00:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-20T06:00:09","slug":"cleveland-liberty-defeat-florida-international-90-89-in-ot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/162241\/","title":{"rendered":"Cleveland, Liberty defeat Florida International 90-89 in OT"},"content":{"rendered":"

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LYNCHBURG, Va. (AP) \u2014 Zach Cleveland scored 18 points, five in overtime, as Liberty<\/a> defeated Florida International<\/a> 90-89 on Thursday.<\/p>\n

Cleveland had eight assists for the Flames (23-3, 15-0 Conference USA). JJ Harper shot 6 for 9 (2 for 3 from 3-point range) and 2 of 5 from the free-throw line to add 16 points. Brett Decker Jr. finished with 16 points. It was the 17th straight victory for the Flames.<\/p>\n

Corey Stephenson finished with 23 points, six rebounds and four steals for the Panthers (12-14, 5-10). FIU also got 21 points from Zawdie Jackson, and Larry Olayinka finished with 18 points, two steals and three blocks.<\/p>\n

Harper put up 13 points in the first half for Liberty, who led 41-40 at the break. Liberty was outscored by one point in the second half as the teams ended regulation tied 80-80. Cleveland finished 2 of 2 from the field on the way to their five points in overtime.<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

The Associated Press created this story using technology provided by Data Skrive and data from Sportradar.<\/p>\n

\n Copyright 2026 STATS LLC and Associated Press. Any commercial use or distribution without the express written consent of STATS LLC and Associated Press is strictly prohibited.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LYNCHBURG, Va. (AP) \u2014 Zach Cleveland scored 18 points, five in overtime, as Liberty defeated Florida International 90-89…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":143039,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[8294,28,30,42083,29,27028],"class_list":{"0":"post-162241","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-florida","8":"tag-college-basketball","9":"tag-florida","10":"tag-florida-headlines","11":"tag-florida-international-panthers","12":"tag-florida-news","13":"tag-liberty-flames"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162241","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=162241"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162241\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/143039"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=162241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=162241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=162241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}