Nice Win Owls!! :D

FIU desperation pass is picked off by Gantt! FAU wins 80-78 in overtime and takes the Sun Belt Conference east division!

"FAU! FAU!" cheered by Owls fans.

Way to battle Owl's, way to take a tough hard fought game on the road!

Congrats on the eastern title, now take the whole thing.

Go Owl's

Mike Jarvis: "We've got a lot of work to do."

He said the Owls' win was tough, but expected.

"For us to win on the road tonight shows a lot character," he said.

"Jordan McCoy was outstanding at crunch time. Ray Taylor made some huge threes. Brett (Royster) gives you what he can give you."

Jarvis said he expects to have a 21-win season after next week. "There aren't many teams in the country that got 19 or more wins."

"I want to be Sun Belt champs," Jarvis said. "I expect us to win these next two games."

Way to go Coach - keep pushing them to be better!

Mike said

"I want to be Sun Belt champs," Jarvis said. "I expect us to win these next two games."

Unless I am mistaken FAU is only one win from clinching the regular season championship and at least an NIT bid.

Congratulations to the Owls!

somewhat off topic but we did get a mention in a Carmelo Anthony story


MIAMI — When asked directly if he is consulting with Knicks owner James Dolan about the Carmelo Anthony trade, Isiah Thomas would not say.

"I have no comment," Thomas told ESPNNewYork.com after his Florida International University lost to rival Florida Atlantic 80-78 in overtime Saturday to remain in last place in the Sun Belt Conference's East division.

There are have been reports that Dolan is listening to Thomas, a former Knick executive and coach, as much, if not more than the Knicks' current team president Donnie Walsh. With the Nets meeting with Anthony on Saturday, a league source told ESPN.com, it appears as if the Anthony trade could end up being a stare down between New Jersey owner Mikhail Prokhorov and Dolan.

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"I don't feel it is my place to comment about any of this stuff," Thomas said. "I want the Knicks to do well and I definitely want Jim to do well."

If Thomas is pulling the strings behind the scenes with Dolan, he is telling the owner that Anthony is a proven winner, who can score with almost anyone in the league.

"He won an NCAA championship," Thomas said. "He's one or the five, six scorers in the league. His teams have always played well. He's a great player."

When asked if, in his opinion, an NBA team could win with two stars, Thomas stayed loyal to his current job.

"I'm in college now," Thomas said. "I'm trying to build a college team. I'll leave the building of an NBA team to the NBA guys."

Thomas also declined to say if he had recently spoken to Walsh. This past offseason, Dolan tried to re-hire Thomas as a consultant, but NBA commissioner David Stern eventually ruled that it would be too big a conflict for Thomas to coach a college team and be a paid consultant.

In a statement after the decision, Dolan seemed to thumb his nose at the ruling.

"Although I'm disappointed that Isiah will not be working with the Knicks as a consultant, I continue to believe in his basketball knowledge, including his ability to judge talent," Dolan said in a statement. "He's a good friend of mine and of the organization and I will continue to solicit his views. He will always have strong ties to me and the team. We wish him continued success at FIU."

Walsh reportedly was not in favor of hiring Thomas at the time. On Saturday night, across the country from Los Angeles, the South Florida arena in which Thomas worked could not have felt further from the All-Star Game. It was in an ideal hot spot, like Los Angeles, but there were 1,531 fans in the 5,000-seat arena.

Minutes before tip-off, the U.S. Century Bank was largely empty as Thomas and Florida Atlantic coach Mike Jarvis shook hands. Jarvis, the former St. John's coach, and Thomas smiled and joked a few moments, Thomas flashing that familiar wide-grin.

Photos: Carmelo Anthony's career

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Thomas' team, a talented club, is a disappointing 9-17.

During the game, Thomas mostly sat and watched, only rising every once in awhile to point something out to one of his players. In the second half and OT, he became a little more animated, jumping up from his seats and occasionally raising his voice.

The FAU student section mostly heckled the FIU players, but there were a few taunts at Thomas, one referencing his failures with the Knicks.

During his postgame press conference, Thomas sounded as he did on many nights at the Garden, even if the venue looked much different. With only 12 media members listening, Thomas lamented how if he had two of his better young players for the entire season, then things might be different and if his team just made their free throws they wouldn't be in last place.

Always the salesman, Thomas recognized a familiar New York face as he walked into the post-loss press conference. Thomas smiled and said, "FIU is big time."

Not yet, but on the other side of the country, far, far away from the bright lights and melodrama of the All-Star Game, arguably the best little man the NBA may still be having a huge impact on the big time.



Isiah Thomas won't say if he's consulting New York Knicks on Carmelo Anthony - ESPN New York

Box Score:

So you're in last place in your conference in basketball, your coach makes excuses why you only have 9 wins, your coach OBVIOUSLY doesn't want to be there but "FIU is big time" right?

Isiah is an idiot! "If we had our 2 young scorers" Well if the Queen had balls she'd be the King

A couple things I noticed from last night:

Their arena is pretty nice, I feel its like the Burrow pre-renovation. The fact that you can't see the scoreboard from every vantage point in the arena is just silly to me. However if they did a $9 mil. renovation to it, I bet it would be one of the nicest places to play in the 'Belt.

Our team knows how to win and its because of experience. These are the type of games that we lost last year. A year of experience and good coaching is the difference between this team and last year's team.

Our D is pretty darn good. When you only shoot 39% from the floor, you are going to have to rely on defense a lot to win, and we certainly do that. However we did hit the big shots when we needed them and I guess that's what counts the most.

I feel like we may have gotten pretty darn lucky with the refs last night. There were some calls that went our way that I felt fortunate to get, including the goal tending. I had a bad vantage point and it looked like the ball neither hit the backboard and was still on the way up when it was blocked. Anyone else see it?

FIU certainly has talent and our young, but do they have a coach that can develop that talent? Also, I thought there were times when FIU showed the youth committing dumb fouls. One of the worst I saw was on a breakaway McCoy dunk. He was clearly going to make it and was wide open and an FIU player came up and tried to swat it away and ended up hitting his arm. And McCoy made them pay by hitting the FT. FIU will be a really good team down the road if they can put it all together.

Proud of our fans for coming down. I hope next year there are even more, we could totally take over that arena with 100 of our fans.

Go Owls!