The No. 10 Florida Atlantic University men's basketball team (2-1) fell to Bryant (2-3) on Saturday evening.
For the second game in a row, the Owls found a score right off the opening tip, this time on a layup by Johnell Davis just four seconds in. Davis scored seven early on to take a 10-2 lead just four minutes in.
Davis (photo right by Christian Proscia) tallied his second career double-double, leading the team with 17 points and a career-high tying 12 rebounds.
The rest of the half became a back-and-forth affair, with Florida Atlantic finding themselves in unfamiliar territory for this season: a deficit.
The Owls never let them fall behind by more than two in the first period and with the game tied entering the final minute of the frame, Alijah Martin hit a clutch three-pointer to give his team a 29-26 lead.
The Owls faced more adversity in the second half, trailing by as much as 12 with just over five minutes to go.
While Florida Atlantic fought on every possession, holding the Bulldogs to almost six minutes without a field goal, the key shots did not fall.
"Hats off to Bryant", said Head Coach Dusty May. "They played determined, they played well, they made the plays they needed to make, and it's a good basketball team that has faced a lot of adversity and they really came together as a group today. They were quick on the ball, great in transition, tough on the glass."
Giancarlo Rosado was the other Owl to reach double digit points with 11 for the night.
Florida Atlantic will head to Disney World for the eight-team ESPN Events Invitational. The first game will be Thanksgiving Day, Nov. 23, against Butler.
"We will not let this game define us", Rosado said. "We are going to come to practice the next day and prepare for Butler."
Comments
Forget what their season resume says, right now the Bulldogs are 1-1 and feeling good about themselves. New coach, fresh start. We can’t know what it was like inside the program while the previous coach was on administrative leave before abruptly resigning last week, but the environment couldn’t have been conducive to playing your best basketball. They also didn’t play well Thursday against Boston University in Phil Martelli Jr.’s first game as newly promoted head coach, and afterward Martelli lamented a lack of connectedness he promised to address.
Bu Bryant clearly has a few kids who can play. Martelli knows college basketball as son of one of its most successful and respected coaches. And last night, as Martelli told ESPN-plus viewers at halftime, the Bulldogs were well connected on offense and defense. Maybe he got his message across in two days. Maybe the crowd at the Elly brought out the best in the Bulldogs. Whatever, here at FAU we’ve come to appreciate the power of connectedness.
All this is not to confuse Bryant with Arizona, Illinois or even the opponent up next, Butler. We'll just see if Bryant ultimately ends up higher than 277 in the KenPom rankings.
As for the Owls, one interesting aspect last night was their inability to figure things out and self-correct down the stretch, something this group did marvelously last year. Many of FAU’s 35 wins came after they found the answers they needed in the late going in tossups against evenly matched opponents,
Last night there were no answers. The Owls shot poorly from deep and had trouble finishing at the rim. No answer. Equally uncharacteristically, they were punished for not closing out good defensive possessions with key defensive rebounds. No answer. And they didn’t rule the 50-50 balls. Probably didn’t even make it to 50. No answer.
Look, there is no doubt that this was a “trap game,” probably the first true trap game in program history. Coming off a 43-point pasting of Eastern Michigan and with the ESPN Invitational ahead this week in Orlando, maybe the Owls just got caught looking ahead.
It’s not a first in college basketball, but it is a first for them. A lot of what they’ll experience this year will be a first for them.
But they’re still the same team. There’s a lot of season left.
We’ll see what happens.
Live by the three, die by the three. We have pretty much lived by it for the last 1.5 years. Last night we died - hard.
If we go 1-of-2 in Orlando that would be a good result IMHO. But I'm prepared to lose both games.
We have three games in the invitational, no matter what bracket we're in. All take place on Thursday, Friday, and Sunday. That being said, we have a good chance to bounce back and get two out of three wins there.
Painful schedule right now…
Good news is that football will be over the 25th
I thought for sure that things would turn around in the 2nd, especially after we opened up strong against Bryant in the first.
Once we started to panic, the easiest lay-up's were even missed. Of course, if just 5 of those 10 balls that were in and out of the basket, fell then we would not be in this position.
There's a lot of pressure on this team and they are showing that they are human. It was not our night and a program in recent disarray wanted this win more than us.
The bullseye is now on our backs and every team is going to put forward their best effort. I think back to UNC and how they made the Championship game against Kansas in 2021-22 Season. And, the following year, they were ranked consensus #1 to start the 2022-23 season. Then the unthinkable happened, UNC did not make the tournament last year.
FAU basketball needs to realize that this same scenario can easily happen to them/us, if we don't prepare like each game is the last game of the season.
Here's the averages from FAU's 2022-23 season, 46.6% from the floor and 36.6% from the 3-point line.
Last night against Bryant we were 26.2 percent (17 of 65) from the floor and made just 5 of 30 (16.7 percent) from 3-point line.
I think if we passed the ball more and focused on getting points in the paint, the result would have been different. By passing unselfishly and finishing shots in the paint, the rest of their game would have fell into place. Then the three's would have opened up. It just seemed like each individual tried to rescue the game and it wasn't FAU unselfish basketball.
Hoping for a strong showing against Butler and then go into the invitational feeling good about ourselves again. I believe we will bounce back, now that they know they are human.
LET'S GO OWLS!!!!
I look at that first stat and think that's pretty incredible. And that's over the entire season… what, 34 games?
The 2nd state is 1 game from quite a few of the same players.
I can't help but think yesterday's stat is the anomaly.