On a beautiful Thursday night in Boca Raton, Florida, the FAU Owls defeated the SMU Mustangs 80-70 in what was called the “sandstorm”.
“Extremely proud of our effort tonight against a really sound, physical program that we have a ton of respect for,” FAU head coach Dusty May said postgame. “I thought our guys were able to match their physicality. For us to have the rebounding edge that we did and generate more shots like we were able to do… it’s a testament to our guys’ determination. They had the focused look that we’ve been missing a little bit of lately.”
After losing to a red-hot USF team in their previous game last Sunday, the Owls fell out of the AP Top 25. But thanks to Alijah Martin’s 20 points, FAU was able to get back on track versus the Mustangs as they aim to be ranked again.
Martin, who has been inconsistent at many times this season, was nothing but consistent tonight. The junior shot 8-of-14 from the field and even had a monster poster dunk, arguably the dunk of the year in college basketball.
“I’ve been mad at myself all year for taking these finger roll layups around the rim when I could dunk it,” Martin said postgame.
In addition to Martin, Vlad Goldin (game-high 21 points) and Johnell Davis (10 points) scored double digits for FAU. As a team, FAU shot 45% from the field and 30% from beyond the ark. In addition, FAU dominated SMU in second chance points (25 compared to 8) and points in the paint (42 compared to 26).
SMU only had five assists as a team. When asked about being able to shut down the passing lanes, Coach May said “our communication was much better on our switching. Tonight we were disruptive and much more physical.”
FAU is now 21-6 on the season, good for second in the AAC (American Athletic Conference). The Owls are two games behind USF for the first spot, but it’ll be hard to overcome, especially with USF holding the tiebreaker after the win last Sunday.
Next up for the Owls is a road matchup with the Memphis Tigers on Sunday at 2:00 PM. Just like FAU, Memphis was previously ranked in the Top 25. The last time these two teams faced was in March Madness last year when Nick Boyd hit a game-winning shot in the round of 64 to knock off Memphis.
When asked about the win and what it does for the team’s expectations, Coach May said the following: “The expectations haven’t changed for us… it’s not where we want it to be, but we are still in the picture. Most importantly, we got to take care of Memphis and go win one possession at a time. We are going to need a little bit of help but our goal from day one has been to play our best basketball in March. We haven’t had our full team with rotation all year. Now it’s just that time of year where that team that’s been through so much emotionally can see the finish line. We’ve been in this spot before. So we know what it takes and now we have to continue to take care of our bodies, ramp up our intensity, and play championship level basketball.”
