“Pure joy” was what FAU MBB Coach John Jakus felt when watching his team’s effort during their 94-74 wire to wire victory over UTSA Wednesday Night. It was a joyous night indeed, as the Owls played aggressive basketball for a full 40 minutes, never trailing on their way to their first dominating victory during AAC play.
It was all Owls from the get go, as UTSA Coach Austin Claunch tried to reel it in early by calling a timeout after his team turned it over trailing 4-0 with 18:23 to play in the first half, however that was just the beginning of the avalanche. Although UTSA was able to convert at a 46% rate from beyond the arc, the Owls outscored them in the paint 36-22, also one-upping them with 50% shooting from 3 and a 43-28 advantage on the glass.
From the very beginning it seemed like everyone was excelling in their roles, as within the first 10 minutes Leland Walker had 3 offensive rebounds, Kyky Tandy had a pair of triples, Kaleb Glenn had a jam down low off an assist from Matas Vokietaitis, Vokietaitis converted an and-1 and even Devin Vanterpool saw 1st half minutes for the first time during AAC play and stole a rebound away from UTSA Center David Hermes. Nights like this where everything is clicking are dream performances for a coach and according to Jakus, tonight was Pure Joy from a coaching standpoint.
“Maybe this is hard to understand, but it’s like it’s pure joy. I mean, I think we’re better than our record. I’ve seen us in practice. I see our moments. I see what happens when we’re down to UAB and down 12 or 16 or Rice and come back have 18 minutes and 10 minutes. We played good basketball for 12 minute stretches, but today, we just decided that maybe 22 to 25 was better. And I’m thrilled for them, because the one thing they haven’t given up is quitting. They don’t quit. They’re here every morning, getting up shots, doing extra work. It’s a wonderful group that loves each other, so I was thrilled for them,” Jakus said.
The Owls were led tonight by Kyky Tandy, who finished with a season high 26 points on a career high 8 of 10 shooting from beyond the arc and his unconscious performance tonight was the driving factor behind FAU’s dominatining win. As usual with this FAU squad, it wasn’t just a one man band, as Kaleb Glenn scored 17, Vokietaitis and Ken Evans Jr both added 12, Baba Miller chipped in 10 and as a whole the Owls assisted on 23 out of their 33 made field goals.
FAU has struggled at times this season with scoring droughts, especially from beyond the arc, however the Owls found a way to push past 4 of 13 shooting from 3 in the first half and that was in large part due to their ball movement and aggressive mindset to attack the paint. Alongside their ball movement, the Owls ability to crash the glass and create second chances was pivotal tonight, as they recorded 15 offensive rebounds and even when UTSA looked to get a stop, FAU continued to play aggressively.
Jakus mentioned that this team has never once quit, but tonight their consistent aggressiveness all throughout was a true example of that and it is something to build on going forward. Although the Owls dominated this game for nearly 40 minutes, after the game Tandy wouldn’t say whether or not this was FAU’s best game of the year, but did acknowledge his squad played for a full 40 minutes.
“I feel we played a full 40 minutes that game, we want to play like that together we’ll keep on progressing, and we’ll keep working,” Tandy said.
In nearly every AAC game so far, FAU has been in tightly contested battles, some they were able to pull out the victory and others they fell short, but against UTSA was the first time the Owls truly won in dominating fashion during conference play. Outside of the second half against UNT, the Owls have now played 3 of their best halves of basketball in between the first half against North Texas and both halves against UTSA and this squad looks to be peaking at the right time.
The beginning of conference play has not been easy by any stretch of the imagination and while some could be negatively impacted by a rocky stretch during the season, FAU has found a way to build on their struggles and now look to be playing some of their best basketball of the season. This win was a sigh of relief according to Kaleb Glenn, as the Owls needed to bounce back quickly following the loss to North Texas and they did exactly that.
“Yeah, we’ve been talking about we just need to go out there and do our job and don’t let it be close, because half the time you don’t even need to be close. It’s just all of our mistakes. So today the emphasis was on just starting from the jump and keeping the foot on the pedal,” Glenn said.
After a stretch of games where the Owls were plagued by inconsistencies, tonight they were able to shrug that off and get scoring in a variety of ways on one end and opportune defensive stops on the other. This was the type of game many envisioned when John Jakus described the high powered offense he wanted to enact during the offseason and tonight was an example of everything coming together.
The next 4 games after this are all ones against teams in the bottom half of the AAC and tonight’s win has the chance to catapult them into a bit of a win streak, but it’s doubtful Jakus lets this team put the cart before the house and rather they will take it one game at a time. Although Jakus didn’t specifically acknowledge the chance of a win streak, he did mention what a win like this could do for this team going forward, noting that this could be just the beginning of an avalanche.
“Todd Abernathy said this, sometimes this is the beginning of an avalanche, and you don’t know it. But in this league, we could turn around and on Sunday be a close game, and it completely flipped back. So we’ll take it a day at a time. I hope it’s the beginning of an avalanche, but at least for one day, the guys saw that if they do the right thing, good things will happen,” Jakus said.