Survive and advance season is upon us and in round 2 of the AAC tournament 5th seeded Florida Atlantic Men’s basketball survived against 13th seeded Charlotte and will advance to the quarterfinal round against Tulane tomorrow afternoon. The 49ers gave the Owls a true battle, keeping it within one to two possessions most of the game, however this FAU squad is battle tested and they were able to use that experience to pull out a 64-59 win in the end.
It wasn’t easy by any stretch of the imagination for the Owls, as Charlotte took a slim lead in the first half and although once FAU regained the lead they never lost it, the 49ers were able to capitalize on FAU’s mistakes and make it a close game the entire way. Those mistakes that Charlotte capitalized on were 20% shooting from beyond the arc and 50% shooting from the free throw line, but the Owls countered by out-scoring the 49ers 42-18 in the paint offensively, while defensively they held Charlotte to 35% from the field and 25% from 3.
Even though the Owls defense stymied the 49ers at times, Charlotte attempted to use their physicality to control the tempo and at times they were successful, getting in FAU’s head briefly with a flagrant, but in the end the Owls were able to overcome it. FAU spent 15 days on the road in the non-conference schedule and also played multiple ranked teams on the road. This team is experienced and according to FAU Coach John Jakus, they were able to show that in the end today.
“I think our defense carries, and that’s something we’ve had to continue to learn throughout the season, but certainly, before Christmas, we played as hard of a schedule as anybody in our league, besides Memphis, and we put ourselves in these road neutral situations constantly. And I think these guys did show some maturity down the stretch to perform in a neutral environment. So hopefully we’ll shoot better in this neutral environment tomorrow. But I thought the toughness was there,” Jakus said.
The Owls were led today by Matas Vokietaitis, who finished with 17 points and 7 rebounds and early on in this game he gave FAU the answer to Charlotte’s physicality that prevented them from capitalizing on the Owls poor shooting day. Behind Vokietaitis, Baba Miller finished with 13 points, while Tre Carroll added 12 points and the Owls’ size gave them a key advantage over the 49ers in this one.
Despite the Owls size advantage, Charlotte was in this game until the very end and after a Giancaro Rosado bucket down low they found themselves within 2, 54-52, with 2:03 to play. The Owls needed a bucket on the ensuing possession and Vokietaitis had a clear path to the rim for a potential dunk, but despite his personal success on the day he decided to kick out to Baba Miller for 3 and he converted, hitting the Owls second 3 of the day and giving them a 57-52 lead with 1:48 to go and according to Vokietaitis, he knew how big of a shot it would be, so he trusted his teammate to make it…and he did.
“When I started driving the ball I saw Baba and I thought it would be big time if he made it and he did,” Vokietaitis said.
The Owls found a way to overcome their shooting struggles in this one, using will-power to match Charlotte’s aggressiveness to do what every team needs to do in March… find a way to win. They have been in this situation before, as unfortunately for FAU, shooting struggles have plagued them a couple times this season, but when they have been able to overcome that is when they use their size to attack the paint against smaller teams, which today they were able to do.
FAU F Tre Carroll has been in this situation before, as is one of only 4 total Owls who know what this program is truly capable of in March and today he played a major role off the bench. With the Owls needing a jolt of energy in the second half as Charlotte closed in, Carroll came off the bench and converted two different three point plays, the first with 15:16 to play after Charlotte evened the game at 33 and the second with 10:33 to give the Owls a 6 point lead, which was their largest of the game at that point.
Carroll wasn’t ready to go home, mentioning after the game that this team came to win and he brought the energy when it was needed.
“I don’t want to go home yet. No one else wants to go home either. For this group, we want to win as many games as possible. Obviously, we came here to win nothing less, and I just wanted to come and provide energy, do the best I can to help with the team, because I feel like that’s my job as a leader, to bring energy to the court no matter what is happening,” Carroll said.
Next up for FAU will be Tulane, a team that defeated the Owls back in their last matchup on January 15th, however the Owls led in the first half in that one and they will be looking for a different result on a neutral court this time around. Jakus has identified issues that plagued FAU in the loss to Tulane and they will look to execute better tomorrow afternoon.
“Yeah, we’ll look again, but we’ve done some pre-work. I don’t think we handled the matchup zone as well as we should have done the stretch. And then I thought some of the cutting and the five out action gave us an issue. So we’ll look to clean those two things up, and we’ll get more details over the next four or five hours, but we’re clearly gonna have to play better than we did,” Jakus said.
The Owls will face off against Tulane at 3 PM est tomorrow from Dickies Arena in Fort Worth, the game will be televised on ESPN 2.