I'm not so concerned that we won't make the tournament or anything like that. But more so that we aren't aspiring to be great. Listening to coach May, there seems to be no urgency. Like just complacent that we are in the position we are in (I guess of making the tournament). His answers to free throw shooting and our record in particular. If you are just happy to make the tournament fine, but if you expect to compete for a championship then you should expect to win every game…not be happy with your record in compared to who you have played. And free throws could be a huge difference maker (as shown already in our regular season). To be honest, before last year, I would be thrilled to be the type of team to make the tournament here and there and maybe get a win, but my expectations have grown. So maybe I'm being too harsh.

Rick said

It's easy to be an armchair coach, but I honestly have no idea why we didn't go to a disruptive defense on their main guy…box and one would have been great. We probably don't employ it and that's that…but when you have one guy who is eating you alive you need to do what you need to do to stop it.

Posted On: Dec 30th 2023, 9:48 PM #419682

That’s been my main critique all season, our defense just lets guys go one on one and we don’t have the athletes at every position to play that way. This is 4th guy to have his highest scoring game against us. We don’t zone or press very well and the man to man has exploitable weaknesses. 

Our defense was insane last year, and now, it’s ranked outside the top 100. 

Until that gets tightened up, we aren’t going anywhere this year. Cannot rely on scoring 75+ every single game. 5-9 FGCU shouldn’t be able to score that easily on a top 10 team. 

Big Lerm said

I'm not so concerned that we won't make the tournament or anything like that. But more so that we aren't aspiring to be great. Listening to coach May, there seems to be no urgency. Like just complacent that we are in the position we are in (I guess of making the tournament). His answers to free throw shooting and our record in particular. If you are just happy to make the tournament fine, but if you expect to compete for a championship then you should expect to win every game…not be happy with your record in compared to who you have played. And free throws could be a huge difference maker (as shown already in our regular season). To be honest, before last year, I would be thrilled to be the type of team to make the tournament here and there and maybe get a win, but my expectations have grown. So maybe I'm being too harsh.

Posted On: Dec 31st 2023, 5:33 AM #419687

I mean we came into this season with reasonable national championship expectations. I just don’t get how we can beat Arizona and handle TAMU and VA Tech easily only to have let downs against Bryant and FGCU. I think the biggest issue here is consistency we don’t know who we are on a nightly basis

Owl Ranger said

Big Lerm said

I'm not so concerned that we won't make the tournament or anything like that. But more so that we aren't aspiring to be great. Listening to coach May, there seems to be no urgency. Like just complacent that we are in the position we are in (I guess of making the tournament). His answers to free throw shooting and our record in particular. If you are just happy to make the tournament fine, but if you expect to compete for a championship then you should expect to win every game…not be happy with your record in compared to who you have played. And free throws could be a huge difference maker (as shown already in our regular season). To be honest, before last year, I would be thrilled to be the type of team to make the tournament here and there and maybe get a win, but my expectations have grown. So maybe I'm being too harsh.

Posted On: Dec 31st 2023, 5:33 AM #419687

I mean we came into this season with reasonable national championship expectations. I just don’t get how we can beat Arizona and handle TAMU and VA Tech easily only to have let downs against Bryant and FGCU. I think the biggest issue here is consistency we don’t know who we are on a nightly basis

Posted On: Dec 31st 2023, 10:25 AM #419693

I guess this goes to the whole "parity in basketball" that coach May talks about. Which is another mindset I don't like. We should be rolling these teams. Kinda a cop out. Unless needed for motivation which I hope is not the case. We should be going in thinking we going to smash these teams. And maybe this is why we aren't coming out with the W's…we have the mindset that they are on our level and it's just inevitable that we take some loses.

Big Lerm said

Owl Ranger said

Big Lerm said

I'm not so concerned that we won't make the tournament or anything like that. But more so that we aren't aspiring to be great. Listening to coach May, there seems to be no urgency. Like just complacent that we are in the position we are in (I guess of making the tournament). His answers to free throw shooting and our record in particular. If you are just happy to make the tournament fine, but if you expect to compete for a championship then you should expect to win every game…not be happy with your record in compared to who you have played. And free throws could be a huge difference maker (as shown already in our regular season). To be honest, before last year, I would be thrilled to be the type of team to make the tournament here and there and maybe get a win, but my expectations have grown. So maybe I'm being too harsh.

Posted On: Dec 31st 2023, 5:33 AM #419687

I mean we came into this season with reasonable national championship expectations. I just don’t get how we can beat Arizona and handle TAMU and VA Tech easily only to have let downs against Bryant and FGCU. I think the biggest issue here is consistency we don’t know who we are on a nightly basis

Posted On: Dec 31st 2023, 10:25 AM #419693

I guess this goes to the whole "parity in basketball" that coach May talks about. Which is another mindset I don't like. We should be rolling these teams. Kinda a cop out. Unless needed for motivation which I hope is not the case. We should be going in thinking we going to smash these teams. And maybe this is why we aren't coming out with the W's…we have the mindset that they are on our level and it's just inevitable that we take some loses.

Posted On: Dec 31st 2023, 3:09 PM #419695

If so, that would be a horrible excuse.

The team was not prepared to play a basketball game yesterday for whatever reason. For as good a win as the Arizona win was, this loss was arguably a much worse loss than that was a good win. Should not have happened and some soul searching needs to be done. Perhaps the stage got too bright for a program suddenly thrust in the national spotlight. Just not clear why yesterday happened, especially to a supposed elite team. That was not 2013 "Dunk City" -- that was a short-handed team that also had not played in a week, that needed OT and a last second shot to beat FLORIDA MEMORIAL by 1 point in their last game.

Just unacceptable and inexcusable -- really for 200+ other D1 teams --  let alone the supposed #7 team in the country. 

I think FAU can beat any team in the country if shots go down and we play solid defense. If we in the Bryant game and this game last night we could be trust into a top 4 ranking but we keep digging ourselves into a hole. 

I have always believed FAU needs an alpha that’s a dawg that will give you at least 20 to 25points a night no matter the competition.  Think Jelly Walker from UAB last season,  he can get you his 20 and finds ways to score.  We play amazing team ball but we sometimes need a player to infuse and takeover.  Martin, Vlad and Johnell are the only players who can do this for us.  

We need a more balanced effort from those three and  some of the other players do not score like Greenlee, who has been nonexistent along with creating turnovers.  He can score at will but is too timid hence he ends up with 0 points. Boyd is shooting bad this season,  just not on his A game.  

Martin has been off and on, he’s our most athletic player but I feel it’s hard for him to score sometimes. All in all Dusty needs to tighten up the expectations. Fans are showing up and representing the school and a loss like that is terrible. The Memphis games will be difficult,  I feel like we may lose both of those.  

Our road to the tournament will be via an at large,  Memphis is beating other teams down.  

I was at the Tigers game last night so I wasn't able to watch the Owls. I checked in on the score and was surprised to see the Owls were playing as poorly as we were.

Our game was horrible. Fortunately we were able to pull it out. We trailed at points during both halves. Penny was not so happy during the post-game press conference.

These last 2 games (Vandy, Austin Peay) we've played horribly. If we don't get this taken care of we could be facing 0-1 to start conference play after the Tulsa game Thursday.


I know the Owls are going to get it together and run through the conference schedule and we'll do the same, but neither of us can afford any slip ups going forward. Sure, @ SMU, @ Tulane, @ Wichita State… those will be tough and wouldn't be that bad if we drop one of those. But outside of those we both need to take care of business.


Anyway, good luck Tuesday night against East Carolina. I'm sure y'all will have it back together.


BTW, 6-6 Stanford just beat Arizona. :o

Last nights loss definitely hurts.  

Coach May talked a little about Pat Riley's philosophy of "the disease of me" before the season started. And, I believe a little bit of that has shown up with our team this year. They seemed to be a little cocky last night and thought that they could relax a little bit because of FGCU's record and injuries. They are definitely struggling with the over night success of our program. It has definitely gone to our heads a little bit. Time to dig in and know that every game going forward is like a March Madness game and we must slow down and complete lay-up's and fight for every rebound.  

Although, we have had some underlying injuries and at least one of our starters has been out or not 100%. We will bounce back though and confidence will come back to us. Maybe this loss will motivate us to focus on rebounds on both ends of the court and complete shots. There's no doubt in my mind this team can compete with the top 5 teams in the NCAA rankings. Hopefully we will come out and beat ECU by double digits. Hoping Boyd, Martin, and Greenlee will start putting up consistent numbers now that they are healthy. A deep bench was the main reason why FAU was dominating last year. I have faith in this team and know that we will settle in and kick some serious butt.  

Happy New Year!!!

LETS GO OWLS!!!  

The loses have all been somewhat revealing and hopefully the team and Dusty can adjust what can be adjusted but in the end it’s a team that plays 1 big and 4 guards most of the time. That strategy hinges on the guards making 3s and being comfortable making decisions with the ball. Normally the guys are good shooters and don’t make many turnovers. Unfortunately we’ve had some cold nights and even worse some bad free throwing shooting on the same nights. We are still a mid major and have mid major size that has burned us particularly against big guards or skilled wings. Lorient hopefully can fill that void as a more athletic forward for those matchups.