Qualifying for their second NCAA Tournament in a row, the Florida Atlantic men’s basketball team are prepared to continue where they left off last year heading into their first-round matchup with Northwestern on March 22nd at Brooklyn, New York. Head coach Dusty May (pictured via Rick Henderson) spoke with media on Tuesday to evaluate the current state of the team and their preparations for the tournament. Below are some of the highlights from the session. Opening statement heading into the NCAA Tournament “We’re looking forward to what’s next. Northwestern is obviously a very good team and program. They’re well-coached. If you can pick out any NCAA tournament team and then see and say that their team plays like their coach, I would say Northwestern is a great example. They shoot the ball incredibly well, they’re physical, they’re tough, they’re fiery. So all the things that coach Collins was as a player, he’s definitely put that in the team and they’ve been fun to scout, fun to watch.” Status update on Tre Carroll “He’s getting stronger. I don’t know. That decision will probably be a game-time (decision) or the day before, based on how he’s feeling at that point.” Reflecting on their performance in the AAC Tournament “I’ll start with Fort Worth. That was after a couple games where we played exceptionally well defensively for 15 or 20 minutes, and we felt like we let off the gas and we lost our edge. I think the difference is last year, our runs were determined by us getting stops and rebounding. And this year, we have had so much competence in our ability to score and our teammates that we’ve probably taken it for granted that our defense was slipping and we weren’t playing with quite the same edge. But we’ve also played really good teams that are equally well at scoring the basketball. But yeah, we want to continue to play loose on offense. We want to share the ball and take quality shots, and then defensively, we’ve got to pick up our intensity and our physicality.” Maintaining Vlad Goldin’s offensive rhythm heading into the tournament “Vlad’s done a great job of finding positions and scoring before the catch while also getting some offensive rebounds. He’s running the floor better than he ever has. It’s just a gradual improvement with Vlad. He’s worked so hard. He’s the student of the game. But yeah, our guys are finding him; we’ve tried to create new ways to camouflage things we’re doing to get him the ball in scoring positions. And he’s been very effective with his floaters, with his ball-screen offense’s rolls, his dump-offs, his transition baskets. He’s doing it in a number of ways, and then defensively, he’s really taken a step with his rim protection and shot-blocking, so he’s played exceptionally well as of late and he looks like he’s got a lot of juice still.” Preparations for Northwestern’s perimeter shooting “They present a number of challenges there. They shoot the three well, they play to their strengths as well as we’ve seen anyone this season. We’re going to have to hopefully get them sped up just a little bit. We’ll get great contests and although we can limit the number of threes that they attempt, it’s not easy, but hopefully we’re up for the challenge.” Slowing down Northwestern’s star guard Boo Buie “With any great scorer like Buie, our goal is to, we’re not going to hold him scoreless. We’re not going to shut him out; it’s to hopefully make his scoring inefficient and whatever that looks like, but we have to challenge everything. We can’t go under ball screens on him in a scoring range. We have to play with great physicality, great intensity, and just make sure that we’re able to make him a little more uncomfortable that he wants to be played with great pace. He’s a veteran guard so that’s a challenge but we can throw different bodies at him, different matchups, and things like that. So we’ll give it all we have but we were more focused on us than those guys to be honest.” Reflecting on the massive support from FAU students, alumni, and faculty “From my perspective, we wouldn’t be here as an At-Large out of the American Conference if it wasn’t for our student body, fans, or the local community. They provided a spark that got us over the hump several nights at home against quality opponents so it’s appreciated. We’re very grateful for it, but also our guys deserve it. They’ve represented this place so well with their togetherness, their intensity, the way they play the game, and the way they interact with each other and the fans in general. So we are grateful but it’s also deserved. Our players have earned this.” The Owls will take a flight to the Empire State later today to continue their preparation for their first-round matchup with Northwestern.
