Coming off a solid victory at home against Tulane with the end of conference play being near, the Florida Atlantic men’s basketball team will play their road and home finales this week when they face North Texas on March 6th and host Memphis on March 9th. Head coach Dusty May (pictured) spoke with media on Monday to evaluate the current state of the team and their preparations against North Texas and Memphis. Below are some of the highlights from the session. Opening statement on their final week of the regular season “It’s a big week for us. We’re excited and had a really good practice today. We seem to be as ourselves as you can be this late in the season, so we’re ready to go.” Status update on Tre Carroll “No, he won’t go Wednesday night. I’m not sure about Saturday yet. We’re probably looking at the conference tournament. It’s not as if there’s a specific timetable, but he didn’t practice today. He said he was feeling a bit better. He did rehab, he did the bike, and he’s staying in game shape. But we’re not going to rush him back before he’s ready to play up to his abilities.” Addressing reports on LeBron James lobbying on his behalf with Ohio State “I’d be flattered if LeBron James knew my name. I haven’t been on The Shop or I have an invitation to anything on HBO Max. But yeah, I was surprised to read that. But I mean, Barstool treated us well in Chicago for the Loyola Chicago game. We had a nice event and we’re very proud to be part of it. Other than that, yeah, I’m not sure where that came from, or what’s behind it. But like I said, if LeBron James knew my name, I would feel a little bit of flattery.” Stating the team’s most improved areas from last season “I think our transition offense has improved. Our efficiency in scoring, offensive rebounding, I felt like we’ve done a little bit better job. The area that is taking the drop has been the defensive side of the ball and there’s a direct correlation to when Vlad was banged up and our rim protection became extremely soft and then Giancarlo gets hurt, so they don’t have the same pop around the rim and it makes a difference. But going forward, we feel like we’ve shored up some of those things and Tulane was one of our better defensive efforts throughout conference play.” “So we feel good about ourselves on offense on that side of the ball. We’re sharing it extremely well, we set the bar extremely high for ourselves last year when it comes to ball movement, sharing and making the right plays. And it seems as if this year, if there’s one possession where we don’t move it extremely well, it’s a letdown as opposed to that being a ramification of us just setting the standard too high to reach consistently. But I thought we moved the ball well against Tulane. We had a 20-point lead; it was just an odd game on a number of fronts and we weren’t happy with the flow of the game, I should say.” Preparations for North Texas “They’re healthy now. They’ve played extremely well with a full roster. They beat Memphis at home. And then they bring in Rubin Jones and CJ Nolan back from injury and they sputtered the first game or two. I think sometimes you bring a guy back from injury and you just expect him to work back in seamlessly. In reality, roles change, rotations change, it’s not quite that simple. And as we know it, every game is hard to win and is a challenge to win. So they played as well offensively as they have all season yesterday vs East Carolina at home, so they’re clicking with a full roster and we’re very well aware of how difficult it’s going to be to win and in The Pit.” Ending the regular season at home against Memphis “We’ll have to take care of the basketball. I can speak on Memphis because I watched them yesterday and we just played them recently. So we’ve got to take care of the ball. They’re so unique at offensive rebounds and transition opportunities. They convert them, it seems 90 to 99% of the time, because of their speed, strength, athleticism, so we’ve got to do a much better job of keeping bodies on bodies, taking care of the basketball, and then finding ways to not give them second opportunities because they’re so good at converting and being explosive around the rim. So we have to play a little bit better. Obviously, we went to the wire. We did some really good things in that game, but we could still play much better.” Message to all the FAU fans for the home finale on Saturday “That we as a program really appreciate them coming to support us. Them being engaged in the game and involved in the games, it’s been awesome to see this environment and this atmosphere created by so many people. From day one, we talked about it as a group that they’re not just going to come and watch us if we win; we have to play a certain way with great teamwork, with great intensity, and with maximum effort. If we do that, then people will leave beautiful South Florida in January, February, and March to come inside to a gym to watch us play basketball.” “So I think our guys have done a really good job of performing night in and night out. But our fans, our student body especially, they’ve been amazing. We can’t thank them enough. We just need them for one more game to really bring it. The swim and dive team, they’ve been a favorite to a lot of friends and family. They always mentioned how involved they are into the games. So I’m gonna shout those guys out, all the student athletes, all the regular students, it’s been impressive and we’re going to reciprocate and get out and support their teams as soon as things slow down for us. Hopefully that’s next month.” The Owls will have one more practice at home before taking a flight to the Lone Star State to play North Texas on Wednesday.
