FAU men’s basketball has come to another bump in the road in year one of the John Jakus era, as they lost their 3rd game in a row to North Texas at home on Thursday evening. The Owls battled back from down double figures in the first half, cutting it to only a 3 point halftime deficit, however UNT dominated the second half for the second time this season against FAU en route to a 71-61 victory.
North Texas outscored FAU by 20 in the second half when these two squads met back on January 26th and although a late comeback made this one a bit more respectable, the second half was dominated by the Mean Green once again. The North Texas defense is one of the best in the country and that was on full display in the second half tonight, as they won the second half 34-27, holding FAU to only 6 made shots and at one point the Owls were without a made bucket for nearly 11 minutes, with Kaleb Glenn scoring with 12:14 to play and the next made shot from the field for FAU came when Matas Vokietaitis scored with 1:26 remaining.
The fight was there from FAU in the first half, but the final frame left a lot to be desired for the Owls as they went 0 of 9 from 3 and although UNT only shot 45% from the field in the second half, they assisted on 9 out of 12 field goals, having the efficiency that FAU lacked. According to FAU Coach John Jakus, the second half surge from UAB was two fold, as they adjusted, but the Owls lacked ball movement that is needed to have success against UNT.
“I would say it’s a 50-50 thing, you can’t ever say they didn’t do something because they did. But the nine assists on 20 baskets, you need ball movement to beat them. I thought a lot of the ISO stuff, some of the post up decisions, the double team, we didn’t handle those things as well. So that’s half on them and half on us. So you can’t beat them because they’re so good at defense without ball movement and we didn’t have enough of it,” Jakus said.
North Texas was led tonight by Brenen Lorient who scored 16 off the bench in his first game back in Boca since departing this offseason and the Mean Green overall had a diverse scoring effort with 6 players scoring 8 points or more. For FAU, Leland Walker led the way with 19 points, the second most he’s scored in a game this season and Baba Miller was right behind him with 15.
Walker was a major reason why FAU was in the game during the first half, as when UNT went up 31-21 4:41 to play in the first half, Walker hit 3 triples in a row to bring it within 4 in just over 2 minutes, however his first half spark didn’t translate to the second half. While FAU’s offense struggled in the final stanza, UNT flourished behind Brenen Lorient who in the second half alone had 7 points, 5 rebounds and 4 assists.
There were positive spurts tonight for FAU, Walker being one of them, however the good moments were overshadowed by a slow second half for the second straight game. Despite the Owls recent struggles, Leland Walker notes that the Owls remain focused on their goal of getting this program back to the NCAA tournament.
“Most definitely (there’s still hope in the locker room) we are not trying to hang our heads now, we have to keep pushing, we have to make the March Madness Tournament and win,” Walker said.
The goal of an NCAA tournament seems a long way away after FAU’s performances during their last 3 games, as they have now had 3 straight games where they’ve lost the rebound battle and assisted on less than 50% of their field goals, resulting in a streaky offense. Tonight, the Owls offense was without a made field goal for over half of the final frame and although UNT’s defense is top notch, a slump of that proportion begs the question of what has changed over the past 3 games.
On paper, a lot has changed as it’s reflected in statistics that FAU is normally strong with (assists & rebounding) now being down, however on the court, there hasn’t been any drastic changes other than the opponents FAU has faced. North Texas and Memphis are the top two current seeds in the AAC, while Wichita State is on a 6 game win streak and unfortunately for the Owls their struggles came at a time in their schedule where they matched up with some of the top talent in the conference.
The Owls only have 3 remaining opportunities to find their mojo in the regular season before heading to FT Worth for the AAC tournament meaning they have to find a way to capitalize on the short amount of time they have. That is why after seeing no change on the court during the 3 game losing streak, Jakus is taking matters into his own hands heading into USF and although he wouldn’t name exactly what he was referring to, he mentioned there will be major changes for FAU when they take the court on Sunday.
“I’m just going to leave that in the locker room (what was said after the game). There’s two things that are going to be drastically different next game, and we’ll address that going forward,” Jakus said.
