A furious finish led FAU to its longest winning streak of the season.
Freshman forward Kelvin Penn blocked Western Kentucky’s Jamal Crook’s shot at the buzzer to lift the Owls to a 67-66 victory at The Burrow, its first ever against the Hilltoppers at home. The Owls are now on a season-high three game winning streak.
“It all happened so fast,” Penn said. “I saw that Crook was going baseline and I was like, ‘well if he gets the shot off and makes it, then you never know.’ If i had never tried [to block the shot], we would have never won the game.”
“It was just basic instinct,” Penn said of game-saving block. “I’ve done it before in high school a lot. It’s the first time I’ve actually did it in college. It was pretty nice.”
Head coach Mike Jarvis liked his team’s chance on the last play with Penn defending the hoop.
“If the ball is going to the basket and Kelvin’s around the ball, we got a pretty good shot of getting a piece of it,” Jarvis said.
He said he was careful not to foul on the final possession, but head coach Mike Jarvis believes the home team always gets the benefit of the doubt down the stretch in a close game.
“If we’re at Western Kentucky, there’s probably a foul called,” Jarvis admitted.”They probably go to the line and win the game. But we’re at home. You’re suppose to basically be able to be very aggressive at home. So, we dodged a bullet. We’ll take it.”
Trailing by nine with 5:23 left in the game, a pair of Jordan McCoy layups in the final 29 seconds helped FAU rally to retake the lead.
Down 66-63, Alex Tucker penetrated into the line, drawing two defenders to him, and found McCoy for a layup that trimmed the lead to one. On the next possession, Western Kentucky turned the ball over while inbounding, giving the Owls the ball back to set up the game-winning shot. McCoy sank a layup with 10 seconds remaining on a pass from Ray Taylor as FAU took a 67-66 lead.
“Ray penetrated and my man went on to him and I was wide open,” McCoy explained. “So he gave me a great pass and I just wanted to make sure I caught it and finished. Ray did the hard work. All I had to do was finish. Credit goes to Ray on that one”
Tucker was key down the stretch for the Owls, feeding McCoy for a layup with two minutes to go to trim the deficit 64-61. On the ensuing defensive possession, Tucker sacrificed his body and drew a charge on Western Kentucky’s Derrick Gordan, giving FAU the ball back. Shavar Richardson drained a corner 3-pointer on a pass from Ray Taylor with 1:39 to tie the game at 64.
Shavar Richardson led the Owls with a season-high 25 points on 10-15 shooting.
“Staying aggressive,” Richardson said of why he performed so well. “I got off to a good start. So that helped. When you get off to a good start, mentally you feel better as the game goes on.”
Richardson scored FAU’s first nine points of the game. In the first half, Richardson (15) had more points than the entire other starters (10) combined.
Penn had four points, four rebounds and a team-high five blocks, which were more than the entire Western Kentucky team combined. McCoy finished with 10 points and seven rebounds. The back court of Taylor and Tucker combined for 11 assists — as many as the entire Western Kentucky team.
The Owls shoot 65 percent for the season on free throws, but hit 9 of 11 in the second half (81 percent). Owls head coach Mike Jarvis was pleased but not impressed by this.
“We’ve been shooting well from the free throw line for the last four,five games,” Jarvis said. “We’ve got a lot of guys that can shoot. We should be shooting about 75 percent as a team.”
FAU held Western Kentucky to 41 percent shooting for the game, using solid defense to ignite the offense and push the tempo.
“Second half we started out stagnant,” Richardson said. “We weren’t awake as we were at the beginning of the game. As we started to run, we got into a little flow and that’s what propelled us to get back in the game.”
Kore White hit a twisting layup off the glass as he was fouled midway through the second half. He would hobble to the bench following his free throw attempt and not return until 7:52 was left in the game. Afterwards, coach Jarvis said White should be fine for the next game.
Guard Greg Gantt, who was honored before the game with a special basketball from Jarvis for reaching 1,000 points scored in his career, racked up just four points and was disappointed in his performance.
“Greg after the game thanked his teammates for bailing him out tonight,” Jarvis said. “He felt he let them down a little bit…but you know what? That’s why you have a team. It’s called ‘team’.’ There’s no I in team. So I’m sure the guys were very happy for Greg getting 1,000 and a win. Because the 1,000 point ball wouldn’t have been as nice if it was in a loss.”
