If Tuesday night is any indication of what is to come for the FAU men’s basketball team then they may easily cruise to their second straight Sun Belt Championship. Despite being knotted at 29 at halftime, FAU defeated Lynn University 64-53 Thursday night in an exhibition game held at FAU Arena.
Lynn senior guard Josh Garcia led all scorers with 21, while junior guard Ray Taylor led FAU with 12 points.
Lynn grabbed its largest and only lead of the first half with a three from Michel Videl, two and a half minutes in, but the next ten minutes were all FAU. Led by an aggressive defense, the Owls forced the Fighting Knights to 12 turnovers. This, combined with fast break points and controlling the offensive boards saw FAU take its largest lead (13) with twelve minutes left in the first half.
The Owls suffocating defense in the first 8 minutes left Lynn with few second chance opportunities. With a little over seven minutes remaining in the first half, Lynn’s Jerrell Oxendine drove hard to the net only to be taken down by FAU’s Alex Tucker. The hard foul led to a bench clearing scrum from both sides, but the situation was quickly extinguished by the refs and the coaching staffs.
“I tried to take a charge on the kid, but he landed on me, and I tried to move his legs off me, and he overreacted, and I overreacted too,” said Taylor. “It was just a big misunderstanding. It was done after that.”
With 4:05 remaining in the first half, Tucker provided some entertainment by lobbing the ball to a cutting Jordan McCoy for the easy two-hand slam. However, that would be the last basket made by FAU in the first half as Lynn went on a 10-0 run for the final four minutes.
The second half started where it had left off, with FAU unable to convert on any fast breaks or open shots. Lynn had managed to gain a lead a minute and a half in with a three-pointer as well as a foul on the play, bringing their lead to 33-29.
After Taylor broke FAU’s scoreless drought three minutes in Lynn would never see the lead again.
The highlight of the night came when Pablo Bertone forced a steal at half court and hiked the ball between his legs to Greg Gantt for the dunk to put FAU on top 38- 35.
Although both teams had horrible shooting nights, with both shooting less than 40%, FAU seemed to be making the baskets when it counted most, as they slowly began to regain their lead on Lynn.
Despite the final score being closer than most expected, head coach Mike Jarvis saw it is a positive.
“I would rather have had the score close,” said Jarvis. “The worst thing in the world would have been for us tonight a 30 or 40 point point win. You want to try get as much out of these as you can. We got much more out of this because it was close.”
