Redshirt junior guard Adonis Filer’s strong second half performance was not enough to rally his team, as Florida Atlantic men’s basketball fell to Eastern Kentucky, 80-73.

Filer led the Owls with 16 points – 14 of which came in the second half – and nine rebounds. He only shot 4-of-14 from the floor, but converted all eight of his foul shots.

With his help, FAU (2-7) was able to cut a 13-point EKU lead down to two with 4:56 left to play but were unable to complete the comeback attempt against the Colonels (8-4).

The Owls held a five-point first-half lead before EKU scored six straight points, capturing a 37-36 lead to end the half. The Colonels continued their momentum into the second half, scoring the first 10 points and completing a 16-0 run.

Sophomore center Ronald Delph made his FAU debut after sitting out the first eight games of this season due to academic ineligibility. He also missed all of last season after transferring from Auburn University, due to NCAA rules. Delph finished with 11 points, eight rebounds and two blocked shots.

Senior guard Jackson Trapp and freshman forward Jeantal Cylla added 11 and 10 points respectively.

Eastern Kentucky – who entered the game averaging 86.6 points per game, the most in the Ohio Valley Conference – was led by senior guard Jarelle Reischel and freshman forward Nick Mayo.

Reischel entered the game averaging 19 points and 1.91 steals per game, both of which are the second most in the OVC. He scored a game-high 19 points along with seven rebounds, five assists and five steals.

Mayo scored 18 points for the Colonels.

EKU was able to draw eight more fouls than FAU, resulting in more than twice-as-many foul shots for the Colonels. They made 27 of their 33 foul shots compared to the Owls, who hit 14-of-16.

FAU will travel tonight to Tennessee to take on the Volunteers on Wednesday, Dec. 16. at 7 p.m.

Brendan Feeney is a contributing writer for the University Press. To contact him on this or other stories, he can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter.