Prior to the season, Florida Atlantic men’s basketball coach Michael Curry decided to bring senior Adonis Filer, a starter last season, off the bench. The decision paid off in the Owls 98-64 win over Edward Waters College on Sunday afternoon.

His intention was to strengthen the second unit by having an aggressive ball handler that could efficiently put the ball in the basket.

In their first home game of the season, Filer ignited the Owls with 17 first-half points.

“Anytime you’re told you’re going to come off the bench, naturally you’re going to be down a little bit,” Filer said. But I look at the positives. I got to come off the bench and I got to be an energy guy and its not a downgrade.”

His 17 points were part of a 50-point first half for FAU (1-3). The defense wasn’t up to par with the offense in the half though, as the Lions entered halftime down nine points.

Less than two minutes into the second half, the Owls went on a run of 36 unanswered points, extending their 55-46 lead to 91-46 with 8:32 left in the game. FAU was unable to score the nine points needed to eclipse the century mark before the game came to an end.

Junior Frank Booker, who scored a team-high 18 points with four 3-pointers, said the team’s defense sparked the 36-0 run.

“It’s mainly defense,” he said. “If we can get stops and push up the floor, we’re really hard to guard in transition because we have shooters and we also have people that can finish at the rim.”

Among those shooters was junior Gerdarius Troutman, who made a 3-pointer on three consecutive FAU possessions during the run. He finished with 12 points in 16 minutes.

Two other Owls joined Troutman, Booker and Filer with double-digit scoring efforts. Freshman Jailyn Ingram scored 16 points and sophomore Nick Rutherford tallied 13 points to go along with eight rebounds and six assists.

“It’s fun in practices and in games when you can just throw the ball to somebody and you know it’s going in,” Filer said. “The numbers say it, they come in and knock down the shots and it just makes it more fun.”

Oshey Washington and Keith Williams, Jr. led the Lions with 14 and 12 points respectively.

The Owls will host the University of South Florida for their next game on Tuesday, Nov. 22. Tipoff is scheduled for 7 p.m.

Brendan Feeney is the sports editor of the University Press. For information regarding this or other stories, email [email protected] or tweet him @feeney42.