FAU Men’s Basketball: Owls win four straight, beats Florida Memorial 112-49

The 112 points scored by FAU is the second most points scored in school history.

FAU guard Michael Forrest lead the team in scoring against FMU, scoring 15 points while making all of his three shots from deep. Photo courtesy of FAU Athletics.

Colby Guy, Features Editor
December 12, 2020

The FAU Men’s Basketball team (4-2) dominated the Florida Memorial Lions (2-6) by a score of 112-49.

The Owls dominated all aspects of play, shooting 55% from the field and 59% from three. They held the Lions to 38% from the field and 21% from three.

“I’m very proud of our guys,” head coach Dusty May said. “I thought they played really hard, determined basketball for 32 minutes with great purpose. I thought we let our guard down for about four minutes each half and they scored a lot on us.”

Junior forward Karlis Silins scored the first four points of the game and FAU never looked back from there, holding onto the lead for the remainder of the game.

“Me getting down low and getting the first bucket kinda puts everyone on notice,” Silins said. “We’re here and we’re here to fight, and also when we start off good defensively, that kinda gets everyone going.”

The highlight of the game was when FAU held Florida Memorial to a scoring drought of 8:56 in the first half, with the Owls taking advantage of it on the offensive end of the court, going on a 15-0 run.

“We gotta play the right way no matter who the opponent is and what the score is,” Silins said. So, that’s what coach has been trying to emphasize and that’s what we’ve been trying to work on.”

The Owls had six double-digit scorers in the game, showing how much depth they have as a team.

“There’s not much separation between the top and bottom of our roster,” May said. “Our practices and our scrimmages are very, very competitive no matter who plays on red and who plays on blue and that’s a testament to our depth.”

Junior guard Michael Forrest led the team in scoring with 15 points. He also added three rebounds, two assists, and two steals. The most impressive part of his game was shooting 5-6 from the field and 3-3 from three, a major improvement from his 1-10 performance against South Alabama to begin the season.

“In that first game, Mike [Forrest] just had one of those games, he was 1-10 and you can pause the shot on about seven of them and they were literally inside of the basket and somehow crawled out, and that’s how the game goes,” May said. “That night, Mike just didn’t make the shots he makes every day in practice and workouts, but I do think our ball movement has improved and our shots improved.”

Freshman forward Giancarlo Rosado had career-highs in both points and rebounds with 13 points and six rebounds. Sophomore guard Bryan Greenlee also added 14 points and three assists.

Senior forward Jailyn Ingram and sophomore guard Kenan Blackshear also had 12 points of their own, with Blackshear leading the Owls in rebounds with eight.

Freshman guard Alijah Martin is the last of the six Owls in double digits, finishing the game with 11 points on 4-4 shooting, with three of those shots being three-pointers.

The Owls will be back in action on Tuesday, Dec. 15, as they head to DeLand, Florida to face off against Stetson. The game will be broadcast on ESPN+ at 7:00 p.m.

Colby Guy is the Features Editor for the University Press. For information regarding this or other stories, email [email protected] or tweet him @thatguycolbs.