The FAU men’s basketball team (6-4) beat the Palm Beach Atlantic (PBA) Sailfish (3-6) 84-63 on Wednesday evening at Abessinio Court. The Owls are now 8-0 against Palm Beach Atlantic all-time. 

The team started slowly, as the Sailfish took an early 5-2 lead. Quickly after though, junior guard Michael Forrest found a groove as he had an 8-0 run to give his team the lead.

“We knew we couldn’t take them lightly,” said Forrest. “We had to come out with the mindset [that] it doesn’t matter who we are playing.”

The Owls started to decline as PBA clawed its way to a five-point lead 6:37 into the game. The Sailfish held the lead for most of the first half. The largest lead for Palm Beach Atlantic was seven with 11:32 to go in the first half. 

“I feel like we let our foot off the gas,” said Forrest. “When shots didn’t start falling, we started playing a little bit more tight.” 

With 1:48 left in the first half, sophomore guard Bryan Greenlee buried a three-pointer to regain FAU’s lead. 

“I feel like a big part of why they were sticking with us was because they were too comfortable on offense,” said Greenlee.

FAU struggled to shoot, as they were only 30.8% from the field, 40% from beyond the arc, and 46.2% at the free-throw line. PBA finished with 44.4%, 42.9%, and 75%. 

There were chances for the Owls as they had 15 offensive rebounds but were unable to score points in the paint. They struggled with tip-ins and layups throughout the half. 

At the end of the half, Greenlee led the team with 12 points, including three triples. 

“Coach [Dusty] May told us we had to tighten up on defense because we weren’t playing to our full potential,” Forrest said. 

Heading into halftime, the Owls led 36-33 and did not look back after that.

Freshman guard Alijah Martin opened the scoring for FAU in the half with two three-pointers. 

Within three minutes, the Owls extended the lead to seven and kept pushing. They eventually got into a rhythm and were efficient on both sides of the court. 

FAU finished the second half shooting 60% from the field, 57.1% from three, and 57.1% at the stripe. Overall, they won the rebounding battle 42-32 and played with the lead for over 25 minutes. 

Forrest finished with 21 points, including four shots from beyond the arc. 

“[Forrest] was really, really good in the second half,” said head coach Dusty May. “He made a couple of shots early and we thought he settled for threes that maybe he had lanes to go to the rim.”

The Owls will take a week off, as their next game is on the road for Wednesday, Dec. 15 against Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) at 7 p.m. It will be broadcast on MASN. 

Bryce Totz is a staff writer for the University Press. For more information regarding this or other stories, email [email protected] or tweet him @brycetotz.