FAU men’s basketball (14-9, 7-3 C-USA) hosted the Southern Mississippi Golden Eagles (6-16, 1-8 C-USA) in the Burrow at Abessinio Court Saturday afternoon, coming away with an 84-57 victory. This marks the ninth consecutive home win for the Owls this season.

“When you have players that work extremely hard and they’re great people and that’s what we have in the program, they’re easy to root for,” head coach Dusty May said. “And without a doubt, they’re going to stay focused on the work on us improving and not think not getting too far ahead of ourselves.”

After the Owls went down 8-7 in the first five minutes, they led comfortably for the rest of the half. They shot 50% from the field, outmatched the Eagles 24-12 in the rebounding department, and led by as much as 18 points.

By halftime, freshman center Vladislav Goldin and freshman guard Brandon Weatherspoon combined for 16 of FAU’s 42 points. Weatherspoon, in particular, scored two three-pointers and enjoyed a two-handed putback dunk with 3:12 remaining.

“My team was on the sideline hyped. It [felt] good man. It gave us energy coming back on the defensive end to get the stop,” Weatherspoon said.

FAU maintained its control in the second half. The team shot 53.3% overall (41.7% from three-point range), limited Southern Miss to an accuracy of 37%, forced eight turnovers, and had the biggest lead of the game with 28.

“We have to continue to work and improve and take it one day at a time but [I’m] very proud of the physicality we played with,” May said. “We weren’t hunting points, we weren’t hunting stats; we’re simply playing for each other and then sharing it and when they do that, it’s beautiful to watch.”

Weatherspoon was the player of the game for the Owls, not only finishing with the most points on the team but also having a season-high 16 points on 6-8 shooting off the bench. Junior guard Michael Forrest had a balanced performance of 13 points, six rebounds, and five assists. Graduate guard Everett Winchester scored 13 points on 6-7 shooting while Goldin and graduate forward Bitumba Baruti put up 10 points each.

“This is really gonna help us because anytime during the game, everybody’s a threat on the court no matter what. Everybody has to respect everybody’s game so that’s really gonna help us in the long run,” Forrest said. 

For Southern Miss, freshman guard Jaron Pierre Jr. had a game-high 19 points on 7-12 shooting and three rebounds. Deandre Pinckney turned in 12 points and five rebounds while Denijay Harris finished with 10 points.

The Owls finish their three-game homestand in the Burrow against Old Dominion University on Tuesday, Feb. 8, at 6 p.m. The match will be broadcast on C-USA TV.

Richard Pereira is the Business Manager for the University Press. For information regarding this or other stories, email [email protected] or tweet him @Rich26Pereira.