FAU Owls are ranked, have the nation’s best record, and deserve same love as Miami | Opinion
With all the buzz surrounding the 15th-ranked University of Miami men’s basketball team – all of it well deserved, by the way – casual sports fans may not realize there is another South Florida team in the Top 25 worthy of just as much praise.
The Florida Atlantic Owls are sitting at No. 25 in the latest AP poll with a 24-2 record, the best record in the nation.
Read that again. Slowwwwly. FAU has the best record in all of Division I college basketball.
The Owls, who lead the Conference USA standings, have won 92.3 percent of their games.
Houston ranks second at 23-2 (92 percent). Miami is 15th with a 21-5 record after Monday night’s road win against North Carolina, its second nationally televised Big Monday win in a row after the blowout victory over Duke.
FAU doesn’t get the ESPN coverage Miami gets, but national college basketball pundits and bracketologists have taken note of the Owls’ success.
Kenpom.com has FAU ranked No. 39 in overall efficiency, not far behind No. 31 Miami.
ESPN’s Joe Lunardi has FAU as a No. 9 seed in the NCAA Tournament in his latest projections. He has Miami at No. 5. Andy Katz of NCAA.com projects FAU as a No. 10 seed and Miami as a No. 5.
Assuming Miami and FAU make the NCAA Tournament, which is a safe assumption, it would be the first time in 21 years that two South Florida teams are invited to The Big Dance. The last time was 2002, when Perry Clark was coaching Miami and Sidney Green was leading the Owls.
Nobody, not even FAU coach Dusty May, imagined the Owls would have 24 wins and be ranked when the season began. The Owls had never been ranked. Ever.
May, the former University of Florida assistant coach who began his career as a student manager under Bobby Knight at Indiana University, went 17-16 in his first season at FAU five years ago. The team, which had seven consecutive losing seasons before his arrival, made incremental improvements each of the past three years, finishing 19-15 last season.
There were clues big things were on the horizon. Some of their losses were by single digits to higher-profile programs, including Miami.
The Owls gave the Hurricanes all they could handle last season, taking them down to the wire in front of a sellout crowd in Boca Raton before Isaiah Wong made a layup with 0.7 seconds remaining to clinch the win 68-66. UM went on to reach the Elite Eight in the NCAA Tournament.
“We had a lot of confidence this would be our best team and we thought it was a group that could contend for a Conference USA championship, but that was the extent of our prognostications,” May said by phone on Tuesday.
“We felt we were close last year, we won 19 games and our leading player, Alijah Martin, played most of the season with a major injury that required surgery after the season. We were on the verge, knocking on the door, and felt we were better than our record.”
The Owls registered a blip on the national radar early this season when they stunned the Florida Gators 76-74 in Gainesville on Nov. 14. They went on to reel off 20 wins in a row before the streak ended against Alabama-Birmingham on Feb. 2.
After the 15th win, the Owls made the AP Top 25 for the first time in the program’s 30-year history. They came in at No. 24 and that’s when things started getting crazy on the Boca Raton campus.
The student section at Baldwin Arena went from nearly empty to jam-packed. Alumni and basketball loving Boca Raton residents started showing up. Before long, it became impossible to get a ticket for the 2,900-seat arena.
“It’s surreal having friends text and say, `Hey, I just tried to buy tickets online and they’re sold out for the rest of the year, is there anything you can do?’’’ May said, laughing. “That’s unbelievable when you look at the crowds we had in Year One and Year Two. At times you could almost have your own section at a Saturday afternoon game.”
May said his players have been feeding off the energy and becoming well-known on campus. Among the team leaders are Martin, Johnell Davis and 7-1 Russian center Vladislav Goldin.
“Our guys are very engaging, engrossed in the student experience and they play extremely hard, display great teamwork, so with all that rolled into one, you have a group that’s easy to root for,” he said.
The same can be said for the Hurricanes, who are generating bigger crowds than ever at the Watsco Center.
It’s about time South Florida paid attention to college basketball. For far too long, local fans acted as if the Miami Heat was the only basketball team in town. Yes, it’s fun to see the NBA players up close and people watch as Miami’s rich and famous emerge from VIP lounges.
But it is a different kind of special being in a rocking gym for a college basketball game, with a pep band and cheerleaders and a student section waving fathead posters. College athletes, even in the NIL era, play with so much passion. Every game matters so much.
And don’t get me started on all the ways the one-and-done March Madness is better than the seemingly endless NBA playoffs.
The next month should be a blast following the Hurricanes and Owls. Two Top 25 teams in South Florida. Who’d have thunk it? Surely, high school recruits are noticing, too.
Asked recently about FAU’s success, UM coach Jim Larranaga heaped praise on the job May has done, and then added: “I’m glad we’re not playing them this year.”
At least not yet. Anything can happen in March.
