On Jan. 12, Florida Atlantic’s men’s basketball team (9-8, 2-2 AAC) headed back home after a two road game stretch. They fell short against the University of Alabama at Birmingham Blazers (10-7, 3-1 AAC) with a score of 81-76. 

The Owls recently defeated the University of North Carolina at Charlotte (9-8, 1-3 AAC) 75-64 on Jan. 8 and took their second AAC win of the season. 

The Blazers slightly outshot FAU on the night by being 45% from the field and 38.5% beyond the arc. The Owls shot 40% in FGs and 36.4% beyond the arc. Despite the shooting differences, FAU led with 46 rebounds compared to UAB’s 40.  

FAU forward Tre Carroll led the team with 20 points and is the Owls’ leading scorer on the season with an average of 12.4 points per game. While guard Kaleb Glenn had the most rebounds for FAU with eight..

“…I thought when we took the lead and had the free throws we were up two or three throws. I thought at that moment, a couple shot selections, a couple rebounds, we could have won a game at home. It hurt, and I want it to hurt a little bit. And the washing happens tomorrow, and then we’ll move on to the next one” said head men’s basketball coach John Jakus.

Despite the loss, forward Baba Miller recorded his 500th career point during the game with 10 points on the night and five rebounds.

On Jan. 15, the Florida Atlantic Owls head to New Orleans where they face up against Tulane University (9-8, 3-1 AAC) at 7:30pm and can be streamed on ESPN.

Recap 

To start off the first half of the game, UAB’s guard Tony Toney had a personal foul. The score was neck-and-neck through the first few points of the game, with guard KyKy Tandy taking the first points of the game with a layup. Carroll kept the lead at 4-2 with another layup.

The Blazers then took a bigger lead against the Owls with a layup, a dunk on the fast break and a tip-in layup jumper off of a turnover from forward Christian Coleman 14-7. With Coleman’s four point streak, the Owls called a timeout at 14:20.

Coming out of the timeout while being down seven points, the Owls make a comeback with a second-chance three point jumper from Tandy 16-14 at 12:20. Tandy had a total of 14 points in the game, which is higher than his season average at 8.9 points. 

At 10:20, there was a personal foul on guard Alejandro Vasquez and Glenn made one of two free throws to keep the lead at 20-18. However, UAB took the opportunity to come back and took the lead after guard Ja’borri McGhee made a three point jumper 21-20.

Like last game against Charlotte, the Owls still faced issues with turnovers and had 11 turnovers in their game against UAB.After another FAU turnover, Miller made a huge block against an attempted dunk from Toney which had the crowd roaring.

Throughout the entire game, the Owls and the Blazers continued to stay close in score with each other and swap leads. FAU came again after being down and took a five point lead after Carroll made a layup 28-23 which was their largest lead of the night. Nevertheless, UAB came back from being down and took the lead after McGhee made a layup off an opponent turnover 32-28.

“We’re hovering right now where we need to be. Our defense is under 45%, not great. It’s there at the end of the day. I think it’s our shot selection. We missed some shots down the stretch,” said Jakus.

Although the two teams were going back and forth with the lead, the Blazers took the lead for a long time at the end of the first half. The Owls entered a scoring drought for around four minutes where the Blazers were able to score 12 points. At 3:48, Carroll was able to take the Owls out of this long drought and make a layup 35-30.

After a missed jumper from Miller, Evans Jr. rebounded his missed shot and threw the ball to Tandy outside the three for a three-pointer 37-33. At 1:25 Miller took a jumper for the last two points for the Owls for the first half and ended the first half at 40-35.

Entering the second half, the Owls were down 40-35. The Blazers shooting percentages were higher than the Owls throughout the game. UAB had a 64% from the field compared to FAU with 55%, 17% in free throws while the Owls had 13%, 42% in layups and the Owls had 29%. The only category FAU led in was from the three with 32% overUAB’s 19%. 

Down five points at 19:42, guard Leland Walker made a pullup jumper in the paint 40-37. Carroll was able to bring the score to 42-41 with a layup which was the closest the Owls had been in score to the Blazers since the team was at 28-23 in the first half. 

To keep Carroll’s big night of lead scorer, at 16:39, Carroll dunked on UAB which had the crowd jumping up and down in the stands 47-45. The Owls then entered their second scoring drought of the night for almost 3 minutes. The Blazers took advantage of this drought and were able to make a massive lead in the second half after forward Yaxel Lendeborg made a jumper in the paint 58-48.

At 13:02, FAU subbed in center Matas Vokietaitis and took Miller out. Nine seconds into Vokietaitis coming in, he dunked on the Blazers from an assist from guard Niccolo Moretti 60-50. 

After another FAU turnover, Lendeborg stole the ball from the Owls and passed to Vasquez who went to the basket for a layup, which was blocked by Glenn. 

The Owls were down for a long period of time; however, made an extraordinary comeback to tie the score for the first time since the beginning of the first half. Glenn was able to steal the ball from the Blazers and passed the ball to Walker who missed the layup, but was rebounded by Evans Jr. for a jumper 64-64.

The last five minutes of the second half consisted of 11 personal fouls from both teams. This kept both teams on their toes and the score went back and forth during the foul shots. To attempt to come back, the Owls shot three pointers as much as they could in the last 20 seconds of the game, however, they did not succeed. The Blazers defeated the Owls 81-76.

“The margin wasn’t enough for us, and a lot of it just came down to what we passed. The 16 assists were really good. We tried to break people off the dribble and shoot back too, as we weren’t as good. So that falls on me. We’ll be better in that area, and we’ll keep working on sharing the basketball” said Jakus.

Molly O’Flynn is a staff writer for the University Press. For more information on this article or others, you can reach Molly at moflynn2024@fau.edu or DM on Instagram @molly_oflynn_.