On Sunday, Mar. 20, FAU Men’s Basketball (19-15, 11-7 C-USA) saw their season come to a close with a 74-71 defeat to the Northern Colorado Bears in the first round of the Roman CBI postseason tournament (CBI).
Though this wasn’t the ending anyone had hoped for, the 2021-2022 season was far from a disappointment for the Owls.
They finished with a record of 19-15 making this the fourth consecutive winning season for FAU, which has never been done in program history. Not only is head coach Dusty May the first in program history to boast this accomplishment, but he did it in his first four years at the helm. This year’s record in conference play of 11-7 is also May’s best in his time at FAU.
The on-court improvement of the team’s young core is even more reassuring about the direction the program is heading than the record is. May made it clear early in the season that one of his main priorities would be the talent development of the team’s several underclassmen, and his attention to this area seems to be paying dividends.
The most obvious standout was freshman guard Alijah Martin, who finished the season as the Owls’ leader in points, rebounds, and steals per game. Martin averaged 13.9 points per game, a 9 point increase from last season, and was consistently the driving force of the offense.
Martin’s 34 point performance in the 84-76 victory over rival FIU in the regular season finale was his career best.
One of Martin’s biggest contributions was his role in the Owls’ success behind the three-point line. His 40% shooting from three-point range aided in FAU finishing the season ranked 49th out of 350 teams in three point field goals per game with an average of 8.8.
May also continuously expressed how pleased he was with the development of freshman forward Giancarlo Rosado and guard Johnell Davis.
“When you look back and see how far [Rosado], [Davis], and [Martin] have come, that group of covid freshmen, I think they’ve made a significant jump,” May said.
Rosado, who played off the bench a majority of the season, consistently showed improvement as his role grew throughout the season, especially in the conference games late in the season, and matched his career high of 15 points in the loss to Northern Colorado.
Davis, who also spent a majority of the season coming off the bench, had his role grow as he showed May improvement throughout and also had a career game in Sunday’s loss as the Owls’ point leader with 18.
“We’ve seen the improvements individually, and as a team we’re much better than we were in November.”
Despite the generally positive consensus on the current trajectory of the program, May continuously mentioned just how unsatisfied he was with how the season ended.
After the Feb. 8 victory over Old Dominion, FAU had found themselves in first place in the Conference USA East Division standings coming off four straight conference wins and felt poised to make a strong postseason run.
However, the Owls’ went on to lose four of the seven remaining regular season matchups to finish the regular season ranked third in the C-USA East standings and earn a #3 seed in the C-USA Tournament.
The third seed booked FAU a matchup against the Southern Mississippi Golden Eagles in the second round of the tournament, which the Owls won 86-59, in dominating fashion, sending them to the quarterfinals to meet the University of Alabama at Birmingham Blazers.
Unfortunately, the Blazers’ high powered offense proved to be too much, and the Owls lost 80-66 to the eventual tournament champions, ruining any hopes of a conference championship and essentially ruining any chances at a bid to the NCAA tournament.
While the team was excited to accept an invitation to the CBI two days later, May expressed that this wasn’t the tournament they’d hoped to be playing in.
“This isn’t the tournament we’d like to be playing in, for us to get where we want to be, which is the NCAA tournament, first we need to learn to win in a tournament setting and a pressure packed environment, and just continue to get better,” May said.
As for now, the Owls’ will begin the offseason where they can hopefully continue to build on the progress made this year and prepare to make a run next season in Daytona Beach, Fla.
“We feel like we’re learning to win, we feel like we’re earning respect as a program and we’re on that progression of getting better every year,” said May. “We want to take the next step and we believe this positive momentum will propel us into a great offseason to continue improving, developing, and get back to being in NCAA contention.”