MACON, Ga. – (Dec. 22, 2019) – Georgia natives Jailyn Ingram and Cornelius Taylor combined for 36 points in the Florida Atlantic University men’s basketball team’s 65-50 win over Mercer on Sunday night. The Owls extended their winning streak to four games in a row with the victory.
How It Happened
Ingram scored the game’s first points 45 seconds into the contest, and FAU was able to maintain a small, but stubborn lead for most of the early going. Mercer (5-8) hit a 3-pointer to pull to within two, 16-14, with eight and a half minutes to play in the first half.
That was the Bears’ last field goal for over five minutes, as the FAU defense smothered Mercer’s offensive attack, allowing the Owls to take a seven-point lead in the process. Michael Forrest hit a triple just before the halftime buzzer, giving FAU a 31-21 advantage.
After Mercer cut the margin to six early in the second half, the Owls’ defense once again asserted itself, holding the Bears to just one field goal in the next 10 minutes of game action. Forrest connected on an alley-oop to Ingram to complete a scoring spurt that extended the FAU cushion to 15, 46-31, with just over eight minutes to play.
Mercer pulled to within six, 52-46, with four minutes to play. However, in just 41 seconds, Ingram hit a 3-pointer, Forrest drew an offensive foul, then Karlis Silins hit a straight-on triple to put the Owls back up by a dozen. The lead remained in double-digits for the rest of the game.
Notables
- Ingram led the Owls with 21 points. It is the fifth time in FAU’s last six games that he has scored in double figures. It is also his first 20+ point game since Dec. 5, 2018, when he had 22 points, also against Mercer. Additionally, he had season-highs in both rebounds (eight) and assists (five)
- Taylor scored 15 points and pulled down six rebounds
- Forrest came off the bench to score 13 points, grab three rebounds and distribute three assists
- The Owls held Mercer to 35.8 percent shooting from the floor, the lowest percentage of any Division I opponent this season
- FAU outrebounded the Bears 41-25, its largest rebounding advantage of the year
- With the win, FAU snapped a five-game road losing streak
Quotable
FAU Head Coach Dusty May
“For us to hold Mercer to 50 points is a testament to our guys and how locked in they were during the scout…Very, very impressed with our guys and how much better they’re getting and their overall work ethic (over) the last two or three weeks.”
What’s Next
The Owls wrap up their non-conference schedule at USF on Sunday, Dec. 29. Tip-off is set for 5 p.m. The game will be streamed on ESPN3. Live stats will be available at fausports.com. The game can be heard on FOX Sports 640AM. Live updates will be posted to the team’s official Twitter account, @FAU_Hoops.
– FAUSports.com –
Florida Atlantic University Athletics:
FAU Athletics is comprised of 21 intercollegiate teams involving 450 student-athletes that compete in baseball, basketball, cross country, football, golf, soccer, softball, swimming and diving, tennis, indoor and outdoor track, volleyball, beach volleyball, cheer and dance. The Owls are a NCAA Division I-A (FBS) institution and compete in Conference USA and the Coastal Collegiate Sports Association (CCSA) (beach volleyball, men’s swimming). The Owls have been playing football since 2001 and are a perfect 3-0 in bowl games, the most recent being a 50-3 victory over Akron in the 2017 Cheribundi Tart Cherry Boca Raton Bowl. The dance team finished its 2014 season No. 8, nationally. FAU cheer won a national championship in 2016.
About Florida Atlantic University:
Florida Atlantic University, established in 1961, officially opened its doors in 1964 as the fifth public university in Florida. Today, the University, with an annual economic impact of $6.3 billion, serves more than 30,000 undergraduate and graduate students at sites throughout its six county service region in southeast Florida. FAU’s world-class teaching and research faculty serves students through 10 colleges: the Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, the College of Business, the College for Design and Social Inquiry, the College of Education, the College of Engineering and Computer Science, the Graduate College, the Harriet L. Wilkes Honors College, the Charles E. Schmidt College of Medicine, the Christine E. Lynn College of Nursing and the Charles E. Schmidt College of Science. FAU is ranked as a High Research Activity institution by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. The University is placing special focus on the rapid development of critical areas that form the basis of its strategic plan: Healthy aging, biotech, coastal and marine issues, neuroscience, regenerative medicine, informatics, lifespan and the environment. These areas provide opportunities for faculty and students to build upon FAU’s existing strengths in research and scholarship. For more information, visit www.fau.edu.
