BOCA RATON – The FAU men’s basketball team led for the entire contest and rolled to an 80-50 Conference USA victory over Middle Tennessee State Thursday night at Abessinio Court at FAU Arena.
Junior center Karlis Silins scored just 16 seconds into the contest on an assist from Everett Winchester and the Owls never looked back. Nor did Silins and Winchester.
For the third straight game, Silins was FAU’s leading scorer. The native of Latvia scored 15 points on 7-of-9 shooting from the field and tied a career-best with three blocked shots. Winchester just continued dishing the rock, racking up a career-high six assists in the contest.
While both teams were a bit sluggish offensively in the first eight minutes, FAU still managed to build an 11-point lead with 12 minutes to go before halftime behind a stellar defensive effort. MTSU shot just 26.7 percent from the field and just 12.5 percent from 3-point range in the first 20 minutes. The Owls led by as many as 17 in the first half and took a 13-point edge, 37-24, into the intermission.
FAU really pulled away in the second half. The Owls built a 20-point edge less than eight minutes into the second half, going on top 52-32 on a Jailyn Ingram layup. A 17-3 Owls’ run late in the first half made this one an absolute blowout. Silins started the outburst with his inside-outside game, hitting a bucket in the paint and then going outside to bury a 3-pointer. Michael Forrest added a triple during the scoring spurt and FAU bult a 34-point lead, its largest of the game, with three minutes remaining.
Forrest scored 14 points off four 3-pointers and a pair of free throws. He also tied for the team lead in rebounds with six. Blackshear added 11 points to give FAU three double-digit scorers. Bryan Greenlee and Johnell Davis also grabbed six boards in the contest, as the Owls out-rebounded MTSU 44-37. Every Owl who was in uniform – all 14 of them – saw action in the contest, with 11 of them putting a notch in the scoring column.
The Blue Raiders were led by DeAndre Dishman, who tallied 10 points and grabbed a team-high six boards.
FAU (11-9 overall, 6-5 C-USA) can clinch a winning record for a third straight season with a victory in Friday night’s regular-season finale vs. MTSU (5-16, 3-12). Tipoff for Friday night’s contest at The Burrow is slated for 6 p.m. The game will air locally on Fox Sports 640 AM and CBS Sports Network will produce a video stream that airs on Facebook Watch.
Quoting Coach May
FAU Head Coach Dusty May
On the victory: “We played very hard for most of the game. We showed our depth. When you look at the stat sheet and you see Bryan Greenlee, six rebounds; Michael Forrest, six rebounds, Johnell Davis with six and Nicholas Boyd with four. That’s our backcourt. That’s probably the thing we’re most pleased with, because we stressed that and our guys had a different look in their eye. It was great to be back home, playing in front of our fans and on our court. I think they took what the game gave them and played some good basketball.”
On Friday’s game: “We’re going to have to match their energy and effort, stress the same things (as tonight). We just challenged our guys, ‘Hey, if the scoreboard was reversed – we’ve been on the wrong side in the past — how would we respond tomorrow? They all said it would be a street fight, it’s time to go to battle. I said, ‘Well, that’s their locker room.’ They have competitive players, talented players. So they’re going to come out like they just got beat by 30 on the road, ready for another battle. We’ve got to match it and surpass it. We’re at home. There’s no reason we can’t play with the same level of intensity and determination that we did tonight.”
