Panthers sweep season series over Owls in front of packed student section

By Jacob Spiwak/Staff Writer

The student section at FIU Arena was electric as the Panthers completed their season sweep of Conference USA rival Florida Atlantic University with a 64-56 victory Tuesday night.

While the score ended up only being an 8-point difference, the Panthers were in control for almost the entire game. The first half was arguably the best 20 minutes of basketball FIU has played all season, and they kept that momentum going forward to take down the Owls.

It was a story of two completely different offenses to begin the game: FIU seemed to hit every shot they took in the first half, while FAU appeared to miss every time they threw up a shot. While the Owls improved their FG% toward the end of the half (it finished at 25.9% for the half), only 1 of their first 9 attempts went in and their FG% hovered around 17% for the majority of the first 20 minutes.

As much as FAU struggled to shoot effectively, the Panthers capitalized on their opportunities and made 63.6% of their first half attempts. Everybody was getting in on the action, as the team had 10 first half assists and there were five players with 5 or more first half points. This offensive production for the Panthers, coupled with FAU’s inability to consistently put the ball in the basket, led to FIU leading by as much as 22 points in the first half.

The second half started the same way, with FIU bursting out of the gate on an 8-0 run and showing even more offensive firepower. While their offense did eventually fizzle out a bit, their strong play throughout the beginning of the game was enough to hold off the Owls. FAU was able to rattle off a few scoring runs of their own and bring the deficit to single digits, but their ineffectiveness from the field, namely from guards Solomon Poole and Marquan Botley, proved to be too much to overcome.

For most of this season, it’s been senior guard Dennis Mavin and redshirt junior center Adrian Diaz leading the way without much scoring help. They were the leading scorers tonight as well, with 18 and 13 points respectively. However, they also saw contributions from a handful of role players, including Dominique Williams coming off the bench with 12 points. This is something Coach Anthony Evans touched on after the game.

“Getting everybody to contribute is something we talked about early,” Evans said. “When other guys play well, the team looks really good. That’s what happened against [University of North Carolina at] Charlotte [on Saturday night], and that carried over into tonight’s game. As long as we continue to do that, we’re going to continue to play well.”

Another key factor to tonight’s victory was the home crowd. The Panther faithful have been rocking FIU Arena for all of these conference games, but tonight seemed like something more.

“The fans have done great all year long,” Evans said, “but tonight was exceptional. The crowd was into it, and it was great to see.”

Mavin and Diaz also felt that incredible support from the fans when they were out on the court.

“The crowd is big,” Mavin said. “They give us that extra energy and it motivates us a lot.”

“I think we did very well and the crowd really supported us,” Diaz added. “That’s one thing we missed when we were on the road. We wanted to give it all for our fans, and we’re glad they came out to support us.”

The FAU contest began a 3-game homestand that will continue through this Saturday. This comes at a critical time in the season with the Panthers looking to improve their Conference USA record, and Mavin understands how important these next few games are.

“It’s huge to be able to come home,” Mavin said. “These next two games are going to be big for us, and hopefully the crowd will come out and help us get another win.”

The next game of this homestand is coming up very soon. Tip-off is set for 7:30 PM on Thursday, February 5th as the Panthers face the Roadrunners of University of Texas at San Antonio.