FAU was so close to spending the first week of January ranked in the top 10 of the Associated Press Top 25 poll for the first time in school history. All Dusty May’s program had to do to ensure as much, after last weekend’s massive victory over Arizona, was win as a 16.5-point favorite over Florida Gulf Coast on Saturday.
On paper, it seemed easy. On the court, it was not.
Final score: FGCU 72, FAU 68.
So instead of being 11-2 with just one goofy loss, the Owls are 10-3 with two goofy losses — specifically losses to the teams ranked 175th (Bryant) and 255th (Florida Gulf Coast) in the NET. Put another way, FAU now has two Quadrant 4 losses on its resume, which is shocking considering the Owls returned all five starters from last season’s team that went 12-0 in Q4. This season’s team is now 2-2 in Q4 and thus down to No. 23 in Sunday morning’s updated CBS Sports Top 25 And daily college basketball rankings.
“What we’ve learned is that our highs are very high and [that] our lows are relatively low,” May said following the loss to Florida Gulf Coast in which his Owls missed 16 of the 20 3-pointers they attempted.
On May’s note about the highs being high and the lows being low, consider that FAU now has two Q1 wins (over Arizona/Texas A&M) and two Q4 losses (to Bryant/FGCU) on its resume. That makes the Owls literally the only team in the country with multiple Q1 wins and multiple Q4 losses. If you’re wondering, Saint Joseph’s and Northwestern are the only other teams with multiple Q1 wins and even one Q4 loss. So it really is rare for a school to lose such bad games while also winning such big ones in the same eight-week span, but that’s clearly been the story of FAU’s season to date, and it’ll cost the Owls on Selection Sunday considering they have very few places going forward to record quality victories to offset the rough defeats.
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