Owls Upend South Alabama, 79-69

Wednesday, February 21

Boca Raton, Fla.

7:00 PM

Florida Atlantic

South Alabama

2/21/2007 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball

Feb. 21, 2007

Box Score

BOCA RATON, FL - Carlos Monroe posted his 10th double-double of the season by halftime and DeAndre Rice scored 23 points on senior night as the Florida Atlantic University men's basketball team picked up a win over South Alabama, 79-69, on Wednesday at FAU Arena.

"It's a big win against a very good basketball team," Head Coach Rex Walters said. "This program is headed in the right direction."

Monroe led all players with 12 points and 11 rebounds before the break. He was 6-for-11 from the floor. DeAndre Rice was 3-for-3 from behind the arc and converted both first-half free throw attempts for 11 first-half points. Daon Merritt led South Alabama with six in the first half.

Florida Atlantic shot 50.0 percent in the opening 20 minutes, while holding South Alabama to a lowly 23.3 percent. FAU out-rebounded USA 27-15. The Jaguars hit just two of their last 20 attempts from the floor in the opening session.

Two USA free throws by Brandon Davis gave the Jaguars a 18-15 lead with 7:58 left in the first half, but the Owls would finish the frame on a 20-4 run that saw Rice score eight of his 11 first-half points.

The Owls led 44-32 with 15 minutes remaining in regulation following a pair of free throws by Monroe, who finished with 21 points and 15 boards, but a Charles Tabet three-point play cut the lead to 46-37 with 13:30 to play.

In a key point in the game Rice picked up his fourth foul with just under 13 minutes remaining, and it was Derrick Simmons who picked up the slack, scoring back-to-back monster buckets following a Leandro Buboltz three for USA, regaining FAU's 12-point margin, 54-42, with 10:54 left in regulation.

Further testing the Owls' mettle, Jeff Parmer fouled out at the 7:59 mark, meaning FAU would be one big man short down the stretch. The Owls led by 58-47 when he was disqualified.

Rice reentered the game with six minutes remaining and immediately scored a layup to put the Owls up 11, 60-49. Rice would hit another huge bucket late in the shot clock at the five minute mark to balloon the Owl lead back up to 10, 62-52.

In perhaps the play of the game, following a Monroe missed free throw, Simmons grabbed the offensive board for a put-back and the harm and FAU's lead blossomed to 14 with just over four minutes remaining, 66-52. Simmons had 12 second-half points and finished with 16.

USA trimmed the lead to 10 on a Tabet layup, and following an offensive rebound Merritt's three trimmed it to seven, 71-64, with 1:10 left in regulation.

For the game, FAU held USA, who was shooting 37 percent as a team from deep, to just 7-of-29 on the night, a 24.1 percent clip. FAU made 51.0 percent of its field goals while USA hit just 37.3 percent of its attempts. The Owls finished with a 44-34 rebounding edge and shot 78.1 percent (25-32) from the free throw line, 88.5 percent (23-26) in the second half.

With the win, FAU clinches a home game in the first round of the Sun Belt Conference Tournament against a yet to be determined opponent. It is the team's fifth win in a row, sixth in a row at home.

"We're excited," Walters said. "It gives us one more chance to play in front of our home crowd. There was a lot of doubters in this team early."

The Owls (15-13, 10-7 SBC) clinched their second consecutive winning season, the first time the team has accomplished that since moving to Division I. The program posted three-consecutive winning campaigns from 1989-90 to 1991-92. The win is FAU's second over a top-three team in the conference in a week. They beat Western Kentucky on February 14. Currently, USA is the no. 1 seed and WKU the no. 3 seed.

"We have a say in this conference championship," Walters said. FAU wraps up its regular season schedule with a game on the road against Middle Tennessee on Saturday. The Owls can finish as high as the no. 4 seed, but no lower than the no. 6 seed for the upcoming SBC Tournament.