Florida Atlantic Tops Monmouth 72-69

Friday, November 14

Boca Raton, Fla.

7:00 PM

Florida Atlantic

Monmouth

11/14/2008 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball

Nov. 14, 2008

Final Stats | Action Photos

BOCA RATON, FL - Paul Graham III made a career-high five 3-pointers, helping Mike Jarvis win his debut as head coach at Florida Atlantic, 72-69 over visiting Monmouth Friday night.

Freshmen Chris Watson and Shavar Richardson combined to add 22 for FAU (1-0), who won their first season-opener since 2002-03.

Graham III went 5-for-6 from the field in the first half. The senior from Philadelphia made four triples in the opening period on his way to finishing with a game-high 19.

Despite playing without preseason All-America forward Carlos Monroe Florida Atlantic led 38-31 at halftime.

A breakaway slam by Watson put FAU up 46-35 with 15:31 left. FAU took its biggest lead moments later, going up 14 after four consecutive points by Xavier Perkins. Five FAU players reached double-figures in scoring.

The lead was nine with 4:10 remaining when James Hett scored and was fouled. Hett converted the three-point play to pull MU within six, 64-58.

Monmouth (0-1) would hang with the Owls until the final buzzer. Reserve guard R.J. Rutledge finished with a team-high 18 points for the Hawks.

The game was played in front of 1,404 fans - the largest crowd to watch a non-conference game at the FAU Arena since December of 2002.

Florida Atlantic will next play the University of Arizona Monday night at the McKale Center in Tucson in the opening round of the 2008 NIT Season Tip-Off.

POST GAME QUOTES:

FAU head coach Mike Jarvis

Opening statements on the win
Thank the Lord for waking us up this morning, giving us the opportunity to do what we love to do. We are certainly very grateful for the victory. We like to make it exciting don't we? We will take the victory, especially without our big horse Carlos Monroe. We had five guys in double figures, so we had a balanced attack on offense. So it was a great team effort on both ends of the court and the guys played with a lot of character and at the end of the game made the free throws and secured the victory.

On having a big lead in the second half but only winning by 3 points
All we want to do is to keep winning. This is college basketball, it's a game of swings, it's a game of runs and most teams in America, with few exceptions, are going to have big leads and they will be very grateful for the nights that big leads turn into victories. That's the way basketball is at all levels.

On Paul Graham III playing without teammate Carlos Monroe
Paul is a guy that is capable, with Carlos in the line up, of getting 18 to 20 (points) a night. Everybody knows Paul can score, what we are asking Paul to do is rebound. We asked him to show his passing skills. His numbers all around were good with the support of four other guys.

On coaching defense:
I know defense wins championships, so I am going to do most of my coaching, encouraging and sometimes yelling on defense. It is such an emotional part of the game, you have to want to be a great defender. You have to want it bad. When that happens, I really think you are going to enjoy watching this team play.