Florida Atlantic Drops Denver, 67-61

Thursday, February 12

Boca Raton, Fla.

7:00 PM

Florida Atlantic

Denver

2/12/2009 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball

Feb. 12, 2009

Final Stats

BOCA RATON, FL - Florida Atlantic assured Denver of its 43rd consecutive road loss, beating the Pioneers 67-61 Thursday in Boca Raton. Paul Graham III - the leading scorer in Sun Belt Conference play this season - poured in 25 points and teammate Brett Royster added 13 and nine rebounds.

Florida Atlantic (6-20; 2-12 Sun Belt) improved to 37-13 at the FAU Arena over the past three seasons.

Denver (10-14; 5-8 Sun Belt) received 17 points from Brian Stafford, 15 from Nate Ronhert and 13 from Andrew Hooper. It has been over three years since Denver last won on the road, a 72-62 win at Middle Tennessee State on February 11. 2006.

Coming off a career-high 33-point performance Saturday night against Troy, Graham scored 14 points in the opening four minutes. The senior from Philadelphia needed 17 points to move into 3rd-place on FAU's all-time scoring list - he scored 18 in the first half.

"I just go out there to play to win," Graham said when asked about his recent performances. "I was in there to play within the offense and help the team and coaches."

Thanks to Graham's early offense FAU jumped out in front 11-3. Denver responded by making 5 of 8 from beyond the arc to begin the game. Pioneer freshmen, Stafford and Hooper, combined to make six triples by halftime. Denver would lead briefly 19-16.

Royster set a new FAU shot-blocking record with 12:07 remaining in the first half, rejecting a layup attempt by Rohnert. It was block number 60 for Royster this year, breaking the previous single-season record of 59 established by Raheim Brown in 2001-02. Royster entered the week ranked 29th among all NCAA players in blocks per game (2.3), he swatted five shots Thursday night matching a career-high.

"I really don't put too much emphasis on it, its just a natural instinct," commented the 6-foot-8 Royster on his shot-blocking ability. "I still have two more years here and I think there is a lot more that I can do besides just block shots."

24 of Denver's first 32 points came via 3-point shots. A trey by Rohnert with 2:05 left before halftime cut a nine-point Owls lead down to six, 38-32.

Florida Atlantic held a 40-32 advantage at the half.

Denver scored 11 of the first 13 points following the break, closing the gap to one after Stafford dropped in his fourth 3-pointer. The Pioneers would take a 43-42 second-half lead on a back-door layup by Rohnert.

FAU senior walk-on Chris Coleman sparked a 9-0 Owls' run midway through the second half, scoring four of his career-high 12 points, and helped by a 3-point play from Royster FAU would hold leads of 55-45 and 57-47.

Denver pulled to within five, 57-52, with 4:52 remaining before Graham made one of his four 3s to push the lead back to eight and freshman guard Shavar Richardson made a clutch basket on FAU's next possession to extended it to 10 at the 3:39 mark.

Denver got to within five in the final seconds but no closer.

The Owls' Sun Belt Conference schedule takes the team to Mobile, Alabama, this weekend for a game against South Alabama Saturday night at 8 p.m. ET.

"South Alabama is a very talented team that we could have beat," said Jarvis, referring to the December 16th game with USA in which the Owls lost in the final seconds. "It's going to be difficult to beat them on the road."