Men’s Basketball Falls in C-USA Opener to UAB 67-50

Thursday, January 3

Birmingham, Ala.

8 p.m.

Florida Atlantic

9-5, 0-1

UAB

9-5, 1-0

Florida Atlantic

UAB

Photo by: JC Ridley/Owlpix.com

1/3/2019 11:09:00 PM | Men's Basketball

Box Score

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - A game high 18 points from Anthony Adger was not enough as the Florida Atlantic University men's basketball team lost its Conference USA opener to UAB 67-50 on Thursday night. The Owls' record fell to 9-5 on the year.

The Start

Madiaw Niang opened the scoring with a jumper, but the Blazers (9-5, 1-0) answered with eight straight points to take an 8-2 lead. Anthony Adger scored the next five points to pull FAU within one, but UAB answered with another rally to push the margin out to nine. Adger made a triple that trimmed the Owls' deficit to six at the half, 32-26.

The Turning Point

UAB began the second half with a 13-5 run to stretch its lead to a then game high 14, 45-31.

The Finish

The lead was 16 at the 8:44 mark, FAU got to within 13 on three separate occasions, but was unable to get any closer.

Notables

· Adger's 18 points was his 12^th double-digit scoring game of the season and seventh in a row.

· Karlis Silins had nine points and four rebounds in his first extended action since Dec. 14, against Arkansas State.

· Cedric Jackson came off the bench to score four points and grab five rebounds.

Quotable

FAU Head Coach Dusty May

"(UAB)'s frontline is very physical and they played well. They had a good gameplan and they executed it."

On Karlis Silins…

"Karlis came in and really did a good job around the basket offensively and defensively. It's good to have him back."

Looking Ahead

FAU wraps up its four game road trip at Middle Tennessee on Saturday, Jan. 5, 2019. Tip-off is slated for 6 p.m. Eastern. Live audio can be heard on ESPN 106.3 FM. The game will air on ESPN+. In-game updates will also be available at twitter.com/FAU_Hoops.