Owls Lose Shootout to New Mexico

Wednesday, November 10

Albuquerque, N.M.

9 PM

Florida Atlantic

-01,00 CUSA

New Mexico

1-0,0-0Mountain West

Team	1	2	F
Fla. Atlantic	41	51	92
New Mexico	43	56	99

11/11/2021 12:24:00 AM | Men's Basketball

Box Score

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – The Florida Atlantic University men's basketball team fell to New Mexico in the two teams' season opener Wednesday night at The Pit.

Quotable

Head Coach Dusty May:
"Exciting to be back in a great environment, great atmosphere. It was awesome for our guys to be back competing together, sitting next to each other on the bench. First, I was very happy with our guys, their rooting for each other, cheering for each other, being very together. I thought that was encouraging.

"Offensively, I thought our post players did an amazing job of scoring down low. We could have finished off a couple more offensive rebounds, but I thought that was the biggest bright spot, how well our bigger players, our players up front played. We've got to take care of the ball a little bit better. We made our free throws tonight, so if we can take care of the ball and pound it inside a little bit more, I think this team has a chance to be very very good."

The Beginning

FAU (0-1) and the Lobos (1-0) battled in the first half, with five lead changes and seven ties. A putback by UNM's Jay Allen-Tovar with one second left gave the home team a two-point lead going into the locker room, 43-41.

The Turning Point

The Owls started out the second half on fire from beyond the arc (after not making a 3-pointer in the first 20 minutes). Five of the team's first seven makes after the break were 3's, and led to a 62-57 lead at the 13:39 mark. It was 69-69 at the under-12 media timeout – and at that point Bitumba Baruti had scored nine points in a row for FAU – but after exchanging baskets, the Lobos held the Owls scoreless for nearly 4:00, going on a 9-0 (and eventual 14-2) run that nearly cemented it.

The Finish

The spread didn't get to single digits again until under 40 seconds remaining, on a Michael Forrest 3-pointer. Forrest scored 14 of the Owls' last 19, towards a team-high 26 on the night, but UNM would take the seven-point win.

Owl the Stats

Forrest picked up where he left off last season when he had 27 in the finale at the C-USA Championship. His 26 on Wednesday came on 8-of-14 shooting, with four 3's, and 6-of-7 from the line
Baruti had 15 points, all in the second half, and was one rebound shy of a double-double with a team-high nine
Madiaw Niang set a career high by scoring 14, 10 coming in the first half on 5-of-6 shooting. Vladislav Goldin set a career high as well with 10 points
The Owls outrebounded the Lobos, 42-25, with 17 coming on the offensive end. Behind Baruti were Forrest and Alijah Martin with six apiece
Everett Winchester paced the squad and matched his personal best with six assists, followed by Forrest and Alejandro Ralat with four each. Ralat's four helpers came in a new high of 16 minutes, against zero turnovers
The Owls shot just under 50 percent from the field (32-of-65, 49.2%) and made 20-of-23 free throws, 87%, in a hostile environment of 8,553