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How FAU’s Historic Win Over K-State Sent Them to Their First Final Four

by Ethan Kim
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Alijah Martin showed how determined Florida Atlantic was to win, performing a powerful and flashy one-handed dunk at Madison Square Garden. He also boasted about himself and his teammates, saying “We are just like pit bulls and Rottweilers! We won’t back down from anyone!” Now the ninth seeded Owls have made it to the Final Four – something nobody expected them to do.

Martin and FAU had a close game against Kansas State. Despite trailing for the last eight minutes, they managed to win with a final score of 79-76!

FAU (35-3) has now made it to the NCAA Tournament twice – once in 2003 and again now – plus they won the East Region, so they will be moving on to Houston to compete in the South Region final against either Creighton or San Diego State.

Coach Dusty May, who has been coaching at FAU for five years now, expects his team to be ranked fifth in the Final Four. This year’s NCAA Tournament has been really unpredictable with all four number one seeds getting knocked out in the Elite Eight – and our Owls from Conference USA are a great example of this madness.

This season, the winningest team in Division I has created history. They had never won an NCAA Tournament game before this, but now they have four straight wins and became the first No. 9 seed to make it all the way to the Final Four since 2013! These Owls are only the third No. 9 seed ever to get to that level since 1979.

Bryan Greenlee said, “Some people have been talking bad about us this season but it just makes us work harder. We don’t think we’re a Cinderella team and that we don’t belong. We’ve shown everyone that they were wrong.” He scored 16 points in the game before being taken out because of too many fouls.

Name Nowell, who is 5-foot-8 tall and from New York City (@MrNewYorkCityy on Twitter), played amazingly at Madison Square Garden. He scored 30 points, had 12 assists and stole the ball 5 times. In the Sweet 16 game he even set a record by making 19 assists in an extra-overtime match against Michigan State! However, he didn’t have enough help this time. Unfortunately Nae’Qwan Tomlin was the only teammate with double figure points (14) while Keyontae Johnson’s nine points were not enough as his team lost and he himself got disqualified by fouling out.

Kansas State’s brand new coach, Jerome Tang, took over a team that won 14 out of 17 games last season. Keyontae played for 18 minutes, and his performance was impressive. Martin scored 17 points including a strong 3-point shoot in the dying seconds. Vladislav Goldin had 14 points and 13 rebounds while Michael Forrest made 4 crucial shots from the free-throw line in the last 20 seconds – helping the Owls bravely survive Kansas’ final push!

Cam Carter hit a 3-pointer from the wings with 22.8 seconds left to make the score 75-74 in favor of FAU. Kansas State then sent Forrest to the line and he made both free throws to make it a three-point game.

Next, Nowell passed the ball inside to Tomlin who scored a layup with 8.6 second left, making it a one-point lead for FAU again. K-State had Forrest go back to the line and he hit both shots with 6.9 seconds remaining.

With no timeouts left, Nowell sprinted down the court and attempted to give Ismael Massoud a shot from outside the 3-point line. Unfortunately, Johnell Davis — from FAU — stole the ball before Massoud had a chance of shooting it, and time ran out.

Nowell said that he ran this play on purpose because ‘Coach wanted Ishmael to set up a screen’, but he chose not to because he knew that Ishmael was best at taking shots on the right side of the court. Unfortunately, they closed out hard on him so fast that he didn’t have time shoot it anyway.

Nowell was given an award as the best player in their region after his last college game, but FAU (the team he played for) still won. Nowell said that he put everything he had into playing for the team and making them happy. When it got close to the end of the game, the fans from Kansas State became very quiet and started cheering on FAU instead.

The Owls had a great reason to celebrate – their school didn’t even have a basketball team until the late 1980s and they’ve only been playing in the toughest division (Division I) for 30 years now!

Forrest, who was in that moment, said “I’m living the dream right now!”

FAU kept up with Tennessee’s tough style of play during the Sweet 16 and managed to score 40 points during the second half against one of the best defense teams in the country – which allowed them to win!

The Owls, from Conference USA, beat one of the toughest basketball teams in the Big 12 and they are now qualified for the Final Four! This is the first time a C-USA team has made it this far since 2008. After this accomplishment, the Owls will be moving to another league next season. Before that can happen, they have to travel all the way to Texas for their big game!

The Owls from Florida Atlantic played with four consecutive winning records under their coach May before having an amazing season that nobody expected. The coaches in C-USA predicted that they only place fifth in the rankings. Kansas State College was attempting to reach the Final Four for the first time since 1964. Lastly, Florida Atlantic have never won a game against San Diego State (0-2) and Creighton.

If you want to keep updated with this year’s March Madness tournament, click on the link for our coverage: https://bigbignews.net/march-madness. You can also view the bracket here: https://bigbignews.net/ncaa-mens-bracket and find out more info on the AP Top 25 college basketball poll at https://bigbignews.net/ap-top-25-college-basketball-poll or follow us on Twitter @AP_Top25!

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