By Kenneth Cross
KISSIMMEE, Fla. – The Florida Atlantic Owls buried 16-of-30 threes and scored 23 points off of 12 Texas A&M turnovers en route to a 96-89 win over the Aggies in the ESPN Events Invitational Finals. FAU now faces the Virginia Tech Iowa State winner on Sunday afternoon.
Guards Johnell Davis and Alijah Martin led Florida Atlantic with 26 and 25 points as the Owls staved off a 35-point afternoon from Texas A&M star Wade Taylor.
“They are everyday guys,” said FAU head coach Dusty May of Davis and Martin. “In this era, it’s very, very tough to share the spotlight like our guys do.”
Davis made six triples while Martin added five and Davis added three of his six in the first ten minutes as FAU built a slim 21-20 lead. Martin netted four in a 3:49 stretch late in the first half as the last of the four gave the Owls a 43-31 advantage with 4:51 left in the first half.
“All the glory to God, man,” noted Martin. “I have just been trying to stay patient and thanks to my teammates for always believing in me and getting me extra shots because they know if I am feeling good, we are all going to be feeling good.”
The Owls trailed, 28-25, with 8:42 remaining before halftime and Martin made three of those shots in a 3:04 stint. Florida Atlantic outscored Texas A&M, 15-0, and took a 40-28 advantage when Martin nailed his third three of the half.
The Aggies’ Wade Taylor nailed three of his five as A&M closed on a 16-6 run and trailed FAU 46-44 at halftime.
“He can do a lot of things; he’s for sure the driver of our truck,” explained Texas A&M boss Buzz Williams. “He had six defensive rebounds for us yesterday and three today. One thing that allowed us to keep it a game, I thought, was that 60 percent of the shots we missed, we got them back.”
Florida Atlantic started the second half with immediacy as the Owls outscored the Aggies, 22-6, over the first 7:39 of the second half and took a 68-50 lead on Brandon Weatherspoon’s triple in transition.
Taylor scored ten points in a row as a three but the Owls’ lead to 83-76 with 3:44 remaining. He finished 12-of-26 from the field and 5-of-8 from three.
Texas A&M pulled to within 89-84 before the Owls made 7-of-8 foul shots late to win one of the top games of the season, so far.
The Aggies lost big man Henry Coleman with a turned ankle late in the first half while Williams said that guard Tyrece Radford was slowed by breathing issues.
The Owls came into the game averaging 25 three-point attempts per game while making 8.3. Five shooters have averaged over one make per game in the early season which will once again make FAU one of the top shooting teams in college basketball.