Third Time's The Charm

It's preview time again here at AU Basketball Central, as our Eagles fly onto the hardwood of Bender Arena yet again tomorrow (Saturday) at noon. For those of you who stopped by last time to check out Bill's Mt. St. Mary's preview, I apologize for the Sylvester Stallone joke. I clearly would not condone such a reference in one of my own previews, unless it involved some sort of incredible Rocky/Rambo hybrid meant to symbolize Stephen Lumpkins' intimidating game-face. But I digress...

So here we are, three games into a five game homestand. The first two didn't go quite as planned, but there's a spring of endless optimism here at AU Basketball Central, and we drink from it every night just to stay sane. So as they say, third time's the charm! Let's see what we're up against tomorrow after the jump.

The....Florida Atlantic University Owls! Owls, you say? Owls?! Unless our mascot suddenly becomes the field mouse, I don't see these owls having any sort of real advantage tomorrow. Plus, owls are pretty far down on the "badass bird" scale, so we win there too. Could this mean we'll record our first win of the season? Why, I believe it could!


Here's the lowdown on FAU:

• FAU is a member of the Sun Belt conference, a fairly competitive mid-major conference comprised primarily of large public schools spanning from Virginia to Florida. The conference has thirteen members split into East and West divisions.
  
• FAU was ranked 5 of 6 (East Division) in the Sun Belt pre-season poll, which is nothing to write home about. Additionally not a single FAU player was named to the first, second, or third teams of the pre-season all-conference team.
  
• FAU features another very young team as well, with seven freshmen on their roster of fifteen. Five sophomores (two redshirted), and three juniors (one redshirted) comprise the rest, with not a single true senior to be found. Experience-wise, they match up with us pretty well.
• FAU has the slight height advantage, and only because their taller players are also their more experienced ones. Of course the magic of mid-major basketball is that big does not always equal better, as many a sub-6 foot point guard can attest to. We can definitely work around this.
• FAU is 1-1 on the season, with a very solid 23-point win over Florida Tech at home, but a rather crushing 90-77 loss to Southeastern Louisiana on the road. They did post a solid win over Division III Lynn University as well...but I'd prefer to just discard the pre-season here. All this says to me is that road games can be tough for FAU, so let's hope that continues in Bender.
  
• We've only ever played FAU once before, almost nineteen years ago in 1990. We walked away from that tilt with an 80-72 win, but that just means the best the Owls can do tonight is tie the all-time series. It's worth remembering that the 1990-91 season was our last winning season for (literally) a decade, so let's all thank Coach Jones those days are long behind us.
  

So what do the Eagles need to do?

• Mike Bersch, let's have a post-birthday celebration by repeating your performance from last Wednesday. Seriously, if Bersch can get anywhere close to the stat line he produced in 22 minutes off the bench on Wednesday (in only his second college game ever, no doubt), we'll be golden. If the Owls are forced to guard the perimeter, Lumpkins can have a field day on the inside.
• Nick Hendra, focus, focus, focus. Don't overextend yourself. You were on track last game, and you can still be the leader this team needs and deserves. We here at the blog really believe that. Hopefully Hendra takes his two years of experience and turns them into some quality play off the bench this game, helping where needed and not trying to be the star, but letting it come naturally to him.
• Wait, wait...did I just say "off the bench"? We have it from a reliable source that our lone senior, Matt Wilson, will be starting in lieu of Hendra for at least this game. Just a week ago I would have thought this crazy, as I had Hendra pegged as a starter for the entire season. However this will likely be a good thing for Hendra, as it will take some pressure off his shoulders (and we all know that he can really play, anyone remember Oklahoma last season?). Plus, during our liveblog of the St. Francis game, we asked you all which Eagle with limited play time was your favorite. The answer, overwhelmingly, was Wilson. I'm not saying anyone here is prescient but...well here you go!
  
• Danny Munoz, Blake Jolivette, and Simon McCormack, I hope you guys all had a restful, easy week. The last game was not your finest (collective) hour, but if you can come out of the gate with all cylinders firing tomorrow (with some repeat performances from Bersch, Lumpkins, and Riley Grafft), those Owls will be limping back to Boca Raton with clipped wings (while that sounds poetic, FAU is actually in Boca Raton).

Well, that's basically all I have for you this time. Tip-off is right at noon tomorrow in Bender, and I encourage everyone to make an effort to bring their friends (let me tell you nothing cures an early Saturday hangover like basketball). The Blue Crew is the best 6th man I know, and some good fan support could be a real factor tomorrow. So bring your friends, your coworkers, your significant others, even your enemies, just be there, be LOUD, be BLUE, be AU!

"So let's all join in and give a yell for AU and VIC-TO-RY!"
Josh