Sun Belt Sports Fans

Florida Atlantic 88, Arkansas-Little Rock 71

The journeys a college basketball lifer takes can be as varied as the number of backroads that exist in the United States. For Mike Jarvis, a late-career stop in an out-of-the-way college basketball outpost could very possibly provide a dose of sweet redemption.

Yes, it’s true that Jarvis didn’t preside over a clean program when he coached in the college basketball spotlight, but a man now paying his dues in a mid-tier conference is helping to orchestrate a profound turnaround. As the weeks go by, it becomes harder and harder to doubt the legitimacy of the Florida Atlantic Owls Jarvis coaches.

The FAU crew is flying high in the Sun Belt Conference this season, and another weekend did nothing to blunt a confident team’s forward momentum. On Saturday afternoon at FAU Arena, Florida Atlantic thumped the Arkansas-Little Rock Trojans by 17 points to extend its commanding advantage in the Sun Belt’s East Division. This comprehensive conquest on their home floor enables the Owls to zoom to 7-0 in the league, three and a half games in front of second-place Florida International and Middle Tennessee, who – at press time – were both 3-3 in the Sun Belt. While Denver is tearing up the Sun Belt West Division at 6-0, it has to be said that the second-place team in that division – North Texas – could very well engineer a comeback in late January and early February. In the East, though, it’s looking more and more like a Florida Atlantic year unless a shocking collapse takes place. All you had to do to appreciate FAU’s play on Saturday was to note one very telling statistic.

There are few better markers of good basketball – high-level, team-based play in which five men work as one – than the percentage of made baskets that are assisted. When most of a team’s made shots come off assist passes, that’s a sign of good coaching and fundamentally solid structure in halfcourt sets. If you watched this game on ESPN2, you saw the ball moving a lot when FAU settled into its offensive framework. The numbers verify what you witnessed on the tube: The Owls made 29 field goal attempts in this game against coach Steve Shields’s Little Rock lineup. Of those made shots, 19 of them were assisted, meaning that roughly two-thirds of FAU’s baskets involved a timely pass to an open teammate.

This is why the Owls hit 49 percent of their shots. It’s why they placed five scorers in double figures, led by Kore White, who poured in 22 points on 9-of-16 shooting. It’s also why they committed just 5 turnovers and gave UALR no chance to get back in the game. FAU owned a double-digit lead for the game’s final five minutes and 26 seconds, proof positive of the Owls’ relentless consistency at the offensive end of the floor. The first-rate display had to put a smile on the face of Jarvis, who got dinged for violations at a wayward St. John’s program one decade ago and lost some of the credibility he had accumulated in what had been a successful career. Jarvis took George Washington to the Sweet 16 in 1993 and then led St. John’s to the Elite Eight in 1999. He established himself as a formidable recruiter and bench boss, but the ugly fallout of his messy stay with the Johnnies cast a pall over his body of work. Now at Florida Atlantic, Jarvis is quietly reminding the college basketball community of his abilities. Perhaps this season of success in a mid-major conference – removed from the New York stay with St. John’s that tarnished his image – is just the tonic Mike Jarvis needed.

It’s definitely the cure Florida Atlantic’s basketball program hoped for. A team that has never won an NCAA Tournament game just might get a shot to bag a Big Dance victory in two months if it continues to play like this.

Matt Zemek
DFN Sports Senior Staff Writer