Tulane Men Lose Third Straight, Falling to FAU 79-74
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Down by double-digits as late as the 4:15 mark of the second half, the Tulane men's basketball team closed it to within three with 14-seconds to go but couldn't bridge the gap, falling to Florida Atlantic, 79-74 in Boca Raton. It's the first American Conference road loss in four tries for the Green Wave, as Tulane falls to 12-7 on the year, 3-3 in league play. FAU sits atop the American with a 14-6 record, 6-1 in the conference, winning their 5th straight in AAC play. Its lone loss came earlier this month in Uptown.
Last time around, the Wave was able to halt the high-scoring Owls, holding them to a one of their lowest offensive outputs of the season, taking a 3-point victory in Fogelman just two-and-a-half weeks ago. Florida Atlantic hasn't lost since.
This time, FAU was much more accurate from the floor, hitting 52% of their 52-shots on goal, including an impressive 44% from three-point range. Helping their numbers from the field were the five dunks the Owls were able to slam home. Tulane had no dunks in the game.
What has been a season-long strength for the Wave continued to be, as Tulane hit 85% from the free throw line, going 23-of-27 as a team.
Leading the scoring was guard Curtis Williams, Jr, knocking down 27, including 8-for-8 from the charity stripe. Fellow guard Rowan Brumbaugh was good for 14-points, with forward Tyler Ringgold getting a baker's dozen.
Senior Percy Daniels was not able to help out the Green Wave cause on offense or defense, playing only 13-minutes between the two halves but not because of injuries. The Tulane center fouled out with over 9:40 to go in the game. Daniels took a one shot at the basket, that one coming in the first half when he played for just under 11-minutes. In his less than three minutes of second half play, Daniels fouled out.
Despite Daniels missing from almost three-quarters of the game, Tulane was able to hold serve in the rebounding game. Florida Atlantic had 31-boards. The Green Wave piled up 30. Leading the way, a pair of forwards Scotty Middleton, who had a half-dozen, and Tyler Ringgold, who garnered five.
Tulane heads directly to Charlotte, North Carolina, as the American Conference made adjustments to its weekend schedule, trying to head off what forecasters are saying will be a load of winter weather.
East Carolina's game at North Texas has been moved from a Sunday match-up to a Friday afternoon game so the Pirates can get back to Greenville.
Tulane's game against Charlotte, originally in line for a Sunday afternoon tip, is now set for a Friday night matchup. Game time for the Green Wave-49er game is 6:30 p.m. CST Friday, which should give the Wave enough time to fly back home before the weather hits the East coast.
The game will still be broadcast on ESPN+ along with the radio broadcast on The Ticket, 106.7.
Doug has covered a gamut of sporting events in his fifty-plus years in the field. He started doing sideline reporting for Louisiana Tech football games for the student radio station. Doug was Sports Director for KNOE-AM/FM in Monroe in the mid-80s, winning numerous awards from the Louisiana Sports Writers Association for Best Sportscast and Best Play-by-Play. High school play-by-play for teams in Monroe, Natchitoches, New Orleans, and Thibodaux, LA dot his resume. He did college play-by-play for Northwestern State University in Natchitoches for nine years. Then, moving to the Crescent City, Doug did television PBP of Tulane games and even filled in for legendary Tulane broadcaster, Ken Berthelot in the only game Kenny ever missed while doing the Green Wave games. His father was an alumnus of Tulane in the 1940s, so Doug has attended Tulane football games in old Tulane Stadium, the Superdome, and Yulman. He was one of the 86,000 plus on December 1, 1973, sitting in the North End Zone to seeTulane shutout the LSU Tigers, 14-0. He was there when the Posse ruled Fogelman and in Turchin when the Wave made it to the World Series. He currently is the public address voice of the Tulane baseball team.