Rebuilding is Done at FAU
Coach Mike Jarvis stepped into a pretty bad situation at Florida Atlantic when he took over the head coaching job prior to the 2008-2009 season. But he knew that FAU was a program on the rise. Like South Florida a decade earlier, Florida Atlantic is a rapidly growing university and the athletics department is growing right along with it.
After a couple coaches who failed to build the basketball program, Coach Jarvis stepped in and did a great job. After going 2-16 in Sun Belt play during his first season at the helm, Coach Jarvis tapped into the deep recruiting base in the state of Florida and was able to successfully sell Boca Raton to others as well. The result has been a steady, and quick, movement towards a better team. Following the awful debut season, Jarvis improved to 10-8 record in Sun Belt play during the 2009-2010 season. Things were going as planned.
The next step was making a postseason tournament. Last year the Owls exceeded those expectations. Not only did they win the East Division of the league, but they were two games up on anybody else in the Sun Belt with a 13-3 record. The young team fell in their first game of the conference tournament, but got an automatic bid to the NIT. Their brief foray into the world of postseason basketball was not a memorable one as they got slaughtered by Miami in the first round of the NIT.
But that experience for a young team is what the 2010-2011 season was all about. They got the job done throughout the regular season, but their youth was relevant during the conference tournament and their trip down the road to Miami. That was a learning experience for bigger and better things to come. And they will come in 2012 when a more experienced Owl squad will be ready for the postseason…Coach Jarvis will be sure of that.
Read the in-depth men’s basketball preview for this team
