After spending the first six weeks of the college basketball season ranked No. 1, the Indiana Hoosiers slipped to No. 6 this week following their first loss.
FAU coach Mike Jarvis, whose slumping Owls (5-6) face the Hoosiers (10-1) Friday night in a nationally-televised game (ESPN2) from Bloomington, Ind., can’t tell any difference.
“They’re a machine,” Jarvis said. “When we first scheduled them, I thought, ‘They’ll be good.’ I didn’t think they would be this good.
“But they’re incredibly good. And they’re deep. And they’re home. They’re going to try to kill us. Us going in, it’s going to be like Davy Crockett in the Alamo.”
Crockett may have faced better odds.
Indiana, led by Player-of-the-Year favorite Cody Zeller, leads the nation in scoring (89.2 points) and has won its 10 games by an average of more than 30 points. The Hoosiers followed their first loss, an overtime decision to in-state-rival Butler on Saturday, by pummeling Mount St. Mary’s on Wednesday.
FAU has already endured a difficult week. Freshman guard Stefan Moody, the Owls’ second-leading scorer, was handed a three-game suspension by the university prior to Tuesday’s game against Stetson and won’t play tonight. Cavon Baker, another freshman guard averaging 3.9 points off the bench, is also banned three games for an undisclosed violation.
News of the suspensions was followed by a gut-wrenching 69-68 loss to Stetson at FAU Arena. Stetson’s winning bucket came on a layup at the buzzer in a game that Jarvis said “we should have won by 20.”
“That’s the easiest part of the week – playing Indiana,” Jarvis said. “Hardest part of the week is beating people we’re supposed to beat, like Stetson.”
Jarvis predicted on Wednesday that his team would be a 30-point underdog to Indiana. That, Jarvis said, means his players should perform with no pressure.
“You got nothing to lose,” Jarvis said. “So go play.”
Friday night’s game is the first meeting between the two schools and pits an Indiana team that has won 28 consecutive non-conference games at home against an FAU squad that has lost four of five on the road this season, including an 80-56 loss to then No. 11 North Carolina on Nov. 11.
FAU has lost its last 11 games against Top 25 opponents by an average of 28.3 points. The Owls' only victory in the program’s history against a ranked opponent was over No. 11 Oklahoma State on Nov. 28, 2007.
Senior guard Greg Gantt said he and his teammates won’t be overwhelmed by the “big stage” at tonight’s game. The Owls played North Carolina at the Dean Dome this season and matched up against Kansas at Allen Fieldhouselast season.
If FAU hopes to keep Friday night’s game close, it will have to get a big performance out of Gantt, the nation’s eighth-leading scorer with 21.3 points per game. That’s especially true with Moody, averaging 15 points, watching from home.
“They expect us to come in and lay down and get beat by 40,” Gantt said. “So we’re going to come in and shock them. It should be fun.”
Jarvis isn’t quite as optimistic, especially after the Stetson loss which left the coach questioning his team’s heart.
Asked if his players could take anything from Butler’s upset win against Indiana, Jarvis shook his head and said that Butler has “tough, tough kids who believe all the time. Our kids don’t believe all the time.”
Friday night’s game, Jarvis said, is a “test of character” for his team, adding that success against the Hoosiers may not be reflected on the scoreboard.
“I’m really concerned about who’s going to go out and compete,” Jarvis said. “Are we going to knock somebody down or are we going to get knocked down? And if we get knocked down, how fast are we going to get up?”
