Wednesday's game vs. Pitt may have looked like a typical midweek game. It certainly felt like a typical midweek game.

The only thing atypical was it was played in the afternoon in front of a small crowd. All of which just contributed to the Owls coming out a little flat.

However, FAU woke up and scored five runs in the sixth and rallied to break a 7-7 tie by striking for three runs in the eighth inning.

Of course by then FAU was pumped up - and why not?

By defeating the Panthers, the Owls have won three games in a row. Two victories against the ACC's Boston College and the Big East's Pittsburgh is a pretty good accomplishment. And don't forget the Owls took 2-of-3 from Cincinnati in the season opening series.

Going 3-1 against the Big East and 3-1 against the ACC are the kind of results the NCAA will look at it late May when it's time to make at-large selections.

Am I saying the Owls are ready to be in that situation? Not just yet. As we saw through the first five innings, the hitting still needs to be consistent. Also, the bullpen is still a work in progress as long as closer Glen Troyanowski, who isn't making the trip to Troy this weekend, is on the shelf.

However, it looks like the Owls aren't that far away from having a team that could be poised to be sniffing a possible NCAA bid if injuries don't multiply and the hitting gets in a groove.

It may be stretch, but the Owls (6-4) have already won some big games this season, and that's a positive sign.

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FAUOwlAccess.com was at the balpark on Wednesday and had this recap of the game.

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Friday
7 p.m. Baseball, FAU at Troy

As FAUOwlAccess.com first reported Tuesday night, there were six proposals submitted to help with the financing received by FAU by Tuesday's deadline.

This may be one of the most positive developments in this long and arduous quest for the Owls to play football on campus.

As Craig Angelos indicated Tuesday, the devil is in the details, but FAU is optimistic it will be able to work with one of the institutions which showed interest.

Prediction: FAU will be able to swallow the terms of at least one of these banks.

FAU is kind of like a customer on a used car lot whose car just got totalled. They really don't have a choice but to accept the best deal on the table at the time.

When I talked to Angelos there was almost a dread that he would tell me no proposals were received. Instead by receiving six responses, it shows that someone with financial acumen shares Howard Schnellenberger's belief in the viability of the stadium and FAU football.

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FAUOwlAccess.con not only had the story on the stadium, but also a preview of today's baseball game vs. Pittsburgh.

Nothing FAU-related in the local papers, but here are some items of interest from around the Sun Belt.

Here's the story from the Dothan Eagle on North Texas winning the Sun Belt championship defeating Troy, which will go to the NIT.

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Wednesday
2 p.m. Baseball, Pittsburgh at FAU

Check out The Lafayatte Daily Advertiser's coverage of ULL's firing of coach Robert Lee.

When the Sun Belt Conference names its baseball Player of the Week later today, the name should be familiar to FAU fans. Owls shortstop Nick DelGuidice has already been named one of four Louisville Slugger national Players of the Week after he put together a monster weekend, going 8-for-11 with two home runs and13 RBIs against Boston College.

Anytime a player can start every game of a weekend series and tally more RBIs than official at-bats, he's done something pretty remarkable. DelGuidice's big day was Saturday, when his nine RBIs broke Gary Kamphouse's FAU single-game record of eight.

DelGuidice (photo) followed that 4-for-4 performance in FAU's 15-6 win, with a 3-for-3, four RBI afternoon in Sunday's 11-7 victory.

I had more than one Boston College fan comment that DelGuidice swung one heck of a bat. While that may be true, he hadn't shown it this season. DelGuidice entered the weekend 3-for-23 in the first six games of the season, without a home run or RBI.

Can he keep it up? Doubtful. No one can be expected to keep up that pace. But FAU coach John McCormack wouldn't mind seeing a few more weekends like that once conference play begins this weekend.

"Don't wake him up. No one talk to him. Leave him alone," McCormack said following Sunday's game. "Maybe we'll get a player of the week out of that."

Amen to that.

A few more thoughts from the weekend:

> Leadoff hitter Mike Albaladejo only scratched out two hits over the weekend, but he still made his presence felt. The diminutive Albaladejo threw out five potential base stealers over the weekend - four on Friday night alone.

"I think (the Eagles) like to be aggressive and he shut that down," McCormack said.

> First baseman Dan Sheffler has the opposite problem. His .448 average leads the Owls, as do his three home runs. Unfortunately, Scheffler's also committed a team-high four errors, and that doesn't count a couple of missed routine pop flies that fell untouched. McCormack still considers Scheffler to be an "above-average defensive first baseman." He'll have to start showing that skill soon, or McCormack may turn to Sean Bukovich as a late-inning defensive replacement.

> The Owls didn't miss closer Glen Troyanowski over the weekend - no games were tight enough to need a closer. FAU should learn more about Troyanowski's ailing shoulder and his availabilty for the upcoming weekend on Tuesday. Andy Mee would have filled the closer role against Boston College. Since he didn't pitch against BC, McCormack intends to throw Mee for one inning against Pittsburgh on Wednesday, regardless of the score.

> Anthony Mesa went 0-for-4 on Sunday, snapping a seven-game hitting streak. He's hitting .357 - not bad for a No. 9 hitter.

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FAUOwlAccess.com's Marcus Nelson returned from being the only local media member to cover the Sun Belt Conference basketball tournament and offered this analysis of the Owls' season.

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Wednesday
2 p.m. Baseball - Pittsburgh vs. FAU
6 p.m. Softball - WKU vs. FAU
8 p.m. Softball - WKU vs. FAU

chuck

HOT SPRINGS, Ark. - FAU junior forward Sanchez Hughley was hurting so bad he couldn't even answer the call for the second half in the Owls' loss to South Alabama on Saturday.

Hughley was just an extreme example of why FAU's season came to an unceremonious end in the first round of the Sun Belt Tournament on Saturday.

It's a simple explanation: Down the stretch, the team wore down.

Ray Taylor was talking about it last week when he told FAUOwlAccess he was feeling so tired last week he closed his eyes for a 20-minute power nap and woke up five hours later.

Every team in the nation is battling the rigors of a season that started in November.

However, FAU's top offensive weapons, Taylor and Greg Gantt, were freshman whose bodies were still making the transition to college basketball games (40 minutes instead of 32 minutes in high school) and the rigors and travel of their first full season in Division I.

Further proof: FAU had 22 points in the first half vs, Middle Tennessee last week and then went even worse with 19 at halftime vs. South Alabama.

Folks, it's no coincidence FAU's two worst halves of basketball happened in the last two games and the Owls lost their last four games of the season.

Speaking of Hughley, I asked FAU coach Mike Jarvis about Hughley only playing four minutes in the second half.

His response was interesting.

"He wasn't going," Jarvis said. "He was playing lousy. If you play lousy , you sit on the bench. It's that simple whether you have an injury or not. He's got injuries, but most guys have injuries this time in the season. I decided to play the guys in the second half who were getting it done. The guys that we had the best chance to win with. That's why he was on the bench most of it. I asked if he could play the last quarter. He said yes and he should have gone in and been the hero, but it wasn't meant to be."

Hughley played just four minutes in the second half and finished with just four points.

Well, the whole team now has the next eight months to rest.


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The hoops season is over so we can turn undivided attention to the baseball team, which beat Boston College on Sunday. Check out out recap, photo gallery and video highlights.

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Wednesday
2 p.m. Baseball, Pittsburgh at FAU

HOT SPRINGS, Ark. - There were plenty of fans in blue and red at the Summit Arena for the Sun Belt Conference Tournament here on Saturday.

Nice of fans of Middle Tennessee and Western Kentucky to show up.

Too bad, the same can't be said of FAU fans.

I won't say there weren't many there. I don't think there were any there. That's right. Zilch. Nada.

A women's basketball player's parents were there as was Mike Jarvis' wife, Connie.

Throw in a few members of the dance team and a few administrators (and of course, myself) and that was it, from what I saw. Some players on the FAU women's team (pictured) were among the few sitting behind the FAU bench during the loss to South Alabama.

Oh, I know it's hard to get here and it's far away and all the other excuses.

Save it.

FAU fans have nothing to explain to me. They had better things to do. I get it.

Instead, FAU fans should save the litany of excuses for the ADs and presidents of Conference USA and the Big East and all the other conferences some fans believe FAU will be invited to in the coming years.

Conferences look at things like how well does a team travel and when not one fan cared enough to follow their team to the conference tournament, I hardly see conferences falling over themselves to lock up the Owls.

At times this season, FAU had good crowd support and it looked like more fans were coming to games.

However, this is Division I athletics and it's time for FAU fans start thinking about getting serious about supporting their program. Having some representation at the annual conference tournament, which fans of the other Sun Belt schools found a way to do this weekend, would be a nice start.

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As I mentioned, FAUOwlAccess.com was in Hot Springs, Ark. for the tournament and here is my report along with a photo gallery of the action. As everyone knows it was a short stay by the both the men's and women's teams.

Back in Boca Raton, Chuck King was at the baseball game where at least he was around happy Owl fans after the baseball team pounded Boston College 15-6. He also had a video highlights package of the big game by Nick DelGuidice, who set a school record with 9 RBI.

The Mobile Press Register was in Hot Springs as well and had this recap of the game

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Today
1 p.m. Baseball, Boston College at FAU, FAU Stadium

HOT SPRINGS, Ark. - Of all the possible scenarios, seeing both the FAU men's and women's basketball teams miss shots at the buzzer and go down in the first round of their respective Sun Belt Conference tournaments was pretty unlikely.

Of course, that's exactly what happened. So all of the Owl fans who didn't make it to Hot Springs, Ark. (by my count it was all of them) may have saved themselves the aggravation of watching their teams falter.

Perhaps that's to be expected when both the leading scorers for the men's and women's teams had days they would like to forget.

Brittany Bowe only scored three points as the women lost to New Orleans 51-50 and Greg Gantt scored 12 points, but was 5-of-20 from the field in the 52-51 loss to South Alabama.

It would have been pretty unlikely for both - or even one - of the teams to win the tournament, but I am floored to see both bow out on the first day of the event.

There will be plenty of time to dissect the seasons that just ended, but for now it's time to join what appears to be a mass exodus from Hot Springs back to Boca Raton.

HOT SPRINGS, Ark. - Want to know something unique about the Sun Belt Conference Tournament here?

It's the largest combined (men and women) field of any tournament at one site in the nation.

So large in fact that it requires two courts at the site. Most games will be at Summitt Arena, but there is another court at the adjacent Convention Center.

And the FAU women will play in the first game played on the Convention Center Court in their first-round game vs. New Orleans.

An auxillary court usually means trouble, but I'm here for the morning tip and the set-up is quite nice.