School: Florida Atlantic
Location: Boca Raton, Florida
Est. 1961
Enrollment: 23, 613 (undergraduate)
Nickname: Owls
Notable Alumni: Carrot Top (horribly unfunny "comedian"), Patricia McKay (CFO of Office Depot)
Season Overview so far: The Owls are led by Mike Jarvis, whom you might remember from his days coaching St. Johns back when they were actually good and stuff. Without going through the minimal effort to look it up (also called, making the RCT commenters do some work) I believe his St. Johns team was the last non conference opponent to beat Duke at Cameron.
FAU has played a decent non conference schedule, losing by 6 at Washington and narrowly beating George Mason, but we're obviously the best opponent they will have seen yet.
What They're Good at: Defensively the Owls have been rather stout. They are allowing opponents to make only 41.2% of their twos, and their opponents shoot a lot of them. 5th most in the country to be exact. They also block a lot of those attempts: their 13.2% block rate is 50th in the country. Kansas has had a lot of shots blocked this year (of course, I think about 95% of those were by Anthony Davis, but still) so it will be interesting to see if that trend continues for both teams.
What they're not good at: For all their effort inside on defense, it seems to have the opposite effect on offense. The Owls are shooting just 45% from two, good for 236th nationally. They shot 42.5% from two against Washington, which gives you a bit of insight into how they do against teams with some size. Kansas has defended the two very well this year (and even better considering I didn't know how they would be able to with only two big men). They also really struggle at getting to the line: their FTA/FGA is 300th in the country
How to attack them: The Owls provide a bit of an interesting dichotomy: they are very good at two point defense and blocking shots, suggesting they're tall and rugged inside, but their inability to get to the line or score from two suggests otherwise. They shoot their fair share of threes so that helps to explain some of the getting to the line problems, but they also get a lot of shots blocked.
Kore White at 6'8" is their tallest regular player, and beyond that their next two tallest regulars stand 6'6" and 6'4" so either they are lying or Kansas should have a pretty decent advantage inside. I would suggest posting up Robinson and Withey as much as possible but more importantly I think we will see the much anticipated return of the alley oop (and in bunches)
Prediction: KenPom predicts a 79-61 win in 67 possessions (with a 93% of winning). To get a bit more subjective I think we'll be a bit sluggish and a bit out of control so I'm going to go 85-70 in 72 possessions.