The Owls are going dancing again.
A year after making the program’s second-ever NCAA Tournament and making a Cinderella Final Four run, Dusty May and Florida Atlantic earned a spot in March Madness for the second year in a row.
The Owls earned the No. 8 seed in the East Region. They will face Northwestern in Brooklyn, New York on Friday.
FAU is 25-8 this season, but the Owls were shocked by 16-20 Temple in the semifinals of the American Athletic Conference tournament on Friday.
The three surviving 2023 Final Four teams (with Miami having not made the tournament), FAU, San Diego State and defending champion UConn, are all in the East Region. If both FAU and UConn win their first-round games, they would face off in a Round-of-32 matchup.
The Owls did not have the same success as they did in the 2022-23 season, which they finished 35-4.
FAU, however, had a tougher schedule this season, beating tough out-of-conference teams like Arizona, Butler, Texas A&M and Virginia Tech. However, the Owls also lost to Illinois and Bryant outside the AAC and dropped conference games to Charlotte, UAB and a surging USF, among others.
The Owls returned much of the same core from last year’s Final Four team, with guards Johnell Davis and Alijah Martin and forward Vladislav Goldin leading the way in scoring.
Two other Florida teams will join FAU in the NCAA Tournament. Florida returned to March Madness after a two-season absence, and Stetson punched its ticket to the first NCAA Tournament in school history.
