FAU’s Final Four team reunites in the NCAA Tournament after players, coach scattered
GAINESVILLE. Fla. — The group chat that includes Nick Boyd, Johnell Davis and Alijah Martin was buzzing.
The former Florida Atlantic starters — now scattered across the country and playing for other teams — landed on the same side of the NCAA Tournament bracket, meaning the close friends and ex-teammates don’t have a chance to reunite in the Final Four.
They’d gladly settle for Elite Eight matchups.
“I’d love to compete against any of them,” Boyd told The Associated Press. “They’re my brothers; we would have so much fun.”
Boyd, Davis, Martin and center Vladislav Goldin — four of the five starters who carried FAU to the Final Four in 2023 — are part of March Madness for a third consecutive year. This time, though, they’re wearing different uniforms.
Boyd transferred to San Diego State and is the Aztecs’ leading scorer at 13.4 points a game. Davis landed at Arkansas and ranks third on the Razorbacks at 11.2 points a game. Martin stayed much closer to FAU’s campus and joined Florida, where he’s the Gators’ second-leading scorer at 14.5 points a game. Goldin followed coach Dusty May to Michigan and has blossomed into one of the nation’s most dominant big men, averaging 16.7 points and 6.8 rebounds.
They’re as good individually as they were collectively.
“You go down the list, and a bunch of our guys had monster seasons,” Boyd said. “You go somewhere else and get a fresh start, and when you’re as talented and as smart and as experienced as you are, you never know what type of role you can create for yourself — and the sky’s the limit.”
No one would be surprised to see one of them basking in confetti and cutting down nets in San Antonio. Martin would have to be considered the favorite because Florida is a No. 1 seed and one of the hottest teams in the nation, winners of 12 of its last 13 and the Southeastern Conference Tournament champs.
“This team could finish it off, finish the job, honestly,” Martin said.
A job that started in Boca Raton years ago.
FAU’s most memorable team
Boyd, Davis and Martin were the linchpins of FAU’s most memorable team. The Owls won 35 games during the 2022-23 season, including four in a row as a No. 9 seed in the NCAA Tournament, to reach the Final Four for the first time in school history.
Reliving that run is both powerful and painful.
FAU knocked off Memphis in the opening round for the program’s first tournament victory and then upset fourth-seeded Tennessee and No. 3 seed Kansas State to reach college basketball’s biggest stage.
But in a semifinal against fifth-seeded San Diego State in Houston, the Owls squandered a 14-point lead in the second half and lost in gut-wrenching fashion: Davis’ driving shot with 10 seconds to play was blocked and then Lamont Butler sank the winning jumper over Boyd’s outstretched arm at the buzzer.
“It was a special team,” Martin said. “That’s the team that’s going to forever be on my résumé. That’s the one I’m going to remember the most because we did it in an unexpected way. Everything about that run was unexpected.”
Equally unexpected: the Owls returned nearly everyone the following year in hopes of creating more memories. The bid fell well short of the Final Four, with eighth-seeded FAU losing to Northwestern in overtime in the opening round.
May bolted for Michigan a day later, and the Owls started to fall apart from there. Most of the players ended up in the transfer portal and found new homes far from one another — yet still a few clicks away.
“We keep in touch all the time,” Davis said. “We’re family.”
Added May: “I keep track of box scores, and before we really got into the heat of our season, I caught up with a lot of those guys once a week just to check in and let them know I was thinking about them. We follow each other closely. It is a tight-knit group, and the guys follow each other closely.”
Boyd, Davis, Martin and Charlotte forward Giancarlo Rosado – FAU’s 2020 recruiting class — are the closest. They text daily, chat regularly and FaceTime often.
And they have plans to reconnect in the offseason with Goldin, who recently got engaged. They blew up his phone with texts earlier this season when his family traveled from Russia to watch him play collegiately for the first time.
“I told them the emotions I felt when I saw my family was like I had with the team,” Goldin said. “I told them: ‘I love you guys. Thank you for giving me a family.’”
What if ...
Boyd and Martin often wonder where that FAU team would be had it stayed together for one more season. They remember waiting their turn as freshmen, taking over as sophomores and becoming more than merely a March Madness darling.
“Our competitive edge was different,” Boyd said. “Coach May found a bunch of guys who loved the game. … We started from the bottom and loved the game of basketball, and once we got older, we learned more and more and more.
“We stayed in the gym and ultimately our love for the game allowed us to come to practice every single day and have more of a voice, and I think that translated.”
And it led them to the Final Four.
“Someone tagged me in a video montage of that team,” Boyd said. “I woke up to it (one) morning, and it gave me a chill watching it back because it’s March. I miss those guys all the time, coaches, players, everybody included.”
| 13h ago |
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