NEW YORK—At the base of the basket stanchion appropriately bathed in a spotlight, Bryan Greenlee was somehow by himself. Despite the pockets of celebrations around him, and the procession up the ladder to cut pieces of the net, he was able to find some amount of solitude to call his girlfriend, Angelina, in the midst of it all. He told her the run doesn’t end here, minutes after his Owls beat Kansas State, 79–76, to go to the Final Four.
“We go to Houston, take care of two more games, that’s it. It’s simple, but it’s gonna be difficult. We can do it. We’re built for this,” Greenlee said.
The Owls have proven that this is far more than just a happy-to-be-here group of plucky upstarts. FAU is certainly under-seeded as a No. 9 seed despite being the 17th-ranked team in KenPom rankings and the 33rd-ranked team in the Committee’s total seed list. They decisively beat Tennessee in the Sweet 16 on Thursday night and went toe-to-toe with Kansas State all night Saturday, digging out of a seven-point deficit midway through the second half and overcoming 22 turnovers.
