Behind the scenes with FAU: How the Owls prepared for the NCAA tournament

BOCA RATON, Fla. (AP) — Dusty May was frazzled Sunday afternoon. It was a few hours before the NCAA tournament selections would be unveiled and the Florida Atlantic coach was seriously worried that the Owls weren’t going to get picked.

His fears were unfounded: FAU was the third team announced when the 68-team bracket was unveiled. The Owls had to wait barely a minute to learn that they weren’t just in, comfortably in — as a No. 8 seed, nowhere near the proverbial bubble.

And that’s when anxiety was replaced by, well, more anxiety.

For FAU, the next 114 hours — from the moment the team was selected to tipoff against Northwestern at Barclays Center in New York on Friday afternoon — were a study in organized chaos. Logistics needed to be worked out, a scouting report had to be prepared from scratch, a game plan was installed and then it was time to finally play Northwestern.