Saturday, January 07, 2006

BOCA RATON, Fla. - Behind DeAndre Rice's fifth straight 20-point outing in league play, Florida Atlantic regained the Atlantic Sun Conference lead with a 91-80 victory over visiting Mercer.

FAU's 4-1 record in conference matches the best start by any Owls' squad five games into an A-Sun schedule. That mark was also accomplished in 1996-97, 1997-98 and 2003-04.

The highly-anticipated and long-awaited debut of Carlos Monroe was a tremendous success as well. The 6'8" 245-pound forward quietly entered the game at the 15:03 mark of the first half but made plenty of noise in his first 5:47 of collegiate action, scoring 10 points while going 4-4 from the field and 2-2 from the free throw line. He finished the game with 14 points and four rebounds in 18 minutes.