Dusty May's Final Four Diary: A crazy March on the road leads Florida Atlantic Owls to Houston

Editor’s note: As Florida Atlantic heads to Houston for the Final Four, coach Dusty May is keeping a blog and sharing it this week in collaboration with retired Bloomington, Indiana, Herald-Times sports writer Lynn Houser, who covered May when he played high school basketball and now lives in Delray Beach. In this first installment, May recaps the arduous travel schedule the Owls have kept over the past month.

March 29, 1 p.m. CDT

Reflecting back on how quickly March has come and gone for us. Only six nights this month has our team been home and gotten to sleep in our own beds. We left March 1st for our flight to Houston (of all places) to play our last two regular-season games. We then went straight to Dallas to prepare for our C-USA Tournament. We practiced and lifted weights at Southern Methodist University before heading into Frisco, about 30 minutes up the road. SMU was extremely hospitable and gracious, and we thank them for taking care of our team (our home away from home).

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After we defeated UAB in the C-USA Championship game, it was extremely late in the evening, and I would imagine our entire travel party didn’t get more than two hours of sleep before heading back home to Boca Raton.

We left for Columbus on Wednesday the 15th and went straight to New York after winning ourfirst two games vs. Memphis and Fairleigh Dickinson. Both Columbus and New York were truly a blur, and Iam so excited for our players and fans for an unreal atmosphere, an experience, playing in front of 20,000 or so fans in both arenas with Madison Square Garden, of course, being the most famous arena in the world.

We are excited to be back home in Boca Raton, even if just for a few days. Our chartered flight got delayed out of Newark and the fans and students who were waiting outside of our arena had to wait even longer than expected.

For a few hours to pass the time, our 15 players, the pep band, cheer squad, and dance team all got to hang out together, take pictures with our regional championship trophy, play box-ball type games with a basketball — and no one had their phones out. It was cool to see all these students, who represent FAU in various capacities, hang out and enjoy each other’s company as we were waiting on the inclement weather to pass and get cleared for boarding.

Three hours or so after our planned arrival time at FAU Arena, our buses pulled up to a massive crowd. It was a special moment for our university. To say our fans are energized by what our team has accomplished so far this year would be an understatement. We can’t thank them enough for their incredible support.

We finally got back to practice in our own arena and, as expected, the media presence was enormous. From CBS to "SportsCenter," to the "Today" show, FAU and its brand were truly everywhere. As our players have done time and time again, they have remained extremely focused and we had a very competitive practice.

To our players' credit, they were not distracted by the media frenzy and practiced as if it was just us in the gymalone. This amount of media coverage is, of course, something very new for our players, but I keep thinking about how great of an experience this is for them. I get great joy seeing our guys improve and become more comfortable each time they get interviewed. This will serve them extremely well down the road when they enter the professional world.

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Checking out NIT and fellow C-USA teams

As my staff and I are fully immersed in our scouting and preparation for SDSU, I take a few minutes here and there to check in on the NIT semifinal games. I am not surprised at all to see both North Texas and UAB win their semifinal NIT games and advance to the NIT Championship game. Our conference was the best it’s been in 12-plus years, back when Derrick Rose was at Memphis and went on to the title game.

Charlotte, another C-USA team, won the other postseason tournament, the CBI (March 22). I saw a stat that our league in postseason games this year (CBI, NIT, NCAA Tournament) is now 17-1 and has a chance to win all three postseason tournaments. Now we must now hold up our end of the deal.

If UAB beats North in the NIT final, that will make three 30-win teams in C-USA this season — truly amazing stuff. This year’s C-USA postseason success makes our 21-2 record this year vs. C-USA teams even more impressive. Our league has absolutely prepared us for the NCAA Tournament.

Off to Houston this morning, with a 9:15 a.m. bus departure. Where did the month of March go?

Our fans continue to amaze us with their support as there was another massive crowd of people outside in the parking lot to send us off to the airport. Our flight was on time and it was wheels up at 11 a.m. Today, we will check into the hotel and then have a team meal before leaving for practice at 3:45 p.m. at Texas Southern University. After that, it will just be film and meals for our guys and hopefully a good night’s sleep for everyone as we are all looking to get caught back up on some much-needed rest.

(Thursday) will be the first time we will see NRG Stadium as we will have a closed practice in the morning for 90 minutes. I know our players can’t wait to get to work.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Dusty May diary on FAU's journey to the Final Four - Wednesday entry