MIAMI (Jan. 4, 2015) – The FIU men's basketball team opened up Conference USA play with a hard-fought 62-60 victory over the Florida Atlantic Owls in Boca Raton on Sunday. With the win, FIU has now won five of its last six against Florida Atlantic and improves to 6-0 this season versus schools from the State of Florida.

Redshirt junior Adrian Diaz was dominant in the post, scoring 27 points on 11-of-14 shooting, while grabbing 11 rebounds to record his second-career double-double. The Miami native also added five blocks in the game, matching his career-high and marking the third time this season he has had five swats in a game. Senior Dennis Mavin scored 16 points in the win and added a career-high six assists, while sophomore Dominique Williams chipped in six points and matched his career-high in rebounds with nine.

FIU shot at least 50 percent from the floor for the third-straight game, shooting at an even clip of 50 percent. Defensively, the Panthers were strong in the first half, allowing the Owls to just shoot 33 percent in the first stanza and finishing the game at 37.9 percent from the floor. The Panthers scored 30 points in the paint in a game that featured four ties and nine lead changes.

The Panthers jumped out to an eight-point lead with 14:10 to go in the first half as junior Tashawn Desir scored on a floater to make it 16-8. Following a layup by FAU's Jackson Trapp, Diaz connected on two-straight jumpers to give FIU its biggest lead of the game, 20-10. The Owls went on to drain two-straight from downtown before Diaz answered with another jumper and Williams made one in the paint to up the lead back up to eight. FIU would maintain an eight-point advantage up to the 2:54 mark, but the Owls were able to trim the lead to three going into halftime.

FIU came out of the locker room and steadily climbed its lead to six points on a jumper by Mavin in the paint with 15:24 to go. The Owls answered quickly though and trimmed the lead down to one before Diaz and Mavin combined for the next six points to up the Panther lead to seven with 12:05 remaining. FIU and FAU would exchange scores on the next three possessions until Mavin hit a jumper with 10:02 on the clock to make it a 46-38 game. FIU maintained the seven-point lead as it was up 50-43 with 7:53 remaining in the game.

From there, the Owls would get hot as Trapp made a jumper and Justin Massey successfully converted from three to make it a two-point ball game with 6:41 to go. Solomon Poole's layup capped off a 7-0 run for the Owls to even up the game at 50 apiece. Diaz came back with jumper at the 4:44 mark, but C.J. Turman answered with a field goal to make it 52-52. Then, FAU took its first lead since the early stages of the game on a layup by Poole. Diaz continued his stellar performance with a big three-point play to give FIU a 55-54 advantage with 3:05 remaining. However, Poole answered with a three to put the Owls ahead, 57-55.

With 2:13 remaining, Diaz was fouled and drained both his shots from the charity stripe to make it 57 all. Diaz continued to hit his foul shots, as he sank two more at the 1:18 mark to give FIU a 59-57 edge. After getting a stop on the defensive end, junior Daviyon Draper hit a big elbow jumper with 13 seconds remaining to give FIU a four-point lead. Poole made an acrobatic three with five seconds to play and Desir sank one free throw to keep FIU's lead at two. Poole had one last look on a half-court shot for the Owls, but the miss resulted in a 62-60 victory for the Panthers.

FIU is back in action this Thursday when it travels to Middle Tennessee. Tip time is slated for 8 p.m.

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About FIU Athletics: FIU Athletics is home to more than 400 student-athletes in 18 different sports. Athletic events are played in seven different venues on FIU's campuses (Modesto A. Maidique and Biscayne Bay), including FIU Arena and Ocean Bank Field at FIU Stadium.

About FIU: Florida International University is recognized as a Carnegie engaged university. It is a public research university with colleges and schools that offers more than 180 bachelor's, master's and doctoral programs in fields such as engineering, international relations, architecture, law and medicine. As one of South Florida's anchor institutions, FIU contributes $9.8 billion each year to the local economy. FIU is Worlds Ahead in finding solutions to the most challenging problems of our time. FIU emphasizes research as a major component of its mission. FIU has awarded over 200,000 degrees and enrolls more than 54,000 students in two campuses and three centers including FIU Downtown on Brickell, FIU@I-75, and the Miami Beach Urban Studios. FIU also supports artistic and cultural engagement through its three museums: the Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum, the Wolfsonian-FIU, and the Jewish Museum of Florida-FIU. FIU is a member of Conference USA and has over 400 student-athletes participating in 18 sports. For more information about FIU, visit http://www.fiu.edu/.