How Florida Atlantic Came Out of Nowhere to Put Together Historic Cinderella Run

In defeating the Kansas State Wildcats 79-76 Saturday night to reach the 2023 men's Final Four, the Florida Atlantic Owls have officially put together the most true-to-the-Cinderella-script run in NCAA tournament history.

Within the context of an individual season, sure, there have been more surprising national semifinalists than this. After all, FAU spent several weeks in the AP Top 25 and entered the tournament as a 31-win No. 9 seed—really should have been at least a No. 7 seed, but I won't get on that soapbox again here—and there have been six double-digit seeds to reach the Final Four since the tournament expanded to 64 teams in 1985: 1986 LSU (No. 11), 2006 George Mason (No. 11), 2011 VCU (No. 11), 2016 Syracuse (No. 10), 2018 Loyola Chicago (No. 11) and 2021 UCLA (No. 11).

However, five of those six programs had at least been relevant in March before.

And last time I checked, Cinderella is the story of a completely anonymous girl who comes out of nowhere, not the story of a girl who used to frequent balls back in the day and decides to relive her glory days in a pair of glass slippers.

LSU made it to the Final Four as a No. 1 seed five years before its unlikely run in 1986. VCU was a No. 2 seed in 1985 and had won five NCAA tournament games in program history prior to going First Four to Final Four in 2011. Loyola Chicago won it all in 1963. Syracuse did the same in 2003. UCLA has more men's college basketball national championships than any other program.

The exception is George Mason, which had never won an NCAA tournament game before its magical run 17 years ago.

But at least the Patriots had been to three dances in the two decades leading up to 2006. And at least they entered that season with a winning record in program history (399-372).

That's much more than can be said for Florida Atlantic.

The Owls had previously been to just one NCAA tournament, stealing a bid in 2002 with a one-point victory over A-Sun No. 1 seed Georgia State in the conference championship game. They didn't win their ensuing NCAA tournament game against No. 2 seed Alabama, and they didn't win many regular-season games after that, either, entering this season with an all-time record of 329-532 (38.2 percent).

Even though head coach Dusty May had been building some momentum with this program since getting the job in the spring of 2018, this run was as unforeseeable as the notion of a baby learning how to walk and then becoming an Olympic gold medalist in the triple jump a week later.

FAU finished one game above .500 in May's first season at the helm.

Then two games above .500.

Then three.

Then four.

Then, shazam, 32 games above .500 with (at least) one more game in Houston still to come.

How did he do it?

How did Dusty May go to a school where the program's primary selling point to prospective recruits—"1.8 miles to the beach"—is plastered on the court at Eleanor R. Baldwin Arena and build a possible national champion in the sand?

Simply put, he went out and found guys with heart, with grit and with a desire to a part of something bigger than themselves.

Case in point: It makes absolutely no sense for the Owls to be one of the better rebounding teams in the country, as they never have more than one player taller than 6'4" on the court at any given time.

They should have gotten destroyed on the glass by Memphis, by Tennessee and by a Kansas State squad with four guys 6'9" or taller in its primary eight-man rotation.

And yet, Florida Atlantic completely annihilated Kansas State on the glass by a 44-22 margin.

At one of the most critical junctures of the game, FAU's Nicholas Boyd missed the front end of a one-and-one with the Owls leading 72-69. Four Wildcats were there to grab the rebound, but they all forgot to put a body on 6'2" Alijah Martin, who created the second-chance opportunity which eventually led to a Johnell Davis layup.

Kind of a microcosm of FAU's entire tournament in that one sequence.

The Owls have out-rebounded each opponent thus far in the dance, grabbing darn near 40 percent of possible offensive rebounds.

And that's key, because there have been a ton of offensive rebounding situations. Prior to shooting 9-of-23 from three-point range Saturday night, the Owls had been struggling in that one area which figured to be their main source of strength if they did go on this type of miraculous run.

Heading into the dance, this was a 37.2 percent three-point shooting team, and one that averaged more than 26 long-range attempts per game. There was a five-game stretch late in the season in which they shot 65-of-148 (43.9 percent) from distance. Not quite as "live and die by the three" as Penn State, but the Owls did rank top 40 nationally in both three-point percentage and three-point attempt rate at the start of the tournament.

But despite opening the Dance with three consecutive games shooting below 30 percent from beyond the arc, here they still stand, finding a way to win games even when things aren't going their preferred way, playing with the resilience of a team which has been there and done that, even though they definitively have never been there nor done that.

This FAU team has no fear.

It has swagger, but it doesn't have an ego, which is a delicate line to balance.

And it marches to the beat of its head coach, who always seems supremely confident, calm and composed.

Ripping off shirts and jumping on tables after big wins might work for Arkansas head coach Eric Musselman, but at least as far as sideline/postgame demeanor is concerned, May is much more of a Brad Stevens, who led Butler to two national championship games, or a Jay Wright, who won two titles at Villanova.

And at this point in what has been an out-of-control tournament, it has grown surprisingly easy to envision May channeling his inner Wright by whispering a little "bang" to himself before calmly walking through the handshake line after FAU pens the "happily ever after" on the greatest Cinderella story ever told.

Kerry Miller covers men's college basketball and Major League Baseball for Bleacher Report. You can follow him on Twitter: @kerrancejames.