Mike Jarvis is taking over after Florida Atlantic staged an extensive search for a new boss.

The Owls named Jarvis coach May 28 and has 363 career victories and past stints at St. John's and Washington University among 18 years as a coach.

"I'm happy and excited," said Jarvis. "I'm blessed to have an opportunity to be doing what I love to do and what God has blessed me to do."

Jarvis hopes to help the Owls take a giant leap forward. Despite a late-season rush, Florida Atlantic never really got in the fast lane with the Sun Belt's best teams in 2007-08 and fell short of preseason expectations. The Owls proved to be one of the Sun Belt's best surprises when it joined the conference for the 2006-07 season and expected to build on that success in 07-08.

Instead, FAU started out 0-5 and 1-6 in Sun Belt play and never really made a serious run for one of the conference's best tournament seeds, despite winning five straight games at one point in the second half of the conference schedule.

Junior power forward Carlos Monroe continued to raise his status as one of the Sun Belt's low-post players and junior guard Paul Graham III showed progress as a go-to scorer down the stretch. The rest of the roster was marked by inconsistency, especially from the first-year players.

The good news for the Owls (15-18, 8-10 Sun Belt) is that even though they lose three seniors, only one of those, forward Jeff Parmer, provided a significant contribution over the final month of the season. The big concern is whether or not first-year players such as guards Carderro Nwoji, Sanchez Hughley and Xavier Perkins and forward Sammy Hernandez and Brett Royster will grow into more consistent and productive contributors next season in Jarvis' system.

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