Florida Atlantic University’s outstanding Owls. What a hoot!

The Florida Atlantic University men’s basketball team hopes to extend its historic successful run Thursday night at Madison Square Garden, when the Owls play the University of Tennessee.

Florida’s other postseason success story, the University of Miami, plays Houston on Friday in Kansas City.

Congratulations are also in order to the four Florida women’s teams in Division I that also made it to the postseason: Florida State, Florida Gulf Coast, University of South Florida and Miami. The ’Canes women are still in it; they play Villanova on Friday.

But these Owls are outstanding. They are enjoying their finest season by far in school history, with a glittering 33-3 record after postseason victories over Memphis and Fairleigh Dickinson.

It must seem fairly ridiculous to any casual college basketball fan that every other major Florida public university is home, watching these games on TV, while FAU is in the Sweet 16. ( F-A-who? they might be asking in Paducah).

That is, unless you’ve followed this team all season. With players from as close as

West Palm Beach and as far away as Russia, the Owls are good — so good they ran off 20 straight victories.

Tennessee’s not bad either. The Vols are big and tough with an aggressive style of wearing down opponents, as they did against Duke last weekend.

As for our Owls, here are a couple of omens. Earlier this season Tennessee lost to the University of Florida, while FAU defeated the Gators in Gainesville.

In addition, Tennessee has a terrible record of one win and seven losses in past Sweet 16 games, while FAU’s record is — well, this is FAU’s first Sweet 16 appearance ever.

March Madness in Boca Raton. Woo hoo!