They’ve lost their starting power forward for the season. They’ve lost every home game since winning their home opener against Coastal Carolina. They almost lost their starting point guard for Thursday.

Losing players and home games summarize the FIU Golden Panthers’ men’s basketball season going into their final pair of games, home contests against Troy on Thursday and South Alabama on Saturday.

In contrast, sweeping its final two games of the season Thursday and Saturday in the lead games of the basketball doubleheader would give the women’s team a 20-win season.

And the FIU women not only don’t lose players, they get consistency marks — senior Fanni Hutlassa’s 126 games is an FIU record and sophomore guard Jerica Coley, along with leading the team in scoring, rebounds, assists and blocks, also averages 39.3 minutes per game.

Meanwhile, the men’s team habitually plays teams close at U.S. Century Bank Arena before falling on their face for a fatal four or five minutes. They did break with that pattern the last home game against Denver — they trailed by 24 at halftime, made a game of it briefly in the second half before losing by 14.

“Me personally, as a senior, I don’t want to leave here without at least a home win,” said guard Jeremy Allen, whose 2.6 steals per game leads the Sun Belt and is sixth in the nation. “That’s nothing but pride, stepping up as a man and protecting your home court. We’ve lost eight games here at home in front of our fans.”

At least sophomore point guard Phil Taylor won’t be exiled to street clothes against Troy. FIU successfully appealed Taylor’s suspension to the Sun Belt Conference after a pair of technical fouls against Arkansas State Saturday resulted in his ejection.

It was that kind of week for FIU. Freshman center Gilles Dierickx, not exactly the temperamental sort, and sophomore forward Dominique Ferguson also drew the sign of the T from the officiating crew at Arkansas State. Two nights before, during a loss at Arkansas-Little Rock, Ferguson got a technical and FIU coach Isiah Thomas got one before being ejected.

“Definitely out of character,” Thomas said. “I think we’ve had five technicals in three years. It’s not what we’re known for. So, we’ll just look at one of those bumps in the road.”