By: by Mark Toma
KENNESAW, Ga. – After a stellar trip to Florida in which Kennesaw State swept Florida Gulf Coast and Stetson, the Owls will conclude their four-game road trip on Wednesday night with a meeting against the Mercer Bears.
Although facing the same opponents this past week, the Owls and the Bears enter the game on two extremes. Kennesaw State (8-12, 3-6 A-Sun) is flying high after winning back-to-back conference road games for the first time in four years while Mercer (9-10, 5-4 A-Sun), who had won five in a row before heading to Florida, are now looking to end a two-game losing streak.
The Owls and their closest rival in the Atlantic Sun Conference, separated by less than 100 miles, will be meeting for the ninth time with Mercer leading the all-time series, 5-3, after sweeping a pair of games last season. The series has always been hotly contested with two overtime games and five of the first six games being decided by seven points or less. Mercer has won two in a row against KSU for the second time in the series.
Markeith Cummings leads the Owls and is fresh off claiming his second Atlantic Sun Conference Player of the Week Award. The redshirt freshman, who leads all NCAA freshmen in scoring, averaged 24.5 points and seven rebounds last week.
Cummings scored 30 points against Florida Gulf Coast, scoring the first 17 points of the game and then added a double-double against Stetson, scoring 19-points and grabbing 10-rebounds for his fourth double-double of the season.
In addition to Cummings, Kurtis Woods has continued his solid play. The sophomore guard has been a force on offense as well as defensively, getting a steal in eight of his last nine games. He has also grabbed multiple rebounds in six straight games, averaging 3.3 boards during that stretch.
Woods, who is averaging 13.5 points per game this season, won the Florida Gulf Coast game with a pair of free-throws in the final minute of the Owls one-point win, and is averaging 16.2 points in his last five games. Last week, the sharpshooter connected on half of his shots from the field (10-for-20) and was 5-for-10 from three-point range.
Mercer is led by all-conference sensation James Florence and Daniel Emerson. The duo, along with KSU’s Cummings and LaDaris Green, is one of the most effective scoring-rebounding combinations in the conference.
Florence is second in the A-Sun in scoring at 20.8 points per game while Emerson leads the league in rebounding at 11.5 rebounds per game, nearly three more than the next closest rebounder, Campbell’s Jonathan Rodriguez. Emerson is also eighth in the conference in scoring (14.5 ppg), as Mercer is one of two A-Sun teams (along with Lipscomb) to have two players in the top 10 in scoring.
The Owls and Bears will tip-off at 7:00 p.m. from the University Center. The game can be heard live at 920 am WGKA as well as on-line at www.920WGKA.com. Craig Corbin, play-by-play, and Scott Webb, color analyst, will call the action beginning with the pregame show at 6:30 p.m.
