By: by Mark Toma
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. - Kennesaw State will close out its brief two-game road trip on Monday evening when they battle the Jacksonville Dolphins in a key early season Atlantic Sun Conference match-up at the Veterans Memorial Arena.
The Owls (5-8, 1-2 A-Sun) enter the game having dropped a, 66-60, decision to North Florida on Saturday evening despite getting 23 points from Markeith Cummings, who has scored over 20 points in three of his last four games. Meanwhile, Jacksonville seeks its first conference win of the season after losing a controversial game to Mercer on Saturday.
Jacksonville (3-8, 0-3 A-Sun), who began the season with five consecutive losses, has struggled during the early portion of their season. However, they began the year with five consecutive road games in which they lost to Florida State, California , South Carolina, Georgia State and Florida.
Each team has began the A-Sun season against the top of the conference with the Owls having played Belmont, Lipscomb (97-91 win) and North Florida while the Dolphins have played Campbell, East Tennessee State and Mercer.
The Dolphins lead the all-time series with the Owls, holding a 5-3 advantage, heading into Monday night. Kennesaw State won the first three games of the series while Jacksonville has captured the last five meetings.
The Owls have won one win in the four Florida meetings with the Dolphins. The Black and Gold defeated Jacksonville, 80-76, in the 2005-06 season before suffering losses in the next three meetings including an 82-61 loss, the second largest margin in the series, last season. The Owls hold the mark for the largest margin of victory in the series with an 88-64 win in the first-ever meeting between the teams in 2006 at the KSU Convocation Center.
Ben Smith leads the Jacksonville offense scoring over 18 points per game and has been the Dolphins leading scorer in eight of 11 games this season. Smith has scored over 20 points five times this season including his last four games which includes a 32-point performance against ETSU in which he connected on 7-of-11 shots from thee-point range. The 5-foot-10-inch guard is averaging 25.3 points per game in conference games.
The Owls have been getting solid play from Cummings, who averaged 25.0 points per game last week, and Kurtis Woods, but need more impact from their big men. Senior co-captain Jon-Michael Nickerson is coming off a strong game at North Florida in which he scored 11 points and grabbed four rebounds, snapping a streak of six games in which he did not score in double-figures.
LaDaris Green had his first career double-double against Fordham on Dec. 29 when he scored 12 points and matched his career-high with 15 rebounds. Green, Nickerson (one) and Cummings (three) have combined for all five of the Owls double-doubles this season.
Tonight's game is scheduled for 7:15 p.m. and can be heard live on 920am WGKA and on-line at www.920WGKA.com with Craig Corbin, play-by-play, and Scott Webb, color analyst, calling all the action. The pregame show begins at 7:00 p.m.
