By: KSU Sports Information
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SPRINGFIELD, Mo. – Markeith Cummings scored 24 points to lead all scorers, and Spencer Dixon reached the 1,000 career points milestone on Saturday afternoon, but in the end it was the Missouri State Bears who had the upper hand, defeating the Black and Gold, 78-55, at JQH Arena, in the Owls opening game of the Continental Tire Las Vegas Classic.
The Owls (2-7), who have now dropped five straight games, struggled from the floor for most of the 40 minutes, shooting just 35.3 percent (18-for-51) on the afternoon, and had trouble containing the potent offensive attack of the Bears (6-3) who were a staggering 31-for-52 from the field.
"I thought we fought hard for 28 minutes, but when you let a team shoot almost 60 percent from the field, you're not going to have a lot of success," Owls head coach Lewis Preston said. "We can look at the stat sheet and talk about the fact that they out-rebounded us by 14, or that their bench scoring was so much higher than ours, but the fact is, we still need to find a way to have more than just two guys that are able to score in each, that's the challenge for us right now."
Kennesaw State fought hard early, and were able to take a, 13-7, lead 7:21 into the game, thanks to an 8-0 during which time the made three out of four shots and forced the Bears into a pair of misses and a turnover.
Missouri State, who like the Owls have a first-year head coach in Paul Lusk, would immediately counter with a 17-0 run of their own to take control of the game. The Owls, for their part, would lose their touch offensively for much of the remainder of the first half. After Cummings would make his only three-point basket of the game to give the Black and Gold their six-point cushion, it would be another 6:48 before they would score again.
During that drought, the Owls would commit four of their season-low seven turnovers in the game. By the time Delbert Love, who shot just 2-for-9 from the floor on Saturday after scoring 27 points on Thursday night at Missouri, made a three of his own, the Owls were down, 24-16, with 5:51 left in the contest.
The Bears would continue to play well for the latter part of the first half, closing things out on a 16-6 run, the last five points coming from senior Kyle Weems, the Missouri Valley Conference Preseason Player of the Year, who would finish the game with a team-high 22 points.
Trailing, 40-22, at the half, the Owls would immediately extend their deficit, missing their first two shot attempts while the Bears made their first two to go along with a pair of free throws, making it a, 46-22 contest. The Owls wouldn’t trim the deficit to below 20 points for the rest of the game.
While Cummings had a game-high 24 points, moving into sixth place on the Owls all-time scoring list in the process, senior Spencer Dixon had a memorable game of his own. With a one-handed floater from just in front of the free throw line 2:50 into the game, the Marietta, Ga., native scored the first points of the game and also became just the 14
th Owl in program history to surpass 1,000 points for his career. He would finish the game with 17 points to be the only other Owls in double figures.
"I didn't even realize that I had gotten to 1,000 until several people told me after the game," Dixon commented. "It's a great honor, it's something that i've always wanted to achieve during my career. Hopefully it's part of a bigger goal for us as a team, which is to continue to get better and start winning games on a consistent basis."
Missouri State was led by Weems’ 22 points, as well as his eight rebounds, with senior big man Caleb Patterson scoring 12 points of his own. Cummings led the Owls with seven rebounds.
The Owls continue their participation in the Continental Tire Las Vegas Classic on Monday when they visit the Saint Mary’s Gaels in Moraga, Calif., with tip-off slated for 10 p.m. EST. They finish off the event in Las Vegas, Dec. 22-23, with a game against Tennessee Tech followed by a match-up with either Bethune Cookman or Texas A&M-Corpus Christi.
