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SPARTANBURG, S.C. – Despite holding a two-point halftime lead over USC Upstate on Friday night, the Kennesaw State men's basketball team couldn't hold on for the full 40 minutes, dropping an Atlantic Sun Conference road contest, 65-48.
 
With the Upstate win, the Owls split the regular season series with the Spartans, 1-1, as the game marked the official start of the second half of conference play for both teams.
 
Willy Kouassi put up the double-double performance for the Owls, the first of his career, with 15 points and a career high 11 rebounds, 10 of those points coming in the first half alone.
 
"Willy Kouassi gave us a great effort tonight," said Kennesaw State interim head coach Jimmy Lallathin. "He's continuing to become what we expected and just getting better and better every game. As a team, defensively we played well, holding a good shooting team to 37 percent from the field and we didn't give them too many chances at the free-throw line.
 
"We rebounded well offensively and got to the stripe, but we just missed too many free throws and layups and you have to convert those to be successful on the road."

Upstate (12-10, 5-4 A-Sun) grabbed the initial lead in the game after taking the opening tip and putting in the first two baskets. KSU (4-19, 1-9 A-Sun) then tied things up for the first time four minutes in at 6-6 on a pair of Yonel Brown free throws. The Spartans went on to put in the next four point, but the Owls responded in kind, putting in four of their own with layups from Bernard Morena and Nate Rucker to tie things up at 10 with 12:56 to go.
 
Rucker then completed the old fashioned three-point play to give the Owls their first lead of the contest at 11-10, followed by an Orlando Coleman layup after corralling the defensive board to put the Owls up by three.
 
The teams then played to 10 lead changes over the next six minutes with Upstate going up by a pair, 26-24 with 2:45 to play. Sophomore Jordan Montgomery then checked in, immediately putting in a 10-foot jumper to put the Owls up by one, 27-26. Rucker then connected on two free throws with just seven seconds remaining to send the Owls into the locker room with the 28-26 halftime lead.
 
Coming back out of the gates it was Kouassi striking again, this time on the free throw to extend the lead to three for the Owls. Upstate responded with a three-pointer on the other end, tying it up at 29 after the first two minutes of action.
 
After three scoreless minutes of basketball it was Delbert Love that snapped the scoring drought, putting in the fast-break floater off of the Brown assist. But the Spartans responded, putting in two to tie it up at 31. Two minutes later it was Upstate that broke the tie, putting in the basket with 13:21 to go at 33-31.
 
Myles Hamilton then took the Owls on a 4-0 run, all from the charity stripe, as KSU regained the lead at 35-33 with just under 12 remaining. But an Upstate run gave the Spartans the largest lead of the half for either team, forcing a KSU timeout as the home team went up 45-39 at the nine minute mark.
 
A 10-2 run from Upstate then broke the game open in favor of the Spartans, giving Upstate the 52-41 lead with five to go as the Owls couldn't find the offensive rhythm in the final minutes, falling 65-48.
 
Kouassi led the Owls in both points and rebounds with Hamilton the only other double-figure scorer with his 10. Love was good for five points, giving him just eight to go before reaching the 1,000^th of his career.
 
Brown was tops for KSU with his four assists while Kouassi also added two more blocks to his team-leading 22.
 
During the back-and-forth contest, the teams played to 12 ties and 14 lead changes.
 
The Owls remain on the road for one more contest this week, taking on East Tennessee State in Johnson City, Tenn. in a rare Sunday matchup at 2 p.m. ET.

To keep up with the latest Kennesaw State men's basketball news follow the team on Twitter @KSUOwlNation and @KSUOwlsMBB or by liking Kennesaw State University on Facebook.
 
Season tickets are currently available for all the home court action for the Owls and can be purchased by following the link here.
   

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