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MACON, Ga. – The Kennesaw State men's basketball team matched Mercer shot-for-shot in the second half, but could not rally from an early deficit as the Owls fell to the Bears, 74-62, Monday night in Macon.
How it Happened: Bryson Lockley got the Owls (0-3) going right away with a deep three-pointer to put KSU on top. After an and-one bucket from Mercer (2-1) tied it back up, both teams proceeded to go back-and-forth in a defensive battle. Mercer eventually began to gain separation as a three-point bucket from the Bears' Ross Cummings opened a 10-0 run to give them an 18-8 lead.
Tyler Hooker finally snapped the drought with his first bucket of the night at the 5:47 mark. The Bears maintained their double-digit lead throughout the final five minutes by answering each KSU bucket before a jumper from
Drew Romich at the buzzer sent the Owls into halftime trailing 31-19.
The second half opened with yet another three-pointer, this time from Mercer, as the Bears extended their lead to 36-19 before
Danny Lewis opened the scoring for KSU with a jumper. Hooker followed suit shortly afterwards with a three-pointer of his own as the redshirt senior scored 12 of his 14 points in the second half.
The Owls attempted to cut into Mercer's lead as a quick 5-0 run brought it to 45-34 with 13:09 still to play, but the Bears responded with a trey to keep KSU at arm's length. KSU managed to cut the lead back down to 11 twice in the second half, but could not get it to single-digits as each time Mercer answered on the following possession. The Bears were 6-of-10 from beyond the arc in the second period to spoil any comeback attempt from the Owls.
KSU matched Mercer in the second half as both teams scored 43 points each.
Notes: Tyler Hooker and
Bryson Lockley both hit double-figures with 14 points, three points shy of Lockley's career-high … Lockley also led the team with seven rebounds … three Owls,
Antonio Spencer,
Armani Harris and
Bobby Miller, all finished with six boards each … Miller had a breakout night with 21 minutes played, 15 in the second half alone, coming off the bench to record six points and two assists to go along with his six rebounds …
Danny Lewis finished the game with nine points, followed by Harris with eight.
Quotes: Head Coach Abdur-Rahim
On the second half turnaround…
"In the locker room we tried to talk about strategy. Being down, I don't want to be the coach that comes in and yells, I learned that from Billy Kennedy. You have to keep it even keel because there is still a lot of basketball left. But we talked about playing harder, we talked about executing our offense and still cutting hard, even though teams right now are going to know what you're running. We've played two games so they've scouted it, but a big part of it was continuing to play hard. And we didn't start the second half that way, we gave away, I think, three minutes in the second half just not playing hard. Then we called a timeout and we've got to jump them to get going and they responded. Which is a good thing, but I don't want to have to wait to get down for our pride to come out. It's an opportunity to play this beautiful game and it should be respected and played hard and played the right way."
On Bobby Miller's energy off the bench…
"What we talk about and what we are trying to build in our program right now is character. Telling these guys that character is doing the same thing right every time, you know cutting hard every time, being in a defensive stance every time.
Bobby Miller is a kid who has been on our team a little over a month, now I know his high school program and his AAU program and he comes from good people so that's not a surprise for me, but he has big time character. So of course once he figures out what we're doing, he's going to have success because he plays hard, he plays the right way, but he's a high character kid. We've got to get more guys to bring that character part out."
Up Next: The Owls have some time to rest as they look ahead to their home opener next Monday (Nov. 18) against Reinhardt at 7 p.m.
