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KENNESAW, Ga. - Despite a strong first-half performance and a near career-high for Bryson Lockley, the Kennesaw State men's basketball team fell to FGCU 70-58 during Thursday night's blackout game at the Convocation Center. 
 
Lockley finished the game with a team-high 22 points, one point shy of his career-high, and seven rebounds while adding four assists.
 
How it Happened: The Owls (1-23, 0-11) and Eagles (8-19, 5-7) were both locked in from the opening tip, before KSU started to gain control behind three straight buckets from Pietro Agostini to put the Owls up 12-9 at the 11-minute mark. KSU stretched its lead with three straight treys from Jamie Lewis, Adili Kuerban and Lockley to earn its largest lead of the night, 21-14, with 6:54 to play. 
 
The Eagles crept back into the contest with a quick 9-2 run to knot the game back up at 23. KSU netted two more baskets in the final two minutes, but FGCU's Zachary Scott nailed a buzzer-beating three to make it a 27-26 game at the break. 
 
The Owls came out hot after the break, with Lewis and Lockley both hitting threes to put the Owls up 35-32 at the 16:02 mark. It was back-and-forth for the next few minutes with both teams trading the lead as the second half featured seven lead changes and three ties.
 
The Eagles eventually seized control as Caleb Catto hit a three followed up by back-to-back triples from Sam Gagliardi to put FGCU up 52-43 with just under 10 minutes to go. Despite scoring 15 of his 22 points in the second half, Bryson Lockley could not get the Owls back on level terms as FGCU answered each KSU bucket. The Eagles were 7-of-10 from three-point range in the second half as Catto, who went 4-for-4 from beyond the arc in the period, hit yet another trey to give FGCU its largest lead of the night, 68-53, with 1:15 left.  
 
Notes: Bryson Lockley netted over 20 points for the second time in his career … Jamie Lewis was second on the team with nine points while dishing out a career-high six assists … the Owls shot 44.0 percent from the floor, the fifth time this year they have shot over 40 percent … FGCU out-rebounded KSU 41-23 … KSU 13 assists marked the sixth time this year the Owls have recorded double-digit dimes … there were 11 lead changes and five ties throughout the game.
 
Quotes: Head Coach Amir Abdur-Rahim
On the offense in the first half…
"I felt good because I watch these guys do it everyday in practice. When they are disciplined offensively, and share the ball with each other we are pretty good. I thought we did a great job of that early on. We kind of got away from it in little spells during the first half, I want to say we were up 18-11, I felt there was an opportunity to push the lead to 10 or 12 points and we come down and take quick shots and don't share the ball. But I was happy at how we started the game, I liked the way we shared the ball."
 
On younger players getting serious minutes…
"We don't really have a choice right now because of injuries and things like that. For us it's important to have five guys on the court that want to be one. They want to be one heartbeat, they want to be one unit. We struggle right now, we've got four guys locked in and one not or three guys locked in and two not so I thought we did a good job early on of everybody collectively being locked in to the same goals."
 
On thoughts after the first half…
"I thought they felt good. They worked hard, they did a good job of having the lead. I thought we didn't execute defensively the last play, and that took some of the momentum away from us going into halftime, however, we did a good job of playing together and playing well collectively in the first half."
 
On the game's takeaways…
"We have to rebound for 40 minutes. I think we were leading in the first half 17-15 and we had only given up two offensive rebounds, and then we end up getting beat on the glass 41-23 for the game and we give up 10 offensive rebounds. I thought that was the difference in the game. That was the biggest thing we learned, and if we do that, we're going to put ourselves in a good place, if we don't it gives them energy, it gives them another chance to get a shot."
 
Up Next: The Owls turn around and hit the road to Florida Saturday to take on Stetson at 4 p.m.