Men’s basketball will venture to Huntsville, Alabama this week to open postseason play against New Mexico State in the Conference USA Championship quarterfinals on Thursday.
In their two prior matchups, the Owls defeated the Aggies 69-56 in Las Cruces, and fell on senior night 60-49 in Kennesaw.
The Owls rallied off back-to-back comeback road wins over conference leaders Liberty and Jacksonville State in their final two regular season games, finishing 18-13 overall entering postseason play.
“I think we’re playing some of our best basketball when we need it most,” coach Antoine Pettway said. “Having gone up to Liberty where they were tied to be number one in the league and then we were able to go beat them at Liberty which doesn’t happen often. Then going into Jacksonville State I think they had lost one conference game at home and our guys got down as many as 17 and just kept coming and kept fighting. I knew in in their eyes at halftime they we were going to come out and put our best foot forward – we are playing some of our best basketball right now.”
A trend the Owls are hoping to overcome are slow starts. A double-digit first half deficits have resulted in a handful of exciting comebacks such as Liberty and JSU, but proved to be too much to overcome in tight losses at home to Middle Tennessee State and on the road to Sam Houston and Florida International.
“We got to come out with the right mindset, come out aggressive,” Pettway said. “We got to get off to better starts, and I think again it starts with defensive rebounding, staying out of foul trouble, doing our work early. If we can get off to a great start I think you’ll see us play even better throughout the game.”
Simeon Cottle, the lone scholarship player remaining from the Owls 2023 NCAA Tournament team said he’s preached to his teammates to keep outside preseason expectations in mind.
“It’s been a long season so most teams are kind of fatigued,” Cottle said. “I’ve been just trying to get to (my teammates) and get in their mind like we got to still be the hardest playing team, the hardest working team because nobody believed in us when we first stepped in the league.”
Fifth-year senior Rongie Gordon went off for a career-high 25 points in the Owls’ regular season finale after building a reputation as a role-playing rebounder and defender.
Gordon, who will round out his college career at the conclusion of the Owls’ season said he believes his legacy as an Owl will be left in his hard work.
“My legacy is going to be you’re going to work no matter what,” Rongie said. “You’re not going to be scared, you’re always going to fight, no quit in you.”
Gordon will have the task of matching up against two of CUSA ‘s tallest centers in Nate and Emmanuel Tshimanga who stand at 6’10 and 7’0.
“They’re hard, physical,” Gordon said. “They play to the style that we play on defense. they want to be grimy, they want to be physical and I we look forward to that, we invite – we coming.”
