Kennesaw State Men’s basketball finished victoriously in a 65-63 game against Florida Gulf Coast University on Jan. 21.
At the start of the night, KSU was just a win behind the Liberty Flames for first place in the ASUN conference.
Coming off an emotional win against Stetson just two nights prior, Coach Amir Abdur-Rahim spoke about the team’s ability to stay focused on the task at hand.
“We’ve been talking to our guys since late November about character through prosperity. Our character has been built from adversity over the past few years, but to have character through prosperity is a totally different thing,” Coach Abdur-Rahim said. “To play the game we did the other night at Stetson and get that win, and then to come out tonight and gut out a win against a good FGCU team on their home court, tells me that our character is intact through prosperity.”
The Owls got off to a quick start in the first half behind strong performances from Brandon Stroud and Alex Peterson, resulting in a 36-26 halftime lead.
“When he focuses on both ends of the court, we are really good.” Coach Abdur-Rahim said about Stroud’s stellar performance on both offense and defense. “The best thing about him is he understands his responsibility to the team and he brings it every night and really played great today.”
After a poor shooting first half, FGCU was able to hold the lead at several points in the 2nd half, due to 28 combined points from Isaiah Thompson and Zach Anderson.
“We struggle, but that’s to be expected on another team’s home floor, we’ve been good coming out of the half at home, but it’s something that we’ve gotta get better at,” Coach Abdur-Rahim said, regarding slow second-half starts over the last two games. “Again jobs not finished, we have room to get better.”
The Owls were able to hold onto a victory due to a pair of clutch free throws from Terrell Burden, as well as some very strong team defense down the stretch, ending in a 65-63 road win.
The win is number 15 on the season for the Owls, breaking the record for wins in a season, previously held by Al Skinner’s 2016-2017 squad.
“I’m not sure what it means just yet because there’s still so much more to go.” Coach Abdur-Rahim said regarding what this season has meant for the KSU Men’s Basketball program. “But I will say that our goal when I came here was to have a program that is sustained over time, and I truly believe that we’re on that trajectory and in the midst of that now. We’re gonna stay humble and stay connected.”
Perhaps the story of the night, however, was Junior center Yves Nkomba, who played only a few seconds at the end of each half and was instructed to simply guard the inbounds pass.
“He went in with great enthusiasm, and was as big as anybody can be on that ball. It went a long way to helping us win tonight .” Coach Abdur-Rahim said after calling Nkomba his “player of the game.”
The Owls will be back home to take on Austin Peay this Thursday, Jan. 26 at 7:30 p.m. in the Convocation Center.
