By Julien Benjamin—Staff Writer
Despite outscoring North Florida 44-38 in a hot second half, Kennesaw State dropped its fifth Atlantic Sun Conference game of the season to the Ospreys Friday night, 86-67.
KSU (6-16, 1-5) allowed UNF (14-9, 6-0) to go on a 12-2 run to open the game and place the Owls in a hole that was much too deep to overcome.
“We made too many lapses defensively,” KSU head coach Jimmy Lallathin said. “Offensively, we took shots that were out of character.”
The Owls did, however, manage to put five players in double-figures during the road matchup.
KSU’s first two buckets of the game were each a dunk, one from Damien Wilson, the other from Orlando Coleman. Coleman hit an elbow jumper to cut the deficit to eight, but UNF responded with a 9-0 to stretch their lead to seventeen. The Owls struggled through the remainder of the first half, trailing by as much as 25, with a 48-23 score at intermission.
KSU allowed the Ospreys to shoot 68 percent in the first half, while converting just 34 percent of their own field goal attempts.
“Defensively, we gave up too many second opportunity points,” Lallathin said. “We can’t do that when we’re on the road against a team that’s leading the conference.”
In the second half of play, KSU outscored the Ospreys by six, but it was too late for a meaningful comeback. However, Lallathin saw many positive signs out of his team’s late performance. “We were able to get stops that allowed us to get into transition, we had much better ball movement and our possessions looked as good as we’ve had since I’ve been here at Kennesaw,” he said.
KSU held UNF to 35 percent shooting from the field in the period, while shooting 53 percent themselves. Yonel Brown scored all 13 of his points in this half, while Nigel Pruitt, Wilson and Willy Kouassi each added nine points during the final half on their way to finishing with double digit totals overall. Orlando Coleman finished with 12 points.
“I’m much happier with that (second half) performance,” Lallathin said. “But we need that for a full 40 minutes. We can play with anyone in this league when we’re consistent.”
Kouassi continued his recent strong play, finishing just short of a double-double, collecting 12 points and nine rebounds. “Willy’s just getting better,” Lallathin said. “He’s giving a great effort and is getting success to go along with that.”
Nick Masterson got his first taste of A-Sun Conference action Thursday evening after missing the first five game with a foot injury. The freshman went 0-1 from behind the arc in his short outing. With the game getting out of hand early, Lallathin decided to let Masterson get an extra day of rest. “We’re easing Nick back into it,” he said. “The hope is that we’ll have him at full-strength on Saturday.”
KSU’s next conference matchup is against Jacksonville (7-16, 1-5) Saturday afternoon. “We’ll build on the positives we saw in the second half,” Lallathin said. “We should feel confident. I have a lot of confidence. It’s just a matter of putting 40 minutes together consistently.”
