Kennesaw St. headed to very first NCAA competition
KENNESAW, Ga.– Terrell Problem scored 19 points and made a complimentary toss with less than a second left to rally Kennesaw State to a 67-66 success over Liberty on Sunday, making the Owls their very first Atlantic Sun Championship game and their very first journey to the NCAA tournament.It is an amazing turnaround for Kennesaw State under fourth-year coach Amir Abdur-Rahim. The Owls ended up with a 1-28 record in 2019-20– Concern’s freshman season and the very first under Abdur-Rahim. They went 5-19 in Abdur-Rahim’s 2nd season and 13-18 in 2015. Now the Owls will bring a school-record 26-8 mark to their first Big Dance.Kennesaw State can credit its victory to the defensive job it did on
Liberty’s Darius McGhee, the ASUN player of the year and the conference’s all-time leading scorer. McGhee made simply 6 of 21 shots from the floor and he was 0 for 11 from beyond the arc. McGhee was available in balancing 22.7 points per game but completed with 14. Kyle Rode scored a career-high 23 points for the Flames(26-8). The senior made 9 of 14 shots with 4 3-pointers. Editor’s Picks Chris Youngblood hit all 7 of his totally free throws and scored 16 for Kennesaw State. Demond Robinson pitched in with 10 points and 11 rebounds for his fourth double-double of the season. Brandon Stroud included 12 points and six boards.Rode hit 2 3-pointers and scored 11 to direct Liberty to a 29-27 lead at halftime.Kennesaw State fought back to take a 48-43 lead on a 3-pointer by Simeon Cottle with 10:54 left in the game.
The Owls remained in front up until Rode hit a 3-pointer to cap an 8-0 run that put the Flames on top 53-51 at the 7:43 mark. Youngblood answered with a 3-pointer, Problem followed with a layup and Kennesaw State recovered the lead.Colin Porter buried a 3-pointer to pull Liberty even at 66 with 23 seconds left. Porter was fouled on a drive to the basket with seven-tenths of a second staying. He made the first one for the lead and purposefully missed out on the 2nd one to run out the clock.The contest marked the very first time a game at the KSU Convocation Center was transmitted on national television. The Owls notched their success prior to an arena-record crowd of 3,805. Liberty got in play 3-0 in its previous trips to the ASUN title game.