Liberty (17-4, 5-3 CUSA) traveled to Georgia and defeated Kennesaw State (12-9, 4-4), 76-68, on Thursday night in front of a near capacity crowd of 3,151 fans at KSU Convocation Center.
“Good road win because it’s a quality team,” said Liberty head coach Ritchie McKay. “I talked to Tim Scarborough before the game and he’s seen them four or five times and it’s what I thought on tape about them – that team is physical, they’re athletic, they have two elite guards. Just the overall toughness that our guys played with and perseverance that we had in the second half I thought was indicative of our guys connectivity. We weathered some storms in the second half and were able to prevail.”
The Flames handed the Owls their first home loss of the season after they won their first nine. The win is also the first for Liberty in Kennesaw since January 31, 2022, almost three full years ago after falling to KSU twice during the 2022-23 season, including in the ASUN Tournament championship game.
Liberty picked up the win despite being out-rebounded, 45-27 overall and 18-2 on the offensive glass leading to a 16-2 second chance points advantage for the home team. The Owls entered as the top rebounding team in Conference USA and one of the top in the country, and they proved that despite the losing effort Thursday night.
“Traditionally we’ve been a pretty good rebounding squad,” McKay stated. “Part of our adjustment has been to play Taelon. Now, we’re playing small. Often times if it’s Owen and/or Zach or just Zander, we’re going to have a size disadvantage. Our backcourt is big-hearted but not as tall as others, so we are out-sized at every position. We wanted to make sure made it tough for Cottle and Wooley, so I think we put ourselves at a disadvantage with our scout, but we were able to overcome it because we were fairly efficient on the offensive end.”
The Flames held Kennesaw State to 39% from the e field for the game and just 6 of 32 for 19% from three-point range. Meanwhile, Liberty shot 50% from the field and 11 of 26 for 42% from three.
“We’ve had a couple of conference games where we gave up 50+ points in a half and that’s just not characteristic of our group,” McKay said. “Most of the commentary on it was that our bench isn’t deep enough. I think we did a better job of taking care of the ball, getting a really good shot. We’ve been improving defensively as they year has gone. Certainly not trying to give an excuse but we had a little bit of a lull when Isaiah went down. Isaiah, he was trending up and our defense was really solid when he was in there. When you remove that integral part of the equation, there’s going to be a little bit of slippage. It’s taken us a while as coaches and that’s our responsibility to find a way to build it back up. I think we’re getting closer and closer as the year wears on.”
An Owen Aquino layup followed by three-pointers from Taelon Peter and Gabriel McKay spurred the Flames to an early 8-0 run to take a 10 point lead at the 11:19 mark of the first half. Liberty would maintain the lead throughout the duration of the contest. Zach Cleveland was aggressive at attacking the basket from the beginning of the game, scoring four of the Flames’ first six points. He would lead the team with 10 points in the opening half as Liberty went into the locker room with a 10-point lead following a Colin Porter bucket as time expired.
Out of the break, Liberty scored six of the first eight points to push the lead to a game-high 14, forcing the Owls to burn a timeout. They would respond with a eight point spurt of their own in less than three minutes to cut the lead right back to six. It would be indicative of what would happen most of the rest of the game.
The Owls would try to make a spurt, cutting the lead to as few as six five times, but Liberty would always respond. Once it was a Zander Yates three. Then, a Porter three, an Owen Aquino dunk, and finally a Kaden Metheny three-pointer with 1:30 remaining to send the home fans to the exits.
Kennesaw features two of the top guards in the conference in Simeon Cottle and Adrian Wooley, but they would find it difficult against the Liberty defense. Jayvon Maughmer and Colin Porter played the most minutes defensively on the two guards, limiting them to 12 of 33 shooting for the game. Cottle finished with 10 points on 3 of 16 shooting and 1 of 13 from three while Wooley scored 19 of his 22 points in the second half.
“They’re both really good guards,” McKay said of Cottle and Wooley. “I think Cottle is one of the top scorers (in this league) and Wooley has had a tremendous freshman campaign. They had 12 makes on 33 shots. Our guards, it’s all five of them in the pack, but our guards did a really good job of trying to implement the scout and what we do every day. Then, on the other end, (Colin Porter), he could score…We just have a group that they play really selflessly. They could have better numbers, but the character of our room is we’re just trying to get a great shot. I never really pay heed to points in the game or things like that because that’s just not who we are. We don’t care who shoots it. Obviously, we have some great ones, but we care about making sure it’s the right one for us at the given juncture of the game. I thought we played with an urgency on the offensive end. We quickened the pace sometimes and then we dialed it back if we needed to find something else. I thought we were pretty complete.”
Metheny led the Flames with 17 points and 5 rebounds while shooting 3 of 9 from three. Cleveland added 14 points, 6 assists, and 4 rebounds while also making 4 of 6 from the free throw line. Colin Porter added 13 points on 3 of 4 shooting from three.
Taelon Peter added 11 points while Jayvon Maughmer had 9 points and 4 rebounds and Owen Aquino was a perfect 3 of 3 from the field for 6 points.
“I think Zach Cleveland had a great game,” said McKay. “He had a level of assertiveness that our team needed against a group like Kennesaw. Remember, Kennesaw beats Rutgers in here. That was a good crowd. It’s as packed of a house as we’ve played in in Conference USA, if I’m not mistaken, in however short our history has been. Those three guys that returned from last year – Colin, Kaden, Zach, Zander and Gabriel gave us great minutes – all those guys have been in our program. Then, the new guys – Jayvon and Taelon are old and Owen was good in spurts but he’s got a lot more in the tank, I really feel like he could help us even more on the defensive end, especially.”
Liberty remains on the road and will conclude its season long three-game road trip on Saturday evening at Jacksonville State. The Gamecocks are currently 14-7 on the season and 6-2 in conference play following their win over FIU on Thursday night, 71-67. Winners of five straight, the Gamecocks currently sit alone in first place atop CUSA. Tip-off from Alabama is scheduled for 5 p.m. on ESPN+.