In what would have been a win for the ages, the Kennesaw State Lady Owls fell just short of overcoming a 23-point deficit to the Florida Gulf Coast Lady Eagles on Saturday afternoon in an exciting 78-72 affair in the Convocation Center. With a win, KSU head coach Colby Tilley would have won his 700th career game, a feat few in his profession have accomplished.
The Black and Gold seemed determined in the second half to get the win for their coach. After being down 41-20 at the half, the Lady Owls fought and scraped to get back into the game and eventually closed to within two points.
But KSU would get no closer. After seeing her team’s lead dwindle to just two points with 3:50 remaining, Lady Eagle Adrienne McNally nailed a 3-pointer with just one second on the shot clock to extend the FGCU lead back to five.
“That seems to be the description of this team,” explained a deflated Tilley. “We dig ourselves in a hole, we work hard to get back out, then at the very end, we just don’t have anything left.”
Despite the disappointment in losing, Tilley’s charges showed a tremendous amount of courage and heart in the second half to mount their ambitious comeback. According to KSU guard Greteya Kelley, coach Tilley motivated them at the half with a stirring speech.
“To be honest, Coach Tilley came back in the locker room and he finally yelled. And I think that’s what we needed. For him to come out and say everything that he felt, that sparked us and we came out and played to the best of our ability.
What exactly did the coach say?
“I talked to them about having heart and having pride—the things it (takes) to win basketball games—and about being unselfish with the basketball, about working together as a team,” said Tilley. “The first half looked so bad that we should’ve been embarrassed to come out in the second half. So we just challenged them to respond to that and obviously they did.”
The key to the second half run was the aggressiveness and intensity of the full-court press that the Lady Owls employed. KSU goaded the Lady Eagles into committing 13 second-half turnovers and nabbed 10 steals.
“It’s something we do, but we don’t do it all the time because teams change and adjust and adapt to that, so we tried in the second half to put more emphasis on full-court pressure. And it worked,” Tilley said.
Another key second-half statistic was the 19 fouls that FGCU perpetrated. Three Lady Eagles fouled out of the game as a result. KSU cashed in on 17-of-26 foul shooting in the second half.
The Lady Owl defense was effective enough to hold FGCU to just nine second-half field goals after the Lady Eagles lit up the Convocation Center for 62.5 percent shooting from the floor in the first stanza.
Kelley led both teams with 19 points and six steals while Britteny Henderson poured in 18 points on 7-of-13 shooting. Jennifer Baker added 14 points and a team-leading six assists.
The Lady Owls will try to end their three-game losing streak at Lipscomb on Thursday night in Nashville.
Black can be reached at sblack@scoreatl.com.
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