Courtesy of FGCUAthletics.com
DUNK CITY, Fla. – Playing in front of a standing-room-only sellout crowd on Homecoming Weekend, the FGCU men’s basketball team (20-7, 9-2 ASUN) used a game-changing 14-2 run early in the second half to propel itself to an important 75-63 win over Kennesaw State (12-15, 6-5 ASUN) Saturday night at Alico Arena to remain in a tie for first place in the league.
Brandon Goodwin (Norcross, Ga./UCF/Norcross HS) continued to state his case for ASUN Player of the Year with a game-high 24 points, six rebounds, three assists and three steals as the five-time ASUN Newcomer of the Week played all but three minutes. Demetris Morant (Miami, Fla./UNLV/Bishop Gorman HS) added 17 points and notched a team-best seven rebounds as the Eagles secured their 5th-straight 20-win season – the first team in the ASUN to accomplish that since former member College of Charleston in 1998.
FGCU remains in a tie for 1st place in the ASUN with Lipscomb, two games clear of third-place USC Upstate (7-4) and three games ahead of Kennesaw State and North Florida (6-5) with just three regular-season games remaining.
The Eagles opened the contest by scoring the first nine points before allowing KSU to gradually chip away and eventually take a 21-20 lead around the 5-minute mark. However, FGCU closed the stanza just as quickly as it started it, using a 10-2 run over the final 2:40 to create a 36-29 halftime lead.
That halftime lead quickly evaporated as the Owls came out of the locker room on an 8-0 run to take a 37-36 lead. But playing in front of a season-high 4,670 fans, the Eagles responded with a game-changing 14-2 run to open up a 50-39 lead and never trailed by fewer than eight the rest of the night.
“We had a decent start to the game and then came out very lethargic to start the 2nd half,” stated FGCU head coach Joe Dooley. “We got back on track by driving and kicking the ball. I thought we took much better shots today, especially in transition. Brandon made some tremendous plays, Zach (Johnson) made some big shots and Meech (Morant) was definitely a factor again at both ends of the floor.”
Johnson (Miami, Fla./Norland HS) finished as FGCU’s third double-figure scorer with 10 points, and he also added four rebounds, three assists and two steals.
Coming off a season-low 35-percent effort from the floor in its loss Thursday against Lipscomb, FGCU used its 5th-ranked national field-goal shooting to bounce back and connect at a 48.1-percent clip (25-52). The Eagles held KSU to 41.7 percent from the floor (25-60), and importantly kept the nation’s 2nd-best 3-point percentage team in the country in check.
The Owls came into the contest connecting at a 42-percent rate from beyond the arc, but for the sixth-straight game the Eagles held their opponent below 35 percent from distance (3-10, 30 percent). The defensive effort has now kept six-consecutive opponents to 65 points or less.
Kendrick Ray entered the game ranked 12th in the nation in scoring at 21.7 per game, but the Eagles held him below his average with a team-best 19 points. Aubrey Williams recorded a double-double with 16 points and 11 rebounds, and Tyler Hooker came off the bench to net 11 points for the Owls.
FGCU has now won an incredible 13-straight games over Kennesaw State – the longest active streak by any ASUN team over another league member. Among current conference members, the 13-game winning streak is now tied for the longest in ASUN history against a fellow league foe (North Florida also defeated KSU 13-straight times from 2010-16).
The Eagles are now a dominant 14-0 this year when leading at the half and an extremely impressive 64-4 under Dooley, who is in his fourth season at the helm of the Green and Blue.
The win completed a sweep of the Owls on Saturday as the FGCU women cruised to a victory earlier in the day. The wins were the 20th of the season for both teams, the fifth-straight year FGCU has had both programs win at least 20 games. Entering Saturday, only seven other schools in the nation had done that four-consecutive seasons: Duke, Louisville, Kentucky, Baylor, Connecticut, BYU and Saint Mary’s.
FGCU moves its record to 71-14 (.835) at Alico Arena since the start of the 2012-13 season, including a 12-3 mark this year. In ASUN games, the Eagles have been even more stout, extending their record to 33-5 (.868) against league foes in the regular season in that same timeframe.
FGCU will now hit the road for a weekend swing to NJIT (9-18, 1-10 ASUN) on Thursday, Feb. 16, at 7 p.m. before heading to USC Upstate (17-11, 7-4 ASUN) on Saturday, Feb. 18, at 2 p.m. The Eagles have won seven in a row away from home, tied for the 3rd-longest streak in the nation (Belmont, 10 straight; Gonzaga, 9 straight). FGCU has already tied its program record for the most road ASUN wins in a single season (done multiple times), and has tied for the most road victories overall in a single campaign (2002-03).
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