In the first ever Sunday home game at Liberty Arena, Liberty (23-6, 11-5 CUSA) saw its six-game win streak come to an end with a 85-80 loss to Kennesaw State (17-13, 9-8).
“Really impressed with Kennesaw,” said Liberty head coach Ritchie McKay. “They played great and deserved the victory. Obviously, disappointed on senior night we didn’t get a chance to send our guys off with a win, but that’s part of college basketball. Hopefully, we will grow and we will get better from it. I’m pretty confident in our group that we will respond well.”
The 85 points the Owls scored are the most the Flames have allowed in a game season. They also shot 50.8% from the field for the game, becoming the first team to eclipse the 50% mark from the field in conference play against Liberty and only the third team to accomplish that mark against Liberty this season, joining Seattle University and Florida Atlantic.
“Usually you are not going to win a game if you give up 64% shooting in the 2nd half and 50% for the game,” McKay said. “That hasn’t been our M.O. this year.”
No one would have expected that to be the case after Kennesaw got off to the slow start they did. The Owls missed their first eight field goal attempts of the game as they fell behind 10-0 in the opening minutes, not getting into the scoring column until nearly five minutes of game action. They also started just 2 of 15 from the field before starting to get things going. The Owls then had stretches of consecutive made field goals throughout the rest of the game of six, eight, and finishing the game making their last five field goal attempts.
After falling behind by as many as 11 in the opening minutes, Kennesaw stayed within striking distance, chipping away at the Liberty lead. They got it to as low as two on a few occasions late in the half, before the Flames entered the locker room with a five point lead at 44-39.
The visitors got three-pointers from their dynamic guard duo Adrian Wooley and Simeon Cottle in the first 47 seconds of the second half to take their first lead of the game. A few minutes later, the Owls went on a 13-0 run to push the advantage to 12 and it would get as high as 14 with 10:11 left.
Liberty answered with a 7-0 spurt to cut the lead to seven and kept cutting into the deficit. The Flames cut it to two on a few occasions and even got it down to one with 2:02 remaining following three straight Aquino free throws which was part of six straight points scored for the Flames by their big man.
From there, the Owls would put the game away, scoring six straight to go up by seven with 35 seconds left before closing out the victory. Colin Porter had a chance to tie the game with a three-pointer with 91 seconds remaining that was off.
Cottle and Wooley combined to score 46 points, making 17 of 31 field goals and 6 of 14 from three-point range. The Flames had little answer for the Kennesaw guards. Behind Cottle and Wooley, the Owls shot 64.3% from the field after intermission.
“They did a good job executing,” McKay said of the Owls. “Cottle and Wooley are tough guards. Those guys penetrated our defense and made some tough shots there, especially at the end. Give them credit, they played really well.”
Aquino finished the game with 16 points, the most he has scored in a conference game this season. He was 4 of 7 from the field and 8 of 10 from the free throw line with 6 rebounds. Kaden Metheny also scored 16 while Taelon Peter added 14, making all 5 of his field goals to go along with 4 rebounds and 3 assists. Colin Porter had 12 points and 4 rebounds. Zach Cleveland was just 1 of 6 from the field, but he finished the game with 8 points, 9 rebounds, and 8 assists.
The Flames set season highs in free throws made and attempted in the game, going 27 of 36 for 75%.
The Owls had lost three out of four entering Sunday’s game and now move to 10-3 all-time against the Flames in the series. Liberty concludes the season at 12-3 at Liberty Arena and 6-3 in conference games at home.
“Our guys are mature enough,” said McKay following the loss. “They feel incredibly disappointed because we know the significance of it, but here we go, we’ve got a chance to respond to it. They have typically responded pretty well, in my opinion. I feel confident and trustworthy of them being able to repeat that this week coming up.”
Liberty will begin its final road trip of the season this week, playing at Middle Tennessee on Thursday night in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. Tip-off is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. ET on CBS Sports Network. It will be a crucial game in the CUSA regular season title race. The Blue Raiders are currently 20-9 overall and 11-5 in conference play. They are tied with the Flames in the league standings and just a half game behind Jacksonville State who is currently 12-5 in CUSA. The Flames defeated Middle Tennessee at Liberty Arena, 75-63, on Jan. 4. Despite the loss, Liberty still controls its own destiny for a regular season title and No. 1 seed in the CUSA Tournament if the Flames can win both games this week.
