GEORGIA’S INTERCONTINENTAL CHAMPIONSHIP
There’s no shame fighting in Georgia’s mid-card while UGA casts a long shadow as the heavyweight champion in the main event. That’s just the cost of doing business in Georgia as a young athletic program like Kennesaw State. For the latest evidence, look no further than Saturday’s tipoff time against Georgia State: 1 PM, the earliest start time for Antoine Pettway’s team at home all season. It’s no coincidence that the final buzzer will sound at the Convocation Center well before the SEC title game kicks off 25 miles down I75.
Look, I’m aware this is an insane thing to type in a public (albeit lightly read) setting, but let’s do it anyway: What if the game in Kennesaw is actually more important?
It’s only an early December basketball matchup between two teams with 3 losses each, and the Alabama-UGA will serve as a de facto quarterfinal College Football Playoff and an Irish wake for the SEC on CBS. Georgia State isn’t the best team on KSU’s non-conference slate - I guess that’d be Indiana or FSU. Saturday won’t be the most eyeballs on the Owls all season, either. All that considered, you can still argue it’s the most important out-of-conference regular season game the Owls have played in some time as college athletics shift even further in favor of the football powers, leaving mid-major programs searching for different ways to sell themselves.
If the clear separation between power conferences and mid-majors will ever succeed on our side of the arrangement, we’ll need in-state connections like this to continue growing our young fan base. In a way, you can look at how Kennesaw-Georgia State develops over the next decade as a canary in the coal mine for our role in the G5 separation: If we can’t find a way to form a symbiotic relationship with Georgia State, how can we ever expect to sell Delaware and UTEP as matchups that matter?
Kennesaw and Georgia State already have a rivalry, just not in the traditional sense. The schools are in separate conferences and haven’t played enough meaningful games against each other to develop any sort of heat between supporters. Nobody’s making House Divided license plates pairing the two logos. I don’t come across too many Georgia State fans in person; they’d say the exact same about us. Both programs, along with Georgia Southern down in Statesboro, are competing for attention in Georgia’s mid-card. Our state has the city school, the suburban school, and the country school, all fighting for similar sponsorship dollars, government funding, and recruits in a similar weight class now that the Owls are heading to CUSA.
Whether this becomes a rivalry that moves out of the theoretical realm and starts to matter will be key for how Kennesaw State and Georgia State navigate the future. I’m not saying to force the issue from a marketing or fan perspective. We’ve advanced past the need for spamming plastic rivalries like Mercer. If we can’t find meaning outside of program milestones, though, I don’t have nearly as much optimism that Kennesaw State can reach its full potential. The next chapter starts Saturday.
GAME PREVIEW
Last season, Jonas Hayes came down from Xavier, a common NCAA tourney nemesis shared between the Owls and Panthers, to lead a GSU program that emerged as a strong mid-major brand and the most successful Georgia D1 team throughout the 2010s. As the Georgia State game notes lovingly remind us: They’ve reached the NCAA tourney as many times (4) in the last decade as the state’s other D1 schools combined.
The ‘23 Panthers (10-21, 3-15 Sun Belt) failed to come anywhere close to the lofty standards set by Ron Hunter and Rob Lanier with a dead-last finish in conference and a first-round Sun Belt tourney exit. Hayes retooled with six more transfers this season, including Jay’Den Turner from Queens and their best three-point threat in Toneari Lane. The Panthers will most likely send out a lineup with only one player taller than 6’5 (Leslie Nkereuwem at 6’8”). It’s not a short team across the board, as the Panthers will have height advantages at guard, but there will be opportunity for a chess match between Pettway and Hayes at the 3 and the 4.
Here are the two stats I’m watching heading into the game:
GA STATE OPPONENTS SHOOT 27.5% FROM DEEP
KSU’s run and gun preference has been well-documented in the infancy of the Pettway era. The three-point shots aren’t always going to fall, but we know they’re going up regardless. It’s felt like the Owls have struggled from beyond the arc, right?
The biggest problem for Saturday is that Georgia State’s opponents are shooting a full percentage point worse than the Owls have this season.
GA STATE BLOCK RATE - 4.4%, 340th IN THE NATION
When the Owls aren’t hitting from three, you can still count on Burden and RJ create opportunities by getting to the basket. FSU and FIU - the two teams that gave KSU the most trouble - altered a ton of shots, a large portion of the 16% block rate by Owls opponents. Georgia State only manages 4.4%. If the Owls can get their usual penetration and the Panthers aren’t able to affect the shots, it might not matter if KSU’s hitting from deep.
Let’s turn it over to the computers for their take:
KENPOM - GSU 82, KSU 81, a slight shift in Georgia State’s favor since I last checked
MASSEY - KSU 75, GSU 71
SAGARIN: Come back, Jeff
THE PICK: Take looking at the O163.5 rather than a side on the 2.5 point line. Vegas is still catching up a bit on the Owls’ tempo, and all 5 D1 games have gone over by an average of 15 points.