By popular demand! ETSU vs KSU 6:30 Friday Mar. 5, 2010

KSU fans worst nightmare! Just kidding...who saw this coming?!

Was really hoping that Campbell would win - we match up so much better with them than ETSU. But at least now we get a shot at revenge. It will be interesting to see what kind of gameplan that our staff comes up with for this game. I think it is pretty obvious that if we both play our regular styles of play that ETSU will come out victorious as both games we have played against them have been comfortable victories for the Bucs.

The one thing I remember from our last game at ETSU was how they dominated us on the offensive boards. That cannot happen this game if we want to win. We have enough size to stay competitive with them on the boards, and we need it tomorrow night. Huge game for the Owls. We have already shown ourselves worthy of the ASun by advancing to the Final Four in our first year. Now is when we could really shock the league by advancing to the finals. We are severe underdogs in my opinion in this game, but anything can happen on a given night. Go Owls!

Well, that's a bugger. ETSU just seem to have the wood on us.

But, anything can happen in a big game (well, it's big for us!).

I think we'll fair a lot better this time around.

Ugh. Not a good matchup for us at all. Being the 8 seed and still alive.. guess we cant complain.

This is March Madness, so I would never be brazen enough to predict the outcome, especially given your big win over DLU.

I think we match up well with you have had played well in our two meetings. I think the biggest advantage for us is tournament experience. This is the 3rd consecutive year we've been to the semi-final game, and we've won all 3. It's impossible to quantify the intangible of experience.

Then again, young inexperienced teams don't know any better. This is the beauty of March Madness!!

If you remember back to the game a few weeks ago in Johnson City where the Bucs annihilated the Owls, the score at the half was 37-20. The second half score was a respectable 29-25. However, combined, the Owls lost 66-45. Some things I noticed from the box score from that game are: #1 we have to get a hand in their face on the shots. They were 6-11 in 3pt shots in the 1st half, contrastingly, KSU was 2-12. The rebounding was pretty similar (39 etsu to 42 KSU with 15 and 14 offense rebounds respectively). However, the most telling stat, and the one that concerns me the most, are the turnovers. The Owls turned the ball over 20 times compared to 7 for the Bucs. Off those 20 turnovers, the Bucs got 19 points compared to the Owls' 2 points off turnovers.

So I said all that to say I believe we need to start out strong. Play solid defense, and be crisp on offense. The minute our focus begins to wane, that's when the turnovers begin occurring and that's when ETSU runs and gets those easy buckets.

Leading into the game that's my scouting report based off of our last contest with ETSU. Here's to cinderella!

My sure you guys bring all your NBA talent to the game tomorrow

If the stars aligned and Mercer/kennesaw was the final.. the crowd would be out of this world.

Honestly man, I think ETSU would bring more fans to the final than KSU.

Well we'll cross that bridge if we get to it. First it's the semi-finals.......

(03-05-2010 12:50 AM)MercerFan Wrote:  If the stars aligned and Mercer/kennesaw was the final.. the crowd would be out of this world.

Crowd or not, that would be a sick game. I know this, if that happens my butt is in Macon tomorrow!

"Kennesaw's good, they've got athletes. What makes them dangerous is that they're very athletic, very dangerous. I'm sure they're playing loose and very aggressive and they're a very dange....I mean obviously they beat Lipscomb the #1 seed. That's got my attention."

--ETSU Head Coach Murry Bartow (after yesterday's win over Campbell)

(03-05-2010 07:30 AM)Escalade2121 Wrote:  "Kennesaw's good, they've got athletes. What makes them dangerous is that they're very athletic, very dangerous. I'm sure they're playing loose and very aggressive and they're a very dange....I mean obviously they beat Lipscomb the #1 seed. That's got my attention."

--ETSU Head Coach Murry Bartow (after yesterday's win over Campbell)

I'll be there. I expect a FIERCE rebounding battle tonight .... but the key will be guard play on the defensive end.

Go, Fly, Win, OWLS!

(03-05-2010 01:18 AM)Mike_Hunt Wrote:  

(03-05-2010 01:11 AM)ETSUfan1 Wrote:  Honestly man, I think ETSU would bring more fans to the final than KSU.

Kennesaw kids generally don't give a crap about sports or school functions. For the most part they're just a bunch of middle of the barrel moronic preppy/skater kids who can't afford the school of their dreams, spend 2 years and then transfer or are just too dumb to get in anywhere else and don't really care about school spirit. The other group is commuter students (many are older) who keep campus life separate from personal life, which means no basketball games.

But you're not a cynic or anything?

Things will change - especially if football gets into gear.

Reading the ETSU boards makes it seem to me like they think their road to the NCAA tournament is paved with gold. I guess deservedly so, they did destroy us in both games this season. Hopefully, they will be looking past KSU. Coach Ingle referred to something that the Owls did the last 6 minutes or so ago against LU he called "feel it, fire it". Not sure if I like that game plan, but it obviously worked. I just feel like it sets us up for one and done situations throwing up a long jumper and a long rebound for ETSU. I liked what Murry Bartow said in the presser. He said that the last few minutes of the game he told his team to just go out there and play. Play as if it was just a pick up game. We'll see. I remember watching the CSS game of the week when we played in Johnson City and I remember thinking to myself that they destroyed our zone. It will be interesting if we come out in the zone tonight or if we try to switch into man.

Any other thoughts from the previous contests against ETSU?

Here is the deal with tonight's game. We have to try something new. We can't just play them straight up and expect to win. We are going to have to make open shots (which we did NOT do in Johnson city) and they are going to have to miss some shots. To be honest, ETSU hit everything in our last outing. I think Tubbs had 6 three pointers at halftime or something crazy like that. At the same time we couldn't hit anything. If our shooting numbers can even out a bit with them, and we do a little bit better job on the boards then we should have a chance. They are still obviously the deserved favorite team in this contest, and it would be a big upset to take them down.

(03-05-2010 10:57 AM)Escalade2121 Wrote:  Reading the ETSU boards makes it seem to me like they think their road to the NCAA tournament is paved with gold. I guess deservedly so, they did destroy us in both games this season. Hopefully, they will be looking past KSU. Coach Ingle referred to something that the Owls did the last 6 minutes or so ago against LU he called "feel it, fire it". Not sure if I like that game plan, but it obviously worked. I just feel like it sets us up for one and done situations throwing up a long jumper and a long rebound for ETSU. I liked what Murry Bartow said in the presser. He said that the last few minutes of the game he told his team to just go out there and play. Play as if it was just a pick up game. We'll see. I remember watching the CSS game of the week when we played in Johnson City and I remember thinking to myself that they destroyed our zone. It will be interesting if we come out in the zone tonight or if we try to switch into man.

Any other thoughts from the previous contests against ETSU?

If I were Kennesaw I would play zone. Make ETSU have to be patient, think, and find the open man and you have a good chance.

BucNut our zone this year has either been wildly effective, or completely ineffective - without much middle room. My guess is that ETSU will see some zone tonight, but if we are leaving gaping holes, and giving you second chances (which is my real worry out of a zone against ETSU), then we will probably get out of it. I like M2M against your squad personally.