With Kennesaw State on an emotional high after their comeback win against North Florida, it figured that they would come out with a lot of resolve early on. But that emotion and determination just wouldn’t be enough as Florida Gulf just wore down Kennesaw State, 76-53.
“We can only go about six deep, we only got four guards,” said Kennesaw State Head coach Colby Tilley. “And Florida Gulf Coast’s offense is so motion oriented that our kids are running for forty minutes. We got tired.”
And while Kennesaw State made a valiant effort in keeping up with the much deeper Florida Gulf Coast in the first half, that’s when Florida Gulf Coast’s three point snipers, Kelsey Jacobsen and Courtney Chihil started to heat up.
Jacobsen made four three pointers in the first half, with one of them coming right before halftime to put the Eagles up by twelve. Then immediately after halftime, Chihil hits back to back three pointers that seemed to deflate Kennesaw State and put the game out of reach for good.
“We have some very good shooters on this team,” said Florida Gulf Coast Head coach Karl Smesko. “They know that when they’re open, they have the green light to shoot.”
“Offensively, they run that offense that to my knowledge [that] nobody else runs and it’s tough,” said Tilley. You can scout them and you can see film but until you actually play against them, you don’t know what it’s like.”
“And even though this is our third time playing them and we knew what they were going to do, they still did it better.”
Now the Eagles will face their conference rival, Stetson for the automatic bid to the NCAA tournament and both teams seemed to be looking forward to their match up.
“I will say this, there is no love lost between these two teams,” said Stetson Head coach Lynn Bria. “We certainly respect them but we do not fear them.”
“It will be quite a challenge for us,” said Smesko.