Mercer Men’s Basketball Goes for Season Sweep of Kennesaw State

KENNESAW, Ga. (MERCER RELEASE) – The Mercer men’s basketball team looks to rebound from its first loss in over a month as it travels to Kennesaw State for the CSS Atlantic Sun Friday Night Game of the Week. Tipoff at the KSU Convocation Center is scheduled for 7 p.m.

Mercer (18-6, 9-2 A-Sun) dropped an 80-61 decision at USC Upstate on Feb. 2 and will go for the season sweep of Kennesaw State after previously defeating the Owls 83-46 at Hawkins Arena on Jan. 10.

SCOUTING THE OPPONENT

Kennesaw State aims to break a seven game losing streak on Friday night as Mercer invades the KSU Convocation Center. The Owls are 3-7 at home this season, with wins over a pair of non-Division I schools and USC Upstate.

The Owls return three starters and seven letterwinners from last year’s team that finished 3-27 (2-16 A-Sun). The team was picked to finish 10th in a preseason poll of Atlantic Sun coaches.

Senior guard Delbert Love leads the Owls’ scoring attack, averaging 11.0 points per game. Love is coming off a 22-point performance against ETSU, in which the Cleveland, Ohio native became 13th member of the school’s 1,000 point scoring club. Sophomore forward Orlando also provides some scoring punch, chipping in 9.6 points per game despite not reaching double figures in his last three outings.

Head coach Lewis Preston is in this third season with the team and after serving as an Assistant Coach at Penn State, Florida, Notre Dame and Coastal Carolina over a 16-year career.

FAST FACTS

Mercer is 23-5 after a loss over the last three seasons. The last time Mercer lost back-to-back games was the final game of the 2012-13 season (at BYU) and the first game of the 2013-14 season (at Texas).

Mercer had just two turnovers in its victory against Kennesaw State on Jan. 10, marking the second-best team performance among Division I teams this season in terms of turnover rate. Mercer turned the ball over on just 3.2% of their possessions in the win. The only team to have a better turnover rate this season was St. Francis (PA), who turned it over on just 1.6% of their possessions versus Duquesne.

Sophomore Ike Nwamu landed the No. 6 spot on SportsCenter’s Top-10 segment after cramming a fast-break windmill dunk in Mercer’s win over Kennesaw State on Jan. 10.

Mercer has had at least a 15-point lead in eight of its 11 conference games this year. Mercer has led by 20 at some point in five of the last seven games.

The program record for conference wins in a season is 14, done twice by the 2002-03 and 2012-13 editions of the team. To best that mark, the Bears will have to go at least 6-1 in their final seven regular season games.