Kennesaw State brought the nation’s fastest-paced men’s basketball team to Clinton and clicked through the traps to defeat Presbyterian, 94-84, on Saturday afternoon at Templeton Center.

Who says the Owls are the fastest-paced? Not I. Something called KenPom says so. I don’t know why that’s what it means, but that’s what it means.

Kennesaw State (8-3) put four players in double figures and three – Demond Robinson (22 points), James King (22) and Simeon Cottle (20) – in, uh, double-double figures. Terrell Burden added 15 and had a game-high six rebounds.

The Owls came out running, seldom stopped, and it worked like a charm in the first half, at whose end KSU led, 53-35. Six minutes, 51 seconds in, the margin was 24.

At the first TV timeout, the Owls were shooting .857 from the floor and .667 from long range.

With three Blue Hose (wearing garnet) leading the way, PC made a game of it in the second half. 

Junior guard Marquis Barnett scored a career-high 27 points while grabbing five rebounds. Junior guard Jamahri Harvey scored 14 points and also grabbed five rebounds. Freshman guard Kory Mincy scored 13 points while handing out seven assists.

Presbyterian finished the game with 52 points in the paint. The Blue Hose got as close as eight points at the 3:20 and 2:48 marks, and Barnett’s triple made it 89-82 with 54 seconds left.

Kennesaw’s Cottle put the Blue Hose away with five free throws in the final seconds.

Presbyterian (7-5) travels to Greenville to play the Furman Paladins (5-6) on Tuesday at 7 p.m.     

Take a look at the stats here.

Predictably, South Carolina nuked the Presbyterian women, 99-29.

This was, at some level, by choice, but as if it were not enough to face the nation’s top-ranked team, the Blue Hose were coming off an 11-point victory over South Carolina State the night before.

Not many tournaments require 17-hour turnarounds, final horn on Friday night to opening tap on Saturday afternoon, bus fare included.

Seven Gamecocks scored in double figures, led by MiLaysia Fulwiley with 15 points. Tagging along in her wake were Tessa Johnson (13), Kamilla Cardoso (12), Sakima Walker (12), Chloe Kitts (11), Bree Hall (10) ad Ashlyn Watkins (10).

Tilda Sjokvist stood almost alone for Presbyterian, scoring 15 points when no one else scored more than four. She hit only 6/20 shots overall 3/9 from long range, but even those numbers were considerably better than the mean.

Presbyterian (8-4) surpassed South Carolina (10-0) in free-throw percentage (.625-.619) but all other comparisons were ugly. The Gamecocks shot .521 to the Blue Hose .156 from the floor and .455-.235 in three-pointers. Carolina outrebounded PC, 55-33, harried them into 23 turnovers, blocked 17 shots and made 14 steals.

The Gamecocks scored 28 points off PC turnovers; PC scored two. In fast-break points, it was 24-2.

Take a look at the stats here.

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