The AJC has noticed what is going on in Kennesaw:
It's not that Kennesaw State has never won anything in basketball. Under the late Tony Ingle, it took the Division II NCAA championship in 2004. It moved to Division I shortly thereafter. Apart from a famous upset of Georgia Tech in November 2010, it has done little since. It's doing something now.
On Thursday, KSU won at Stetson 82-81 on Terrell Burden's layup with seven seconds left in overtime. The Owls are 14-6 overall, 6-1 in ASUN play. They're tied with Liberty for first place. They're ranked 169th in Ken Pomeroy's ratings, which puts them not far from Tech (142nd) and way ahead of Georgia State (227th) and Georgia Southern (232nd).
How big a deal is this? KSU's last winning season was 2004-05. As a D-I program, it was 145-371 over its first 17 years. That's a winning percentage of .281. Eight of those 17 seasons saw the Owls finish with fewer than 10 wins. They were 8-23 in Ingle's final season; 6-55 over Lewis Preston's first two years; 6-26 in Al Skinner's last run.
Skinner had done fine work at Rhode Island and Boston College, but he couldn't make KSU win. Amir Abdur-Rahim was hired off Tom Crean's Georgia staff. Abdur-Rahim's first team went 1-28, the lone victory coming against Gardner-Webb. Of the 353 D-1 teams, KenPom ranked the Owls above only Chicago State.
Abdur-Rahim is a huge name in Cobb County hoops. He played at Wheeler, as did his famous older brother Shareef, who became an All-American at Cal and an all-star with the Hawks. (He's now president of the NBA's G League.) Shareef's son Jabril plays for Georgia, which is itself having a surprisingly good season.
Amir Abdur-Rahim helped Georgia land Anthony Edwards, the nation's No. 1 recruit who would become the NBA's No. 1 pick. KSU hired Abdur-Rahim to recruit this state, which he has. Seven of the Owls' top eight scorers played high school ball in Georgia. Burden, a smallish senior point guard, is an alum of Cobb County's Campbell.
(Fun fact: The ASUN's HQ is in Cobb, a mile and a half from Truist Park.)
(Another: Thursday's overtime victory was KSU's first since 2012.)
KSU isn't ranked in the Mid-Major Top 25. It is among those receiving votes. That's significant. Don't sleep on these Owls.
