Underdog par excellence, Kennesaw State having another moment in the sun

“It’s just go time,” Lue said afterward. “That’s it.”

The reaction was appropriate for a team that has had plenty of reasons to wallow in misfortune but instead has steeled itself for the next challenge.

No time to be overwhelmed over being the West Region’s No. 14 seed, assigned to take on one of the sport’s behemoths, No. 3 seed Gonzaga, on Thursday in Portland.

“I say, we all bleed the same,” guard RJ Johnson said. “We work just as hard as anybody in the country, we put our jerseys on the same way as they do, so I feel like we can compete with anybody.”

Or, as coach Antoine Pettway put it as he addressed fans after the selection, “You don’t want to go to war with the Owls, baby. Let’s do it.”

Credit: Ken Sugiura

Credit: Ken Sugiura

It’s possible, maybe even likely, that there has never been a team that has faced the set of obstacles that Pettway’s team has this year.

The leading scorer from last year (Adrian Wooley) left for Louisville via the transfer portal. Over the summer, a portal addition (Davin Cosby Jr.) fractured a vertebra and broke his neck in a car wreck. Just before the season began, another team member (Jamil Miller) unexpectedly returned home because of mental health issues.

In January, one more player (Ramone Seals) broke a bone in the face and missed more than a month of play. These are all players that Pettway was counting on to be double-digit scorers.

And, finally, the shot to the solar plexus that you may be familiar with – Simeon Cottle, the Conference USA preseason player of the year, was indicted on federal charges as part of an FBI investigation into an alleged point-shaving ring.

That woebegone crew hung on to tie for sixth in the league in the regular season and then stormed through the tournament bracket, ousting the third, second and fourth seeds to win the program’s first Conference USA championship and earn its second NCAA Tournament berth in four years.

At the time of Cottle’s indictment, Pettway said Sunday, the team had two options – splinter or band together.

“We got together as a team and decided we were going to dig in even more,” Pettway said. “We were going to ask more of each other. Everybody was going to do just a little bit more and have their brother’s back.

“Our mantra all year has been ‘Love and serve your brother,’” he continued. “That’s been our rallying cry all year. That’s what we’ve been about. That’s what these dudes do.”

Kennesaw State is again doing what it seems to have an uncanny knack for – forging long shot seasons that challenge belief.

In 2023, then-men’s basketball coach Amir Abdur-Rahim engineered one of the most unlikely turnarounds in college basketball history, going from a one-win season in his first season in 2019-20 to the Atlantic Sun Conference title three years later and the program’s first Division I tournament appearance since moving up to that level in 2005.

This past football season, in its first year with coach Jerry Mack after the firing of the only coach in school history (Brian Bohannon), that team was picked to finish last in Conference USA but went 7-1 in the league and beat Jacksonville State in the Gamecocks’ own stadium for its first FBS conference championship in just its second year at college football’s highest level.

And now, Pettway and the 2025-26 hoops-playing Owls have written their own chapter.

More than a mere institution of higher learning, Kennesaw State is like some kind of Mad Libs underdog story generator.

“BLANK team overcame obstacles such as BLANK and BLANK to become the first Owls team to accomplish BLANK.”

And another achievement of note: Kennesaw State is only the second Conference USA team to win conference titles in football and men’s basketball in the same academic year, joining Louisville in 2004-05.

“It’s not always like this,” Kennesaw State supporter Caric Martin told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Sunday in a bit of an understatement.

Martin, the president of the alumni association and a member of the athletic association board, knows of what he speaks.

The breakthrough 2023 men’s basketball season, led by the late Abdur-Rahim, was not only the first Division I tournament appearance since moving up to Division I in 2005, but its first winning season at that level.

Founded in 1963, the school and its alumni have long lived in the shadows of Georgia and Georgia Tech.

“I’m kind of like a baby,” the 69-year-old Martin said. “I’m happy for a little while and I kind of well up in tears for a little while. It’s so gratifying. It’s been a lot of work by a lot of people.”

Tears are most appropriate, but so is action.

In the words of a certain wise Owl, it’s just go time.

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