Hooty hoo! The Owls are back for the second time in the NCAA Tournament, though their path this time around was a little different. Kennesaw State overcame being the 6-seed in the Conference USA Tournament by beating Western Kentucky, Sam Houston State, and Louisiana Tech.

Their streakiness in the Tournament was their streakiness throughout the year; from Thanksgiving onward, the Owls never alternated wins or losses. Instead, starting on November 26, the Owls won four in a row, then lost four in a row, then won four in a row, then lost two in a row, then won two in a row, then lost three in a row, then won four in a row, then lost two in a row...then won the CUSA Tournament. How about that for hot and cold?

The Owls' brand of ball under former Alabama assistant Antoine Pettway is all about pace-and-space. They're 19th in tempo, get to the free throw line all the time, and posted some excellent shot volume numbers in league play. They also give up the highest percentage of points at the foul line of any team in America! The Owls contain multitudes, and whatever their Round of 64 game results in will be fascinating.

No Cottle? No problem

The Owls entered this season believing they'd have a pretty stacked backcourt, largely centered around returning star Simeon Cottle, who turned down several portal offers to play out the string in Kennesaw. It looked like a tremendous belief, because through 14 games, Cottle was posting incredible numbers: a 114 ORtg on 29% USG, 45% 2PT/35% 3PT/90% FT shooting splits. Then:

After being indicted by the federal government, Cottle predictably hasn't played a game since. What do you do when you lose the player your team is built around in the middle of the season to something beyond your control? Well, you hand it off to a sophomore who ends up going for a 117 ORtg on 26% USG in conference play with a better Assist Rate while hitting 43% from deep.

Since the second Cottle...uh, 'left' the team, Johnson has become Pettway's latest backcourt star. His averages since January 15, the day of Cottle's indictment: 14.5 PPG, 4.0 APG, and 42% 3PT on 123 attempts.

Johnson, of course, can't do it alone. The most pleasant surprise over the last month has been wing Frankquon Sherman stepping up into a huge role, posting 14.3 PPG/9.3 RPG over Kennesaw's last nine games. To go with all of this, the Owls as a whole have stepped up, and over the final 10 games of the season, they were quietly the league's third-best team behind Louisiana Tech and Sam Houston State. (Liberty tailed off massively at season's end.) You can point to a midseason backcourt revamp as a key reason why, as today, there's no notable statistical difference between the minutes with Cottle and without.

The Kennesaw State Fouls (Fowls?)

We need to address the elephant in the room, considering these guys are about to play in the NCAA Tournament: their game is gonna be really, really long. Probably.

No team's games offer more free throw attempts, on average, than Kennesaw State. The Owls attempt 27.3 a game, which is tied for first in the country with Winthrop. Nothing about that is surprising, given that Kennesaw's offense has a high attempt rate at the rim and features a ton of rangy players that can drive from the perimeter downhill. When your entire rotation is somewhere between 6'4" and 6'9", you simply offer a lot of dudes that can do a lot of things.

The problem is on the other end, where the Owls allow 28.1 free throw attempts per game. In the average game Kennesaw plays, you can expect to see over 55 free throw attempts and 41 fouls. For comparison's sake, in the 2020s, there have been just six NCAA Tournament games where both teams attempted 25+ free throws and committed 20+ fouls. The average length of these six games: 2 hours, 22 minutes. Whoever Kennesaw State plays wherever, you need to settle in, because you're in for a long, long game.

What level of long game benefits Kennesaw is up for discussion. The Owls were 2-8 when attempting 25 or fewer free throws in a game this year, but simultaneously, they were only 6-4 when getting up 33 or more. I don't think there's any one sweet spot, but it will benefit Kennesaw to get their opponent in foul trouble early and have a parade of free throw attempts if at all possible.

Similar NCAA Tournament efficiency profiles

Similar efficiency profiles and statistics found via Bart Torvik.

Feels appropriate that a pair of Kennesaw's top comps are Nate Oats' Buffalo teams, right?

Tournament Index evaluation

As it stands, Kennesaw State is a projected No. 14 seed by our bracketology at Basket Under Review and on the Bracket Matrix.

Should that be the case, the Tournament Index rates the Owls as a below-average No. 14 seed (41st-strongest power rating out of 49 teams) compared to the last 12 NCAA Tournament fields. If the Owls land higher or lower, they would be rated as the weakest No. 13 seed or the 21st-strongest No. 15 seed. The TI projects an average of 0.14 wins for Kennesaw State given its projected seed (No. 14) and strength.