This Saturday, the Georgia Southern Eagles play Kennesaw State at Hanner. At the time of writing this, the Kennesaw State Owls are 2-0 following their first home opening win since the 2007 season. They got this win after defeating the College of Charleston 68-61.

Kennesaw State has had quite an opening to their season after starting 2-0. Their most recent win was against Tennessee State, who they defeated on the road. The real shining performances came from Junior Breonna Mosely and Redshirt Senior Jasmine McAllister; both had a double double. McAllister led the team in points with 25 and also recorded 14 rebounds. Mosely wasn’t far behind with 13 points and 10 rebounds.

McAllister currently leads her team in points with 36, averaging 18 a game. She also leads her team in rebounds with 20 with a near 50/50 split between offensive and defensive rebounds. Karly Frye leads the team with assists with 11, averaging 5.5 a game. Another player to look out for is Kristina Wells who has yet to miss a free throw, and is 11 for 11 on the season.

If the Eagles expect to shut down Kennesaw State on Saturday, then they’re definitely going to have to shut down Mosely and McAllister. In their most recent match up against Tennessee State, both Mosely and McAllister had double digit shot attempts.

Another thing that will go well in Georgia Southern’s favor is to emphasize defending the paint. If the Eagles defense can push their shooters out behind the arc, then they definitely won’t be able to score as many points as they’d be able to driving into the paint. The Owls have gone 4-24 for the season when shooting three pointers. This leaves them with a percentage of 16.6%.

On the other side of the table, the Eagles need to drive into the paint more often if they expect to walk away with a win. Against Lipscomb, the Eagles shot 3-14 from behind the arc with two of those coming from Angel McGowan. The Eagles will also have to capitalize early and capitalize often. The difference between the first and second half performance against Lipscomb is easily the difference between a win and a loss. If the Eagles can play like they did in the second half against Lipscomb all game against Kennesaw, then they can easily walk away with the win.

Lastly, the bench is going to have to produce more points. McGowan shot career highs in points every game of the season but when the bench is only scoring 13 points a game, then it’s going to put the starters in a harder and harder position to either keep the lead or come back from behind.