Kennesaw State's wait ends with A-Sun tournament

By Clark Freeman

For the AJC

You can't blame Kennesaw State coach Tony Ingle if he feels as if he has been wandering in the basketball wilderness for the past four years. That's how long the Owls have endured the reclassification process in their move from NCAA Division II to Division I.

And that's how long it has been since they have been eligible to play for a conference championship.

"It's like in that movie, ‘Dumb and Dumber,' Ingle said. "You can say, ‘We have a shot!' "

KSU (12-19, 7-13) gets to play in the Atlantic Sun Conference tournament for the first time. The Owls qualified for the tournament, as the eighth seed, in their first year of eligibility. They play at 2:30 p.m. Wednesday in Macon against Lipscomb, the top seed.

Ingle also has a shot at recruiting better players -- a process that began with redshirt freshman Markeith Cummings and his former teammate at Beach High in Savannah, LaDaris Green.

"What we're doing ... this is our first year; this is legit," Ingle said. "Right now I've got players recruited during the reclassification period. This is our first year to participate in the conference tournament. ... Two players, Markeith Cummings and LaDaris Green, that's where they come in. They give us a good base to build on, something to rally around."

The nucleus is solid. Cummings is the third leading freshman scorer in the country. Green has been one of the top rebounding freshmen in the country. Kurtis Woods made the all-freshman team last season. Point guard Spencer Dixon from Kennesaw Mountain High has played well.

And now that KSU is eligible for conference and NCAA tournaments, Ingle can refine his pitch to potential recruits. He can offer them something to play for.

The last time the Owls were in that position, they played for -- and won -- the NCAA Division II national championship, in March 2005. The school decided to make the jump to Division I the following November.

"When we played on CBS [for the D-II title], our alumni, faculty, students, this whole place was going crazy," Ingle said.

That was the high point. The title followed a run of routine 20-victory seasons that attracted attention and recruits. The past four years have been challenging, to say the least.

"The reclassification process was a tough time," Ingle said. "We had trouble scheduling people. They'd say, ‘You aren't going to the NCAA.' And with no shot to compete in the conference tournament, it's tough to pitch your school to recruits. It's a process, and it was tough going through that.

"There were some openings in the Atlantic Sun with Central Florida going to Conference USA and Georgia State to the Colonial," Ingle said. "The A-Sun liked us because we're in Atlanta."

The cornerstone of Ingle's rebuilding project is Cummings, a 6-foot-7, 230-pound redshirt freshman. He averages 17.2 points and 6.2 rebounds per game. Green, a lean 6-10, contributes 6.6 points and 7.9 rebounds.

"Markeith, I call him Simba, after the big lion in ‘The Lion King.'" Ingle said. "He just struts around. He takes over a room. He demands attention."

Cummings got plenty of attention coming out high school. He's strong, mobile and athletic. He was being recruited for basketball and football, as a quarterback in the spread offense.

He picked Kennesaw State, he said, because "Coach Ingle touched me. I was being recruited by a lot of schools for football and basketball.

"I prayed over [my decision] and decided Kennesaw was the place for me."

It didn't hurt that Green, his former Beach High teammate and best friend, came, too.

Cummings possesses a full-court game. Against Jacksonville on Thursday (Feb. 18), he scored 24 points and grabbed 12 rebounds, going 7-for-14 from the field, 2-for-3 on 3-pointers and 8-for-9 from the free-throw line in a 75-67 loss.

Senior Jon-Michael Nickerson, a 25-year-old former minor-league pitcher in the Marlins organization, recognizes Cummings' talent.

"He's an unbelievably gifted athlete, a great player," Nickerson said. "He's as great off the court as on it. He's hungry, never satisfied. He's got something special."

Green doesn't draw the same amount of attention as Cummings, but he was a first-team all-state at Beach, a Class AAAAA school.

"LaDaris had 18 rebounds in one game," Ingle said. "He's playing as a 5 [center], but he's a 4 [power forward]. When he was in the ninth grade he was 6-2; he can play on the perimeter. His grandmother said he grew so fast, and they had low ceilings, she thought he'd be hump-backed."

And Ingle is looking for more help.

"As I like to say, I've never seen a jockey carry a horse around the track," he said. "We've got to get some players. We've got more people listening to us now. We can get in more living rooms."

Kennesaw has signed two players from Central Arizona and one from Tucker High School. It's a good start.