Murray State University Athletics
Murray State
Eastern Kentucky
Racers dominate EKU 80-51, winning 10th straight OVC opener
12/8/2005 6:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Issian Redding turned in his second straight career high, following the 21 he scored last Saturday at Texas-San Antonio with 25 against the Colonels, including six three-pointers. Shawn Witherspoon added 22 on 10-for-12 shooting from the field.
Showing everyone that winning on the Racers' home court was very important in the opener, according to Witherspoon.
"Every game we play at home needs to be a statement game, and tonight was no different," he said.
Redding echoed that thought.
"We needed to set the table for the rest of the season and let everybody know that playing in the RSEC won't be easy," he said.
The Racers showed much intensity at the start of the game, and their shooting game was excellent, making 10 of their first 16 shots to start game.
With 13:30 left in the first half, the Racers managed to build a 17-6 lead on three straight three-pointers, two by Shawn Witherspoon and another by Redding.
Eastern Kentucky, picked second in the Ohio Valley Conference's pre-season poll behind the Racers, did not blink and stayed in the game. Matt Witt's three-pointer with 4:08 in the first half cut the Racer lead to 10 at 34-24.
With 1:05 before half, Redding hit his second three-pointer to give the Racers a 39-26 lead. After Jason McLeish answered the three with 45 seconds remaining, Redding hit a floating jumper across the free-throw line to give the Racers a 41-29 advantage at the break.
The Racers didn't lose any momentum coming out of the half break. Keith Jenifer made a steal from McLeish and scored an easy two, an EKU miss followed and led to another easy basket for Justin Orr after an offensive rebound by Shawn Witherspoon, and the Racer lead was 45-29.
After two more EKU misses, Redding hit a three-pointer and Witherspoon scored inside. The Colonels called a timeout with 16:20 left, and the Racers had an 11-0 run to open the second half and a 50-29 lead.
EKU's scoreless streak of 5:35 ended when Darnell Dialls scored inside to make it a 53-31 game wth 15:09 left.
The final statsheet told the story of the Racers' dominance.
MSU outrebounded EKU 34-23 and shot 62 percent from the field, holding the Colonels to 40 percent shooting. Murray State hit on 14 of its first 17 shots in the second half (82.4 percent).
The Racers hit 10 three-pointers, and the Colonels were held to two. Eastern's best three-point shooter, Matt Witt, was 1-for-7 from three range.
By scoring 80 points in their third win of the season, the Racers are now 30-1 in the Mick Cronin era when they score 80 or more points in a game. Their only loss when scoring 80 was a 100-80 defeat last Jan. 2 at Alabama-Birmingham.
Racer head coach Mick Cronin was very pleased with the outcome.
"Obviously, I'm extremely happy with our defense, especially from the three-point line," he said. "Eastern Kentucky's a team that can really shoot the three, and we started a long lineup to be able to contest the threes.
"I'm real proud of Issian. He has worked extremely hard in the summer and early fall, and everything is beginning to work out for him,"
The OVC campaign is a long one, 20 games, so one game will not win the title, but getting the opener at home in such dominating fashion is a great start.
"I told the team that to win the OVC championship, we have to go 10-0 at home," Cronin said. "Last year, if we went 8-0 at home in the conference, we would have been 13-3 and won the league title. We have to be dominant at home, and take that mentality into every home game."
MSU Notes
For the first time in 16 games, Murray State head coach Mick Cronin made a change in his starting five. During that run, which started with the final eight games of the 2004-05 season, the Racer lineup was: Shawn Witherspoon, Justin Orr, Pearson Griffith, Keith Jenifer and Trey Pearson. In the midst of a 5-for-21 shooting slump, Pearson was not in the starting lineup tonight in favor of Issian Redding. Mick Cronin mentioned that some pressure to score needed to be taken off of Pearson. Still, Trey was very productive coming off the bench, scoring two points on 1-for-4 shooting and dishing out six assists in 21 minutes.
The Racers have now won 10 straight OVC openers. The last time the Racers lost an OVC opener was in 1996 at Tennessee Tech.
The Racers have now won 14 straight against the Colonels in Murray. The last EKU win in Murray was in 1992.
The Racers attained the magic 80 points, marking the 29th time in 30 games that the Racers have won when they score 80 or more in the Mick Cronin era. Since 1990, MSU is 202-24 when they score 80 or more points.
The Racers shot .620 for the game from the field, hitting 31 of 50 shots. It is the best shooting game for an MSU team in the Cronin era and the best for the Racers since a .617 shooting day on Nov. 29, 2003, when the Racers beat Southern Miss at home 94-54. In that game, the Racers hit 37 of 60 shots.
The Racers' 34-23 advantage on the boards was their largest rebounding edge of the season and their largest since beating UT-Martin 44-23 on Jan. 18, 2005.
