Murray State University Athletics
MSU Battles Samford-Witherspoon Nears 1,000
1/29/2007 6:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Murray State
(9-11) (7-5OVC)
at
Samford
(12-9) (9-3 OVC)
Monday 7:00 p.m.
Seibert Hall
Birmingham, Ala.
The Murray State Racers continue their tough month of January with another road contest in Birmingham, Ala. against the Samford Bulldogs. The Racers are coming off their most impressive showing of the season in an 85-67 victory over Southeast Missouri in Cape Girardeau, Mo. marking their fourth straight win in the Show Me Center. The Racers defense was the headliner in holding the Redhawks to a season low .271 from the field (16-59). It marked the best defensive showing this season for the Racers against D-I competition. The win also halted SEMO's bid to sweep the Racers in a regular season series for the first time. The Racers held a 38-28 lead at the half and led by as many as 23 before settling for an 18-point win. The Racers are 7-5 in the Ohio Valley Conference.
Samford begins a two-game home stand and are trying to stay undefeated at home this season, they have not lost in seven tries at home. The game at Seibert Hall is the last time MSU will face the Bulldogs in the building that has hosted SU games for 45 years, a new arena will open for next season. Samford has urged their fans to break the all-time attendance record of 4,240. Samford (12-9, 9-3 OVC) enters the game as the second-place team in the conference. They tuned up for the OVC schedule by playing some heavy hitters in the pre-OVC season. They had games at defending national champion Florida (79-54 loss) and at #15 Arizona (86-57 loss).
When the Racers saw their 2006-07 schedule last summer, everyone looked to this stretch of games in the month of January and early February as being a brutal test. MSU has but two home games this month and some very tough road games. It started last Tuesday with a game at Tennessee Tech (a 63-52 loss) and a win at SEMO Saturday. Thursday, MSU is back at home to face Austin Peay before hitting the road again for Alabama and a game at Jacksonville State Saturday.All told, MSU will travel approximately 3,000 miles in the month of January.
Senior Shawn Witherspoon has 950 career points and is closing in on becoming the 33rd member of the MSU 1,000-Point Club. He'll follow Cuthbert Victor who entered the group in 2004.
GAME NOTES:
DISHING IT UP: Senior guard Ed Horton has six games of five assists this season. He leads the Racers with 67 and ranks10th in the OVC with 3.70 per game.
FRESHMAN FIRE: Danero Thomas came off the bench and provided a nice boost to the Racers at SEMO. He ended the game with a career-best 16 points on 5-6 shooting, incuding 3-4 from three-point range.
BY GEORGE: Ray George is getting more and more comfortable with his teammates. At SEMO he had five steals marking the season high for the Racers and the first time a Racer player had five steals in a game since Pearson Griffith last season against Eastern Illinois.
IRON MAN: Bruce Carter played a season-best 39 minutes in the SEMO game. He had led the team in rebounding in six straight games until Shawn Witherspoon led at SEMO with nine boards. Carter ranked fifth in the OVC in rebounding and seventh in scoring.
HALFTIME RUN: MSU has seen many a game this season turn on if they have the lead at the half time break or not. In games when they have the lead at the break, the Racers are 7-3 while they are 1-7 when they trail and 1-1 when the score is tied. On a similar note: the Racers are 8-1 when they have the lead at the five-minute mark of the second half and 1-10 when they trail.
SAMFORD'S LAST GAME: After cutting Austin Peay's lead to 51-47 with five minutes remaining Saturday, the Govs ended the game with a 15-1 run to get the 66-48 decision in Clarksville. The Bulldogs' Randall Gulina finished with a game-high 22 points on 9-of-16 shooting from the floor and was 4-of-10 from beyond the arc. With the loss, Samford (12-9, 9-3 OVC) had its three-game winning streak snapped.
THE SAMFORD-MSU SERIES: MSU leads the all-time series with Samford 9-8. The Racers haven't played the Bulldogs very much since their last win in Birmingham, but it's worth noting that the last MSU win at Samford was in 1936. MSU is 1-5 at Samford all-time and have yet to score a win there since the Bulldogs joined the OVC in the 03-04 season.
SPOON WATCH: Shawn Witherspoon's run to join the Murray State 1000-Point Club has been slowed because a foot injury, but he has picked up the pace....foot or no foot. Currently Witherspoon has 950 career points and is 50 from the magic number. In the last five games he is shooting .535 from the field and is scoring 11 points per game.
There are 32 players in the MSU 1,000-Point Club, here are the bottom 10. Bennie Purcell is the first member of the club gaining admission in 1952.
23 Justin Burdine (98-02) 110 1,209 10.9
24 Chris Shumate (99-04) 113 1,193 10.5
25 Jimmy Young (68-71) 78 1,128 14.4
26 Paul King (88-91) 121 1,108 9.1
27 Marcelous Starks (71-74) 75 1,096 14.6
28 Mike Muff (76-78) 51 1,077 21.1
29 Bennie Purcell (48-52) 116 1,054 9.0
30 Mike Coleman (72-74) 50 1,038 20.7
31 Hector Blondet (68-71) 69 1,030 14.9
32 John Namciu (62-65) 66 1,003 15.1
Young, Starks, Muff, Coleman, Blondet and Namciu all played before the three-point shot.
HOLLOWAY RETURNS: Guard Tyler Holloway missed the SEMO game with the flu. He is expected to play against Samford.
"HOLLOWAY AT THE LINE": That phrase certainly is a comforting sound for the MSU team. The MSU sophomore debuted seventh in free throw shooting in the NCAA Division-I rankings Jan. 16. He has since slipped to 33rd but is still having a great season at the line hitting 48-55 for .873. In his MSU career, he is 76-88 .864. While he is still in the early part of his time at MSU, Holloway stands a very good chance of setting the career FT percentage mark at MSU. The record is currently held by Greg Coble who hit .850 of his shots (147-173) from 1989-1991.
KEVIN THOMAS OUT FOR SEASON: MSU junior Kevin Thomas is now out for the season after his comeback from knee surgery did not advance as expected. Thomas missed the first 11 games of the season after surgery, and had a wonderful debut as a Racer when he scored 12 points against Jacksonville State Dec. 19. However, his knee did not improve and he played only 29 minutes over the next three games and scored only two points leading to the decision to shut him down for the season. Thomas will take a medical redshirt and have two seasons yet to play for MSU.
STREAKS AND SUCH: At the moment, the Racers have winning streaks (more than two) over every OVC squad except for four. MSU's best win streak is 12 over UT-Martin. The Racers lost their last meeting with Samford, Tennessee Tech and Eastern Kentucky and won their last meeting with SEMO.
OVC EARLY BIRD SPECIAL: The Ohio Valley Conference Tournament is set for March 2-3 at the Gaylord Entertainment Center in Nashville, Tenn. The OVC has announced its "Early Bird Special" offering ticket discounts and free concessions. Check the front page of ovcsports.com for details. The special offer is good through Feb. 20. OVC VIDEO STREAMING: OVC member institutions are receiving great reviews in the first year of offering live streaming video. All OVC games are being offered to fans and media with live video and home team announcers audio at www.ovcsports.tv. BRACKETBUSTER CHANGES: The evolution of the ESPN BracketBusters event continues with the announcement of some changes. The event is being rebranded as the "ESPNU BracketBusters", which will give more attention to the network's new venture ESPNU. The OVC already has several games scheduled for EPSNU this season. The Racers will learn of their assignment Tuesday. The Racers are slated for a road game in the event this season. MSU has played two BracketBuster games and have won both; In 2005 they defeated Rice in Houston, Texas 69-63 and last season defeated Illinois-Chicago at home 72-68. The Racers have split the return games with a 83-65 home win over Rice, and a 74-68 loss at UIC this season.
