Murray State University Athletics
Valentine's Day Game-Racers vs Tigers
2/13/2007 6:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Tennessee State
(10-17) (6-11 OVC)
at
Murray State
(13-12) (11-6 OVC)
Wed. 7 p.m.
Murray, Ky.
RESC
With only three regular season games left in Ohio Valley Conference play, the Murray State Racers brace for the Tennessee State Tigers at the Regional Special Events Center, a place where the Racers have never dropped a game to TSU. Murray State is coming off an up and down week when they split two at home. The Racers had a lead against Eastern Kentucky last Thursday but couldn't hang on in a 64-62 loss, the Colonels first at the RSEC. Saturday the Racers hit their stride and breezed past Morehead State 74-62. The Racers are facing a TSU team that has played some impressive basketball this season and had MSU down by 19 points in their Jan. 4 game in Nashville, but the Racers found a way to force overtime and eventually won it 86-83. MSU continues to make a living playing stingy defense. The Racers are ranked 76th in the nation as teams are only shooting .415 for the season against them. In the OVC, MSU has been even better in holding opponents to .409 shooting. The Racers have won three straight against TSU and have won 11 straight against them at home.
Senior Shawn Witherspoon moved into 32nd place on the all-time MSU scoring list with 1,003 when he pumped in 14 points against EKU last Thursday. Witherspoon is the 33rd member of the MSU 1,000-Point Club and is 17 points from catching Hector Blondet (1968-71) who is in 31st place.
Tennessee State enters the MSU game on a seven-game losing skid after taking an 86-66 loss Saturday at Tennessee Tech and an 86-44 setback at Austin Peay Monday. However, five of those losses have been close games. Ladarious Weaver has had the hot hand most of the season for the Tigers and ranks 32nd in the nation in made three-pointers per game (3.0) and 97th in three-point percentage (.364). Clarence Matthews is a devestating force in the paint and ranked as the 59th best rebounder in the nation with an 8.4 per game average.
The Racers are 105-18 (.853) in nine seasons of play in the RSEC and are 7-3 here this season. The Racers had the nation's 11th best winning streak of 15 snapped by Samford Dec. 21 and are 30-8 here in the last three campaigns. The Racers are 10-0 all-time against Tennessee State in the RSEC.
GAME NOTES
TICKETS, GET YOUR TICKETS: 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.RACER RADIO GAME DAY AUDIO: Racer fans from all over the world can listen to the radio broadcast of MSU Basketball on goracers.com for no charge. Click here to listen to the Racers: http://www.goracers.com/liveEvents/liveEvents.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=6700&KEY=&DB_OEM_ID=6700&DB_LANG=&IN_SUBSCRIBER_CONTENT=
THE TSU-MSU SERIES: The Racers and Tigers are meeting for the second time this season. On Jan. 4 in Nashville, MSU turned in an incredible win after they erased a 19-point deficit in an 86-83 overtime win. The Tigers took a 44-26 lead when they scored 20-seconds into second half. MSU then blitzed the Tigers with a 14-2 run to cut the lead to six with 15:45 left. With four seconds to go, Ray George drilled a three-pointer to send the game to overtime. Tyler Holloway scored a career high 29. MSU is 2-1 in overtime games this season, and haven't played four overtime games since the 1989-90 season. The Racers are 36-12 all-time now against Tennessee State and have won their last two in Nashville at the Gentry Center. Andrae Belton scored 35 points in the game for TSU which is the second best scoring game this season in the OVC. Belton's game is also the highest scoring game the Racers have given up this season.
A HEART FOR WINS:
The Racers and Tigers are after all playing on Valentine's Day at the RSEC, which brings up the thought of how many times and how many wins have the Racers scored on Feb. 14? Since joining the OVC in 1948, MSU is 8-9 on Valentine's Day and are playing a home game on the big day for the first time since 1953! MSU's last Valentine's game was in 2004, a 63-56 road loss to APSU. Over the years, MSU hasn't gotten much love from Western Kentucky. The two have played four times (All while WKU was a member of the OVC) with MSU winning only one.BRACKETBUSTER CHALLENGE:
The next game for MSU is the ESPNU BracketBusters game at Rider University in Lawrenceville, N.J. MSU will fly to Philadelphia, Pa. Friday and bus to Rider from there for Saturday's 6pm CST game.The Broncs are members of the Metro Atlantic Athletics Conference and are 14-11 overall this season, 8-7 in league play. Rider defeated Canisius 98-88 last Sunday.
This will be the Racers third BracketBusters game, after winning at Rice in 2005 and winning at home against Illinois-Chicago in 2006.
SECOND HALF FUN:
The Racers are currently on a nice run of good scoring second halves. MSU has shot better than .500 in the second half eight of their last 11 games.GOOD COMPANY:
Bruce Carter is among a group of four players who are ranked in the top-10 in both OVC scoring and rebounding. Carter is ninth in scoring and seventh in rebounding. Courtney Bradley (JSU), Gerald Robinson (UTM) and Amadi McKenzie (TTU) are also ranked in the top-10 in both categories. He has also scored in double figures 18 times in MSU's 25 games this season.SHUFFLE THE DECK:
With 11 new players, you can imagine the combinations of starting lineups that Billy Kennedy tried early in the season. Coach Kennedy used 10 different starting lineups in the first 14 games. Things have settled into a solid rotation now as the Racers have had only two different lineups since. For a long while, Witherspoon, Holloway, Horton, Carter and George were taking the floor first. Then Holloway missed the SEMO game Jan. 27 with the flu and freshman Marvin Williams has been starting since with Holloway coming off the bench. The same lineup has now started the last six games.CRITICAL TIME:
Watch for the five minute mark of the second half, because it has been a key moment on if the Racers are on the winning end or not. When MSU has the lead with five minutes left they are 11-2, and 1-10 when they trail. MSU lost a lead with five minutes left last Thursday against EKU and also lost a lead at Illinois-Chicago Nov. 28. MSU trailed Belhaven Nov. 16 and came back to win.As with any team that has 11 new players and a new coach there are going to be growing pains. MSU has known the pain of losing four games after they had double-digit second half leads this season.
Date OPP MSU Lead Time Re. W/L Final
12-7 EKU 40-28 +12 17:31 Lost 72-66
1-16 APSU 40-30 +10 19:49 Lost 68-59
2-8 EKU 37-25 +12 19:30 Lost 64-62
FRESHMEN FORM:
Marvin Williams and Danero Thomas hilight a freshmen class for the Racers that has shown great improvement through 25 games. Williams is playing 12.7 mpg, while Thomas is on the floor an average of 15 minutes per game. Together they are adding 8.6 points and 4.3 rebounds per game to the MSU attack.MORE THE MERRIER:
In MSU's Saturday win over Morehead State, the Racers put six players in double-figures in the scoring column, a rare feat indeed as it was only the seventh time in the last 177 games that MSU has done it. MSU beat the Eagles 74-62 with George scoring 15, Holloway and Horton with 11 and Witherspoon, Williams and Thomas scoring 10.GETTING TO KNOW YOU:
Junior Ray George has proved a quick learner after joining the team Dec. 19. George led the Racers in scoring for the first time in the Racers win at Jacksonville State Feb. 3 with 16 points on 6-9 shooting, he has scored in double figures in seven of his 14 games at MSU and led the Racers again with 15 Saturday against Morehead State.HOLLOWAY AT THE LINE:
Tyler Holloway is still the best free throw shooter this week in the OVC. He is 53-61 this season (.869) and ranks just ahead of Romain Martin of Eastern Illinois who is 58-67 (.866). Holloway was ranked 37th nationally a few weeks ago but dropped out because he doesn't have the 2.5 attempts per game needed to be ranked. 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, he is 81-94 (.862). The record is currently held by Greg Coble who hit .850 of his shots (147-173) from 1989-1991.
