Murray State University Athletics
MSU Faces Must-Win At Home Against Morehead
2/9/2007 6:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Morehead State
(10-13) (6-9 OVC)
at
Murray State
(12-12) (10-6 OVC)
Sat. 7:30 p.m.
Murray, Ky.
RSEC
The Murray State Racers meet the Morehead State Eagles at the Regional Special Events Center in a game that finds the Racers trying to get back on the winning track after suffering a tough loss Thursday at home to Eastern Kentucky 64-62. The Racers had a 12 point lead after scoring the first basket of the second half, but could never put the Colonels away. The Racers season-best four game winning streak was halted. The good news for MSU was that Tennessee Tech also lost at Jacksonville State, thus keeping the Racers in a tie for OVC third place at 10-6. MSU played a brilliant first half against EKU in holding them to only two field goals in the final nine minutes of the half. EKU managed to shoot only 31 percent in the first half, but turned that around in the second half in hitting 52 percent of their shots. MSU's normally reliable shooting left them in the second half when they were held to 36 percent.
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. Witherspoon is the 33rd member of the MSU 1,000-Point Club and is 27 points from catching Hector Blondet (1968-71) who is in 31st place. He was the first Racer to get to 1,000 since Cuthbert Victor in 2004. Bennie Purcell was the first member of the club from 1952. Witherspoon has scored in 97 straight games as a Racer and has played in 115 career games. He'll be honored tonight before the Racers begin play against the Eagles.
Morehead State is coming off a second near miss against Southeast Missouri. Thursday in Cape Girardeau, Mo. the Redhawks pulled out an 81-78 win at the Show Me Center after the game was tied with 2:44 remaining. The loss was the Eagles seventh straight and dropped them to 10-13 overall, 6-9 in the league. The Eagles were led by Quentin Pryor who scored 16 points. Shaun Williams added 15 points, and Jamyron Steward had 10 points.
GAME NOTES
HOME SWEET RSEC: The Racers are 104-18 (.852) in nine seasons of play in the RSEC and are 6-3 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 6-2 all-time against Morehead State in the RSEC.
MSU JUMPS IN IN FG% DEFENSE:
In an Incredible leap, the Racers jumped from 132nd in the nation two weeks ago in field goal percentage defense to 81st this week. Opponents are shooting .405 from the field against MSU in conference play.BREAK EVEN MARK: After winning four straight games, the Racers inched above the .500 mark before falling back to 12-12 following the EKU loss. The Racers are trying to extend their winning streak to 20 straight seasons. MSU hasn't had a losing season since they went 13-15 in Steve Newton's second season in 1986-87.
THE MSU-MSU SERIES: The Racers won thei first meeting between the two in Morehead, Ky. on Dec. 9. It was the Racers first win of the season away from home by the score of 70-67. State. The Racers battled rebounding problems, but still managed to score the win and come home with a split of the "Death Valley" trip. Bruce Carter had the Racers first double-double of the season with 11 rebounds and 14 points, while Rob Kennedy came off the bench to also add 14. The Eagles tied the game at 65 with 2:09 before the Racers took the lead for good.
HALFTIME RUN: MSU has seen many a game this season turn on if they have they lead at the half time break or not. However, lately you can throw that out the window. In the last four games, MSU trailed three times and came back to win all of them. On the flip side, they had a 10-point lead on EKU Thursday at the half but couldn't hold the lead. It's the way this crazy season has gone for the Racers in the OVC.
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 10-2, and 1-10 when they trail. MSU lost a lead with five minutes left 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 know 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
11-28 UIC 40-27 +13 19:24 Lost 74-68
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
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 six of his 13 games at MSU.
HOLLOWAY AT THE LINE: Tyler Holloway is the best free throw shooter in the OVC this week hitting 51-59 this season (.864). Holloway was ranked 37th nationally at the beginning of the week but has 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 79-92 (.858). The record is currently held by Greg Coble who hit .850 of his shots (147-173) from 1989-1991.
BRACKETBUSTER CHALLENGE: The Murray State Racers were given their 2007 O'Reilly ESPNU BracketBusters assignment with a game at Rider University. The game is a road contest for MSU Saturday, Feb. 17 in Lawrenceville, N.J., Rider will return the game to MSU's Regional Special Events Center in the 2007-08 season. The game time is 6 p.m. central time.
The Rider Broncs are members of the Metro Atlantic Athletics Conference and are 12-11 overall this season, 6-7 in league play. Rider dropped a Iona 69-57 game Saturday and also Monday in a 79-78 loss to Marist. Rider's next game is Friday at home against Manhattan.
This will be the Racers third BracketBusters game, after winning at Rice in 2005 and winning at home against Illinois-Chicago in 2006.
For the second straight year all 11 OVC schools are participating in the event, which is now in its fifth year of existence. Here is the schedule.
Evansville at Samford 200pm
Eastern Illinois at Loyola-Chicago 300pm
Eastern Kentucky at Youngstown State 325pm
Austin Peay at Akron 400pm
Bowling Green at Morehead State 415pm
Murray State at Rider 600pm
Jacksonville State at Chattanooga 630pm
Louisiana Tech at Southeast Missouri 730pm
Loyola College (Md.) at Tennessee State 730pm
Northwestern State at Tennessee Tech 730pm
Saint Peter's at UT Martin 700pm
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.
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.
