Murray State
Eastern Illinois
Racers Fight Back In Second Half But Fall 82-80 In Overtime
1/3/2008 6:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
The Murray State Racers battled back from double-digit deficits at Eastern Illinois Thursday but couldn't come home with a victory in an 83-80 overtime loss in
MSU, who had shooting problems all night managed to cut a 12-point deficit down to five on a dunk by Tony Easley with 4:29 left in the second half.
The Racers showed they still had some fight left.
With 2:04 left, MSU got a steal and Kevin Thomas scored a three-point play, followed by a steal by Danero Thomas. He was fouled and hit a pair of free throws to cut the EIU lead to 65-64 with 1:42 left.
EIU's Tyler Laser was fouled with 1:22 left and he answered with two free throws to put EIU back in front by three 67-64.
With 20 seconds left, the game was a again a three-point game in favor of EIU when the Racers rebounded a Panther miss and called timeout with 8.2 seconds on the clock.
Carter was fouled with 6.2 left and hit two free throws and make it a 69-68 EIU lead.
Laser went to the line with 4.9 left and hit free throws to again put EIU in front by three.
The Racers raced the ball into the front court where Tyler Holloway drilled a three-pointer just to right of the top of the arc to tie the game at the buzzer and force overtime at 72-72. It was the Racers' first overtime of the season.
Tyler Laser drove the lane to give the Panthers an 80-75 lead with 2:00 left.
Easley made an old fashioned three-point play to make it a two point game with 1:14 left.
After two EIU free throws, Holloway made another long three to cut it to 81-80 with 54.8 left.
Then MSU had their best defensive stand of the game and forced EIU into a shot clock turnover with 18.9 remaining.
MSU's chance to take the lead for the first time went away when Danero Thomas lost the handle on a drive down the lane and the Racers turned the ball over to EIU with 5.5 remaining.
The Racers had the ball and down three with 4.3 left, but didn't get a shot off at the buzzer and the final was 83-80 as the Murray State's overall mark dropped to 5-7 and 2-3 in the Ohio Valley Conference.
MSU returns home Saturday for a 7:30 p.m. game with
Danero Thomas led the Racers with 18 points, while Tyler Holloway and Tony Easley added 15 each. Brucer Carter had 10.
When the game began, the Racers had another rough start when they hit only three of their first 16b shots of the game and fell behind 13-6 eight minutes into the game.
The Panthers had a 31-25 lead at the half.
