Catching Up With Kennedy - Weekly News Conference - Murray State University Athletics

Murray State Head Men's Basketball Coach Billy Kennedy met with members of local media Monday in the Racer Room at Stewart Stadium for his weekly question and answer session.

The Racers are coming off a split of last week's road trip to Eastern Kentucky and Morehead State. The Racers lost 60-47 at EKU last Thursday, but came back Saturday to post a 62-54 win at Morehead State. MSU is 15-9 overall and stands alone in second place in the OVC with an 11-5 mark.

The Racers' next game is Thursday at the Gentry Center in Nashville, Tenn. against the Tennessee State Tigers. TSU is 7-9 this season in the Ohio Valley Conference and in an 8^th place tie with Southeast Missouri.

After the Thursday game, MSU returns to the Regional Special Events Center for a Saturday 7:30 p.m. game with Eastern Illinois.

Now with 15 wins, MSU has a chance to get a 20-win season. If they do, it will be their first since the 2005-06 season and their 12th in the last 20 seasons. It would be Kennedy's third career 20-win campaign in 10 seasons as a head coach and overall, his sixth in 23 seasons in college basketball.

The Racers are still leading the OVC in a “Grand Slam” of statistics. In league games, MSU leads the OVC in field goal percentage (.495), field goal defense (.415), three-point percentage (.409), and three-point defense (.327). The Racers are the only team in NCAA D-I that can boast this quadruple achievement. There are other teams leading their conferences in three of the categories mentioned including Marist (Metro Atlantic), Stephen F. Austin (Southland), American (Patriot), and Montana (Big Sky).

Here are Billy Kennedy's comments from the news conference.

Opening comments

“We're trying to get ready for a good Tennessee State team. I'm glad we're playing them coming off a win at Morehead State. I thought we did some good things defensively (in the Morehead game), if we would have played better in rebounding on the defensive end we could've finished even better. We got back to sharing the ball in the Morehead game, we had 15 assists, and we moved the ball around in a way that makes us successful.”

What are your thoughts about MSU's next opponent Tennessee State on Thursday in Nashville?

“Tennessee State is a dangerous team, their backs are against the wall. It's surprising they're not higher in the standings, I think I picked them third or fourth in the preseason. TSU is very good offensively, they have extremely talented guards and we'll have to do a good job of contesting shots and limiting them to only one shot.”

How do you defend Tennessee State's Bruce Price and the guards the Tigers have?
“We have to keep him out of the lane as best as we possibly can, we can't do it with one guy, it's going to take five defenders. They play well at their court, they shoot well and are one of the best offensive teams in the league. Price is going to get his points and we have to limit the other guys from having a big night.”

Tell us your thoughts about the Racers' 60-47 loss at Eastern Kentucky last Thursday.

“It was a bad performance all the way around. Tyler Holloway, Bruce Carter, and Danero Thomas didn't score for us, and it's hard for us to win when they don't score. We were poor in handling the ball, we had 24 turnovers and 16 of them were from Danero, Bruce and Tony Easley. When your threes, fours and fives lead you in turnovers, that's a bad thing. We didn't play well and a lot of that had to do with Eastern Kentucky's zone, and they (EKU) played really well. We needed to handle the ball better and make better decisions.”

How are you going about getting better play off the Murray State bench?

“Those guys (bench players) are getting the opportunity to play and they're not playing well. They're capable of playing well, they did during that stretch where we had our winning streak. That's one thing we're going to try and focus on this week is getting them to play better.”

What are your thoughts on MSU's Saturday game at the RSEC against Eastern Illinois?

“They are a dangerous team. I don't understand why they're not winning, having seen them in the games we've played against them, they played really well against us. They've lost Romain Martin (Out with an injury) for a good stretch and they've had other injuries this season. They're very capable, obviously they beat us, and they're capable of winning Saturday if we don't play well.”

Is there any advantage of winning the OVC regular season title other than hanging a banner?

“I don't think there's much difference in finishing fourth or finishing second. Obviously, you want to finish as high as possible. There isn't any difference in the team you're going to play. Those teams in the OVC that are going to finish fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth are not a whole lot different from each other. We want to be at home, we've played better at home so that is big to finish in the top four so we can be at home for the first round game.”

Murray State University Athletics

Catching Up With Kennedy - Weekly News Conference

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