All Around Good Play Pushes Racers To 14th Straight Home Win

Saturday, December 15

CFSB Center

7 p.m.

Murray State

Jackson State

Jackson St.

Murray St.

Photo by: Dave Winder-Murray State Athletics

All Around Good Play Pushes Racers To 14th Straight Home Win

12/15/2018 10:00:00 PM | Men's Basketball

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The Murray State Racers pushed their home winning streak to 14 Saturday with a 74-57 victory over the Jackson State Tigers in front of 3,612 at the CFSB Center in Murray, Kentucky.

The Racers (7-1) who have won four-straight since a loss at Alabama (Nov. 26), host the Evansville Purple Aces Tuesday at 7 p.m. The contest is the second game of a doubleheader at the CFSB Center as the MSU women's team hosts Southern Illinois at 5 p.m.

Shaq Buchanan led all scorers with 19 points, while Tevin Brown hit four 3-pointers on his way to 16 points. Ja Morant dished out 17 assists and scored 10 points. Darnell Cowart and KJ Williams scored 11 and 10 points off the Racer bench to give the team five players in double-figures.

The game began as a 20-20 deadlock, then the Racers took the lead for good on a Buchanan 3-pointer at the 7:05 mark. Brion Sanchious made the play of the game with a two-handed block, where he just took the ball out of the air. The Racer center was able to run the floor and dunk of an alley-oop from Morant. Racers led 26-22 with 5:49 left in the half. After another stop and Morant alley-ooped to Buchanan for a 28-22 lead. The Racers' defense picked up and held JSU to a stretch where they were 1-of-9, which allowed the Racers to lead 34-24 at the half intermission.

The Racers started the second half with a 12-6 run, aided by back-to-back threes for Buchanan to build a 46-30 lead with 15:44 left. Cowart scored in the late shot clock to complete a 20-7 run for the Racers to lead 68-42 with 4:22 left.

Game Notes
Coach Tevester Anderson Night was a memorable time for fans to show appreciation to the former Racer coach who was part of three OVC regular season titles as an assistant for Mark Gottfried (1995-98) and another two titles as head coach (1998-03) where he won 103 games in five seasons. It was certainly a moving halftime ceremony when Coach T and his wife Joyce stepped to center court.

The Racers pushed their home winning streak in the CFSB Center to 14 with the win. MSU's last loss was in December 2017 to Auburn. The Racers' longest home winning streak of all-time was 47 in a row that closed out old Racer Arena with 30-straight wins and began the CFSB Center with 17-straight. The streak began (1-6-1996) against Belmont and ended against SEMO (1-15-2000).

Tevin Brown is shooting the ball at a high level these days. He was 4-of-9 tonight from the 3-point line and is 15-of-30 in the last three games for 50 percent. He has also made at least one 3-pointer in his first eight games as a freshman. In case you're wondering, the MSU record for consecutive games with a 3-pointer is 40 set by Isaiah Canaan in 2012-13.

The Racers began the night as the NCAA D-I leader in defending the 3-point line as opponents were only hitting 20 percent on 23-of-112. The Racers kept that good defense going tonight when Jackson State was 4-of-20 for 20 percent.