Racers Fall To OVC Second Place At JSU

Thursday, January 31

Jacksonville, Ala.

7:15 p.m.

Murray State

16-4, 7-2OVC

Jacksonville State

16-6, 8-1OVC

Murray State

Jacksonville State

Photo by: Dave Winder-Murray State Athletics

1/31/2019 10:53:00 PM | Men's Basketball

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The Murray State Racers fell out of a share of first place in the Ohio Valley Conference with an 88-68 defeat to the Jacksonville State Gamecocks at Pete Mathews Coliseum in Jacksonville, Alabama.

The Racers (16-4) fell to 7-2 OVC play, while JSU (16-6) improved to 8-1. The Racers have a third share of second place with Belmont and Austin Peay who are also 7-2. Murray State heads for Tennessee Tech and a 7:30 p.m. tip Saturday at the Eblen Center.

Ja Morant led the Racers with his fifth-straight game of 20 or points with 22 on 7-of-18 shooting. Morant has 14 games of 20-plus scoring this season. He added 11 assists for his 13^th double-double this season. Morant now has 211 assists, just one from the MSU single-season record by Chad Townsend in the 1996-97 season.

Tevin Brown added 17 points, while Shaq Buchanan scored 10. Darnell Cowart and Morant led the team with six rebounds each.

MSU's first loss of the season on the road in OVC play came on a night when they only had the lead one time, when KJ Williams started the game with a layup only 40 seconds in. The Racers fell behind 39-31 at the 1:10 mark of the first half and trailed 41-34 at the halftime intermission.

In the second half, every time the Racers started to make a move, JSU had an answer.

At the 17:18 mark, Buchanan hit a 3-pointer to make it an eight-point game, but JSU pushed their lead back to 12. With 15:05 remaining, Devin Gilmore made a 3-point play the hard way and the lead was down to 53-44, but JSU had the lead to 13 with 11:17 left. MSU's final run came with 10:55 left when Brown hit a three, but three minutes later, JSU's lead ballooned to 14 and the Racers were never able to mount another push.

Game Notes
Ja Morant needs only two assists in the Tech game on Saturday to become the MSU single-season leader. The current mark of 212 by Chad Townsend in the 1996-97 season has lasted 22 years. Now with 412 career assists, he still has an outside shot at catching MSU all-time leader Don Mann who had 531 assists from 1985-89.

Morant is also chasing down 1,000 career points. After his 22 game tonight, Morant has 884 points in his 52 games as a Racer.