Cowart's Double-Double Helps Racers Grind Out Win Over UTM

Thursday, February 21

CFSB Center

7 p.m.

Murray State

UT Martin

Murray St.

Photo by: Dave Winder-Murray State Athletics

Cowart's Double-Double Helps Racers Grind Out Win Over UTM

2/21/2019 4:54:00 PM | Men's Basketball

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The Murray State Racers pushed their winning streak to six and remained in a first place tie in the Ohio Valley Conference with an 85-75 win Thursday over the UT Martin Skyhawks at the CFSB Center in Murray, Kentucky.

The Racers (22-4) moved to 13-2 in the OVC and host Southeast Missouri State Saturday at 7 p.m.

Ja Morant scored 30 points and dished out nine assists, while Darnell Cowart had a double-double with 22 points and 13 rebounds and Shaq Buchanan gave the Racers 11 points.

The Racers trailed in the first half at the 10:54 mark when the score was 18-13. Morant cut the lead to one with a 3-pointer, but the Racers didn't take the lead until the 3:29 mark when Cowart scored off his own miss to make it 30-29. The Racers got a bucket in the paint from Morant with 44 seconds left and carried a 36-32 lead into the halftime intermission.

With 10:57 remaining, the MSU lead was one at 54-53 when they pushed to a five-point lead on a pair of Buchanan free throws (60-55) with 9:00 left. Brown and Morant hit back-to-back threes and the Racers finally had some cushion at 63-61 and UTM never got closer than 10 points the rest of the way.

Game Notes
Morant's 30-point game means he now has five games of 30 or more this season, and 11 straight of 20 or more points.

Morant now has 265 assists and has has set both the MSU and OVC single-season assist records surpassing the 255 by Duane Washington of Middle Tennessee (1986-87). Morant also passed the MSU single-season record of 212 by Chad Towsend in 1996-97.

Morant is looking to catch MSU hall of famer Don Mann (1985-89) who has the MSU all-time assist mark with 531. Morant has 466 through 26 games. Morant passed second place Lamont Sleets (1979-84) who had 458.

Cowart gets his fourth double-double of the season. His 13 rebounds tie his season-high that he had against Belmont (Jan. 24). His 22 points was one off his season-high of 23 against Eastern Illinois (Feb. 7).

MSU's five turnovers is a season-low. Their previous low was seven against SEMO (Jan. 12). MSU Has eight games this season of less than 10 this season.

The Racers were 16-of-22 from inside the arc which led to 48 points in the paint.