Racers' NCAA Run Ends With Loss To Florida State

Saturday, March 23

Hartford, Conn.

5:10 p.m.

Murray State

28-5

Florida State University

29-7

Murray St.

Florida St.

Photo by: Jenny Rohl-Murray State Athletics

3/23/2019 6:53:00 PM | Men's Basketball

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The Murray State men's basketball team historic season came to a close Saturday night, as the 12th-seeded Racers fell, 90-62, to the fourth-seeded and 10th-ranked Florida State Seminoles at the XL Center in Hartford, Connecticut in the second round of the 2019 NCAA Men's Basketball Championship.

Ja Morant led the Racers with 28 points and became just the second Racer to score 800 points in a single season and he also became the MSU all-time career assist leader. In his final game at MSU, Shaq Buchanan scored 12 points, while Darnell Cowart gave MSU three double-figure scorers with 11 points.

The Racers got off to a great start when Morant found Buchanan with a lovely pass and Morant hit his first 3-point attempts to put MSU in front 13-7 only 4:45 into the game.

However, adversity hit the Racers when FSU put together an 8-0 run to take a 22-18 lead at 12:47, but Morant cooled it with his fourth-straight 3-pointer to cut the lead to 22-21 with 11:48 in the half. FSU hit another three to push ahead 29-23 promoting a MSU timeout with 9:51 left.

Morant made it 5-of-5 from long range with another 3-pointer at the 8:26 mark to keep the Racers in it with the score 32-26. FSU hit their seventh 3-pointer in 10 tries and added a layup to put the Racers down by 11 points at 7:20.

The half ended with the Racers trailing 50-34, their largest deficit at half this season.

The second half would not be any kinder to the Racers as they continued to struggle shooting the ball. A fact made even more frustrating Florida State having its own cold spell. Murray State shot just 25.8-percent form the floor in the second half and despite being scorching hot from 3-point range in the first half, the Seminoles were just 3-for-13 in the stanza.

Florida State would lead by as many as 31 in the game, the largest lead by a Racer opponent this season. While the Racers did get the lead under 20 in the opening minutes of second, they just could not sustain a run, ultimately falling, 90-62.

The Racers end their season at 28-5, including the fourth NCAA tournament win in program history. The loss brings a halt to a 12-game win-streak for Murray State that included two wins in the OVC tournament that propelled the team to their first back-to-back titles in over 20 years.

Game Notes
Morant became the Racers' all-time leader in assists with 3:21 left in the second half when he hit Devin Gilmore for an alley-oop dunk. Morant had four assists tonight and now has 532 in his Murray State career. The former record that stood for 30 years was held by MSU Hall of Famer Don Mann (1985-89) who had 531 in 111 career games. Morant did it in just 65 games.

Morant's single-season assist total of 331 became the MSU record at the first of the year, makes him seventh in NCAA D-I history. Morant surpassed Mark Jackson of St. John's who had 328 in 1985-86 and finished just two shy of the 333 Avery Johnson had at Southern in 1986-87.

Morant also topped MSU Hall of Famer Jeff Martin as the single-season scoring leader with 808 points. Martin, who is also MSU's all-time career scoring leader, had the standard since he scored 806 points in the 1987-88 season.

Morant became the first player in NCAA D-I history to finish with an average of at least 20 points per game and 10 assists. In 33 games, Morant averaged 24.5 points and 10.0 assists per games.

Morant's 24.5 scoring average is the fifth-best scoring season in MSU history. MSU Hall of Famer Marcus Brown's 26.4 average in the 1995-96 season is still tops at MSU.

FSU was 233rd in the nation in 3-point percentage as the game began (.334) but rallied to hit .407 against the Racers (11-of-27). Defending the 3-point shot was one of the many things this season the Racers did well. Entering the NCAAs, the Racers were third in NCAA D-I in holding opponents to .282.