MTSU controls glass, holds off Racers, 90-87
MBB: Murray State drops their first game in the Cayman Islands Classic
Murray State fell to Middle Tennessee, 90-87, in the opening game of the Cayman Islands Classic on Sunday night. Here’s what you need to know:
With the loss, the Racers fall to 4-2 overall on the season
Fred King led Murray State in scoring with 18 points on 6-of-8 shooting
Four other Racers scored in double-figures: Javon Jackson (12 points), Mathis Courbon (12 points), Brayden Shorter (12 points) and Roman Domon (11 points)
Here’s the full box score from the game
Middle Tennessee turned 17 offensive rebounds into 20 second-chance points
The Blue Raiders outscored the Racers 60-46 in the paint
Trailing by as many as nine in the second half, Murray State was able to tie the game, but could never take the lead late
With a short turnaround, Murray State will face McNeese Monday night
Defensive rebounding hurts Racers again
For most college basketball coaches, they’ll be satisfied with having opponents get offensive rebounds on 30% of their missed shots — the national average is 31.3%. Murray State Head Coach Ryan Miller wants his Racers to hold teams to 28%.
In the season-opener against Omaha, Murray State gave up ten offensive boards on 34 missed shots for 29.4%. While it still wasn’t to Miller’s standard, that was the best rebounding performance of the season for the Racers.
At this point, Miller would probably give up his Starbucks (at least for a day or two), if he could get his team back to sub-30%.
In the last five games, Murray State has allowed 15, 17, 17, 16 and 17 offensive rebounds. Middle Tennessee turned their 17 offensive boards into 20 second-chance points on Sunday night. For the season, the Racers are allowing an offensive rebound on 38.2% of their opponents’ misses, which ranks #332 out of 365 teams in the country this season. When it comes to getting this fixed, there’s no ‘if’ or ‘when’, For Miller, it needs to happen now.
“It’s not good,” Miller said in the understatement of the week. “Like I told you last game, if we don’t get that nipped in the bud, which we haven’t done yet, it’s going to get us when we play good competition. Credit to Middle Tennessee. They fought. They were physical, pushed us around a little bit, and kicked our butt on the glass. Until we get that fixed, when we play good competition, it’s really, really difficult.”
“We’ve got to fix this,” freshman guard Mathis Courbon said. “Coach said it’s about toughness, it’s not about technique. We’ve got the athletes to do it. We’ve just got to be tougher every game.”
“We need better team defensive rebounding,” Miller continued. “We’ll have a couple of guys in the fight, but not all five. Coach has got to fix it, and he’s going to fix it, so we’ve got to go back to the drawing board.”
MTSU’s Alston has a career-night
Middle Tennessee sophomore forward Torey Alston is long and athletic, and you can see his potential to be a really good college basketball player. That potential may have just blossomed in front of the Racers’ eyes on Sunday night.
Alston put up career-highs in scoring and rebounding with 26 points and 16 boards. He had never scored more than 12 points and never grabbed more than 13 rebounds in a college game before playing Murray State.
The games just keep coming in Cayman
Fewer than 21 hours after Sunday night’s game against Middle Tennessee, the Racers will be back on the floor in The Cayman Islands, facing a physical aggressive McNeese squad. The Cowboys handled George Washington, 92-86, on Sunday as they forced 24 turnovers — which included 17 steals. McNeese also grabbed 15 offensive rebounds in the win. Murray State’s early-season warts will be exposed if they don’t show up ready to match McNeese’s physicality.
“We can’t turn the ball over,” Miller said, when asked about the priorities for Monday’s game. “We have to keep them off the glass. They kicked George Washington’s butt on the glass. We better find some toughness to get some guys rebounding, or we’re going to have a tough, tough, tough game. We need more rebounding from the group, but we also need our big guys to be able to defensive rebound. Dylan (Anderson) had three. Fred (King) had three, so we had six there, and JJ (Traynor) had three, so we had nine. We’ve got to get those guys rebounding better. I mean, Roman Domon led us in rebounding, and he played 16 minutes in the game — he had six. So, yeah, we have to find guys that can get us some defensive boards.”
Next up: McNeese
The Racers will face the Cowboys at 6:30pm CST Monday night. This will be the fourth-meeting between the two programs, and the first since 1983.