Racers have slingshot, hope to topple Iowa
WBB: Murray State will face the Hawkeyes in the NCAA Tournament Saturday
After playing at Drake, and then starting her coaching career with the Bulldogs, Iowa Head Coach Jan Jensen has plenty of familiarity with her alma mater.
What she’s not familiar with is what she saw Murray State do to Drake for much of their Missouri Valley Conference Tournament semifinal game last Saturday.
“(Murray State was) up 30 when I turned it on, and I've never seen Drake down 30 many times in my life,” Jensen said. ‘I was like, ‘Whoa!’ Drake closed the gap, but I remember thinking, ‘That team's hot — they're kind of fun.’”
The fun ended for Jensen 24 hours later.
“The next day we get the draw and it was like, ‘Gosh, we've got Murray State.’ That's what's fun about the tournament. Their story, I think, is really cool. (They’ve got a) former player leading them. Every time I've seen their staff on the road, they're just hard-working, quality people. It seems like they're really at a great trajectory in their program. They're really a hard guard, but in a really fun way.”
Rechelle Turner is in her first NCAA Tournament with the Racers. Murray State played some big schools this year, from LSU to Alabama, and Memphis to Saint Louis. The Racers led in Baton Rouge deep into the 4th quarter before the Tigers pulled away late. Murray State has shown they can play with the best teams in the country, and now it’s just a matter of doing it on the game’s biggest stage.
“Do what we do,” Turner said about the message to her team. “Again, don't let the moment get too big for you. Focus in and lock in on what we know it takes for us to be successful. They're outstanding. (Lucy) Olsen is an amazing player. They have so many wonderful players. Coach Jensen is a Hall of Fame coach. We can't focus on them. That's where you go wrong. We have to go in knowing the scout, locking in on what we have to do to be successful. The number one key for us to win is making a bunch of threes.”
The Racers are #2 in the country with 10.2 made three-pointers per game. Turner isn’t sold on the fact that will be enough to upset the Hawkeyes.
“We may have to make more than normal,” Turner said. “We always shoot for 12 threes per game. That's one of the keys to winning the game. It's about volume shooting. We've got to get several of them up. We know for us to have a chance to score, it's got to be extremely high. We're not going to win a game in the 60s. That's been proven when we played LSU and Alabama this year. We have to do everything we can do to get shots off and everything we can do to slow them down.”
“I think defense will be key,” Jensen added. “I think shot selection will be key. If you're not hitting, I think that's true for both teams. Shot selection is not a big thing if you're scoring. If you're hot and you've got one pass, two pass and you're shooting it and hitting it, or you're not reversing the ball, but you're making shots, it's all good. But if you're not hitting shots and you can't get the discipline for shot selections, then I think that's where the story will lie. I think defense will dictate that.”
Eight has been the magic number for the Racers this year. If they can make at least eight three-pointers in a game, the Racers are 20-2 overall. While the ability to make shots is also a key to Murray State’s success, they know they have their hands full trying to slow down a very good Iowa team.
“Obviously, they're big,” Murray State senior Trinity White said. “They can match our pace. I feel like we have to focus on just being physical and just focusing on what we do best and defensive stops.”
“They're a great team,” Murray State senior Katelyn Young added. “They have three-point shooters who can knock down shots and bigs who can make some moves down there too. They're just really good. It's kind of just focusing on what (White) said, on defense as much as we can stop them. They're a great offense. They're going to score. We have to keep it in mind, not to get down when they score and keep the pace going.”
Turner preaches playing five minutes at a time, and in, arguably, the biggest game in school history, she will preach it more than ever.
“I think moments can be overwhelming if you don't break them down,” Turner said. “That's not only in basketball, but in life. So we wanted to make sure we gave them eight five-minute segments, so we're playing eight five-minute games within a game. If you don't do well the first five minutes, you have seven more chances to do well. I think that in big-game situations, you have to make sure you make it as easy as possible for your players to understand the expectations during a shortened amount of time.”
The Racers and Hawkeyes will play at 11:00am on Saturday in the opening round of the NCAA Tournament. The game will air on ESPN.
LET’S GO RACERS!!!!!