Racers hold off late Drake rally, advance to title game, 96-90
WBB: Katelyn Young scored 24 of her 30 points in the first half to lead the Racers
Murray State beat Drake, 96-90, in the Missouri Valley Conference Tournament semifinals on Saturday. Here’s what you need to know:
With the victory, the Racers improve to 24-7 overall, tying the single-season record for wins in program history.
Murray State advances to their first Missouri Valley Conference Tournament championship game.
The Racers will play in their fifth conference championship game in program history. They played in four in the Ohio Valley Conference in 1989, 1990, 2007 and 2008.
Katelyn Young scored 24 of her 30 points in the first half.
Ava Learn, Halli Poock and Haven Ford each scored 18 points for the Racers.
The complete box score can be found here.
The Racers scored 59 points in the first half, which was the most since they scored 59 against Western Carolina on December 19th.
Drake’s Katie Dinnebier scored a game-high 45 points to lead the Bulldogs.
After leading by as many as 24 in the second half, Drake got to within 94-90 in the closing seconds, but couldn’t get any closer.
Racers withstand late Bulldog surge to advance to finals
Little went wrong for Murray State in the first 34 minutes of Saturday’s Missouri Valley Conference Tournament semifinal matchup with Drake. After Trinity White’s basket with 6:02 remaining, the Racers had a comfortable 88-72 lead over the Bulldogs.
That comfort was fleeting.
Murray State wouldn’t make a field goal for the rest of the game, finishing 2-for-12 from the field in the final quarter. Drake’s Katie Dinnebier, the Missouri Valley Conference’s Player of the Year, scored 15 of her career-high 45 points in the fourth quarter, as she tried to will her team to a third-straight trip to the championship game. In the end, Drake ran out of time, and the Racers exhaled as they finished off one of the great wins in program history.
“There's a fine line in this system,” Murray State Head Coach Rechelle Turner said. “We're better when we play fast. We're better when we go. We're better when Coach keeps her mouth shut and just lets kids make plays. I felt like we slowed it down a little early, and that's on me. It's hard to get them back going at that speed once you've kind of told them to slow down and make better decisions. We turned the ball over in several situations. We had some good shots, but they didn't go in, so I'll take the blame for that. There is a time and a place for counting possessions, and we knew if we got X amount of stops, and they didn’t make any threes, that we felt like we could finish out the game. I think that the offensive lag late, especially in the fourth quarter, I think you have to put that on me. We were flowing pretty good when Coach decided she felt like she needed to call some more plays. So I'll take that.”
Drake Head Coach Allison Pohlman knew her team would fight to the end after being down by as many as 24 in the second half.
“I think a lot of times you get to know how to push people's buttons and understand how to coach different individuals in a different way,” Pohlman said. “I think what's amazing is every single time that I make eye contact with one of these ladies on the floor, they have confidence and they believe in themselves, and I think that is probably the biggest coaching nod you could ever have. To watch them fight and figure out a way to really keep ourselves in this game, I think is something that they'll be able to take with them the rest of their lives.”
Young and Dinnebier duel in a matchup of All-Valley standouts
For the second-straight year, Dinnebier earned the Jackie Stiles Award, given to the Missouri Valley Conference’s best player. For Murray State fans, Young is their uncrowned Player of the Year. No matter which side you were rooting for on Saturday, you got to witness a show. Dinnebier scored 45 points, and joined the former Missouri State legend Stiles as the only players to ever score north of 40 points in the Valley Tournament. Young ripped off 30 points of her own, to go along with six rebounds and six assists. In a showcase of two of the best to ever do it in the Missouri Valley Conference, both coaches were pretty amazed with what they saw.
“It's really, really impressive,” Pohlman said. “In the Missouri Valley Conference, you look at the entire first team and everybody graduates. I think this league is very, very deep, and I think that they're experienced. I thought that (Murray State) tried to run two and three different people at (Dinnebier), but once again, Katie just figured out a way to get Abby (Aalsma) involved, to get Anna (Miller) involved, and to score baskets for our team. But Katelyn Young's a great player. I'm glad we won't have to see her again. She just does a really nice job. I think the versatility of her game of whether she scores on the interior, mid-range or outside, I think is really, really special. She's a special player in our league and and, yeah, she had a day.”
“Just the aggressiveness,” Turner said about what she liked most about Young’s first half performance. “She and I have some private conversations, because I know that she feels pressure at times to be who she is and to do what she does. Sometimes Coach puts pressure on her too — to be aggressive. We just talked about it being their moment — it's their moment. These are seniors. This is their moment. I thought today our seniors shined. Her getting 24 in the first half opened everything up. Her ability to pass out of double teams late, (Drake’s) whole program was coming in the paint (to double team Young). I don't blame them.”
So what was Murray State’s biggest challenge in trying to stop Dinnebier in the second half?
“Stop her?” Turner asked incredulously. “At one point in the timeout, I said, ‘I'm not sure a motorcycle can stay in front of her.’ She's that good. She had 45 (points). Would we have wanted her to have 45 before the game started? Absolutely not, but she's going to do what she does. She's going to make plays. She's going to make big shots, and she is going to be everything that her team needs her to be. I felt like that we did a really good job taking most of the other players away today, and I think you have to pick your poison, because you send two or three at her, she is going to burn you. I think she leads the NCAA in assists, so you have to decide. Today we decided we're going to guard her the best we can, but we're going to make sure nobody else beats us.”
Murray State dethrones the two-time defending tournament champs
In each of the last two seasons, it was Drake who ultimately cut the nets down and went to the NCAA Tournament. Judging by how tough it was to close out this win, the Bulldogs were not going to give up their crown without a battle. Fighting off multiple Drake comebacks throughout the game proved to Turner her team is indeed prepared to go take that crown.
“That was one of the things that I was thinking about at 2:30 this morning, when I couldn't sleep,” Turner said. “(Drake has) been there, done that, over and over and over. They are champions in everything that they do. They're champions in the classroom. They're champions on the court. I'm like, ‘They are going to have the advantage of having been in that situation.’ But I believe in my team, and I believe in the resilience and the selflessness and the grit that Murray State Women's Basketball has. It was never a question of whether we could get this done. It was just a question of, ‘Will we play well enough to get it done?’ We knew we were going to have to play extremely well to beat them. They're a very, very good team.”
The Racers now have another glass ceiling to break through
For the first time in their short stay in the Missouri Valley Conference, and just the fifth time in the program’s history, Murray State is into a conference title game, and the Racers officially sit one win away from a trip to the NCAA Tournament. The significance of that milestone, that is so very much in reach, is not lost on the team.
“I think it's an amazing opportunity,” Murray State senior forward Ava Learn said. “I've been one time before (as a sophomore at Purdue in 2023). I think something that the girls really need to also remember is just the experience in and of itself. Not many people can say that they've been to the tournament. I just think (Sunday) is going to be fun. (We also need) rest, honestly, big emphasis, bold, underline, italics. Just rest, and then we'll be the best that we can be. I know it's very hard to beat us when we're at our best.”
“A lot of mental preparation for the next team,” Young said when asked about what she’s focusing on, before she knew Belmont had beaten Missouri State to join the Racers in Sunday’s title game. “It's going to be a battle for 40 minutes. I think the most important thing is just focusing on the first five minutes, then the next five minutes, and just stay in the moment.”
Murray State and Belmont — one more time
In 2018, 2019 and 2020, Murray State's and Belmont’s men faced off for the Ohio Valley Conference Tournament title at the Ford Center. Five years after their final championship encounter, it will be the Murray State and Belmont women meeting to see who wins the Missouri Valley Conference Tournament. It’s the first trip for both teams to the Valley championship game. They’ll play at 1:00pm Sunday afternoon at the Ford Center.
