Racers roll past Northern State in exhibition
MBB: Javon Jackson led Murray State with 22 points in the 112-74 win
Murray State defeated Division II Northern State, 112-74, in the Racers’ final preseason exhibition game on Sunday afternoon. Here’s what you need to know:
The Racers shot 58.7% from the field in the win
Javon Jackson scored a game-high 22 points to lead the Racers
Three other Racers scored in double-figures, as Roman Domon had 19 points, Brayden Shorter added 14, and Mason Miller chipped in with 11.
Murray State outrebounded the Wolves 56-21
The Racers made 14-of-30 three-pointers in the victory
Murray State now turns their attention to the season-opener, November 3rd, against Omaha in The Field of 68 Opening Day Marathon in Sioux Falls, South Dakota
Jackson’s 22 leads Murray State’s offensive explosion
Murray State fans are very aware of how good senior guard Javon Jackson can be on the offensive end. Last season, while playing for UIC, Jackson scored 30 points in a double-overtime win over the Racers up in Chicago. Sunday night, the Racer Nation was glad to have Jackson on their side.
In the first two minutes of the game, Jackson tried to lob a pass to Fred King near the basket. Unfortunately for Jackson, the pass hit the rim and was recorded as a missed three-pointer — King would gather the “miss” and score an easy layup. If you take that “shot” away, Jackson made 10-of-12 attempts from the field, including 2-of-3 from beyond the arc to cap off his 22-point night.
“He’s one of our best scorers,” Murray State Head Coach Ryan Miller said after the game. “He’s one of the best one-on-one scorers that we have on the team. My challenge to him this year, and when I recruited him, is he had a semi-inefficient year last year. He was able to score at UIC, but he was doing it in an inefficient way. We want to him to do it the efficient way, which he’s actually shown, like in today’s box score — 10-of-13 from the field, 2-of-4 from three, two assists, two turnovers. He was able to get 22 points on 13 field goal attempts, which is really, really efficient.”
Miller not thrilled with first-half effort
After an early 11-0 lead pushed the Racers up by as many as 16 in the first half, the Wolves would not go away. With 3:29 left in the half, Murray State’s lead had been cut to just 39-30. While the Racers used a 13-4 run to close the half and take an 18-point lead to the locker room, that didn’t make up for the lack of early tenacity in Ryan Miller’s eyes.
“In the second half, I thought we played much better, more like Racer Basketball,” Miller said. “I thought in the first half, we were playing a little too cute. I also thought we were playing a little too cool. We can’t afford coming out of the gate acting cool. Like I told the guys, ‘What’s cool is winning and playing championship basketball.’ I thought we were pretty soft early on and just playing with no urgency and playing pretty cool. To their credit, they fixed it. After we got going a little bit, we made some tough plays.”
Racers are hopeful King will be OK
With 6:45 left in the first half, senior big man Fred King checked out of the game in obvious discomfort. He had just tweaked his knee going up for a rebound, and, while he tried to stay in the game, couldn’t play through the pain. King never returned, and spent most of the second half with an ice pack wrapped around his right knee. Immediately after the game, Miller didn’t have much information to pass along on King’s condition.
“He’s going to go see the doctor here, probably right now,” Miller said. “(Then) we’ll see where we’re at. Hopefully it’s just a bump or a bruise and something that he can heal fast so we have him because we have a big challenge ahead of us. We go to the Pentagon in Sioux Falls, South Dakota to play in the Field of 68 (Opening Day Marathon). Omaha just played a close scrimmage with Drake and and they were able to beat them. To open up with a game against a team that won the Summit League championship, a very good conference, to open up with a team that just beat a Drake team that is favored to be one of the top five teams in our league, it’s going to be a big challenge, and we’re going to be ready for it.”
The Racer Nation gets to rub elbows during Racer Mania
Sunday’s game was part of the annual Racer Mania event. While the exhibition against the Wolves may have been the centerpiece, maybe the most important part for Racer fans was getting autographs and pictures with both the Murray State men’s and women’s teams. Ryan Miller also got a chance to coach in front of the home fans for the first time. Even though it was just an exhibition game, he knows the responsibility that being the head coach at Murray State carries.
“We have a big challenge ahead of us,” Miller said. “The history this basketball team, this university, this basketball program has is immense, and it’s something that we take a lot of pride in being the caretakers of. We’re going to work every day to make sure we do a really, really good job.”
Next up: The new season begins
The Racers will play Omaha on Monday, November 3rd in Sioux Falls, South Dakota as part of The Field of 68’s Opening Day Marathon. The game will start at 12:30pm CDT, and can be streamed on The Field of 68’s YouTube page and on their X account.