87 MOR
61EIU
| Team | 1 | 2 | F |
|---|---|---|---|
| MOR | 41 | 46 | 87 |
| EIU | 23 | 38 | 61 |
MOREHEAD, Ky. — Morehead State’s basketball program had only won six times ever at Eastern Illinois’ Lantz Arena, and the largest margin of victory was only eight. Thursday night, the current Eagles shattered that figure by knocking off the Panthers 87-61 for MSU’s fourth consecutive win to stay perfect (4-0) in the New Year.
The 26-point triumph also tied for the largest margin of victory in a conference game in head coach Preston Spradlin‘s tenure. His Eagles defeated Eastern Kentucky 80-54 in 2016-17, during his interim head coach season. Morehead State improved to 8-6 overall and 5-2 in the conference, while the Panthers dipped to 5-7 and 2-3 in the league.
Freshman forward Johni Broome was nearly unstoppable in the paint, scoring a game-high 20 points (on 9-of-11 shooting) while also grabbing nine rebounds. Broome is the first freshman since Ricky Minard in 2000-01 to score 20+ points in at least three games in his inaugural collegiate season. He led five Eagles in double figure scoring as senior James Baker (season-high 15), junior guard DeVon Cooper (14), junior guard Skylar Potter (10) and junior guard KJ Hunt, Jr., also contributed 10 or more.
Of note as well, Morehead State (which leads the OVC in scoring defense) held EIU senior guard Mack Smith to 0-for-10 from three-point range, ending his NCAA record streak of 91 consecutive games making at least one triple.
KEY MOMENTS
– Marvin Johnson’s free throw with 12:38 left in the first half tied the game 11-11, but he missed the second one, and MSU went on a 10-2 run. Hunt’s layup with 9:18 left in the period made it a 21-13 Eagle lead.
– Baker answered a triple by EIU with his first three-ball of the night at 6:56 to push a 23-18 cushion to 26-18.
– Morehead State ended the first half on a 13-1 run to lead 41-23. Baker drained a three-pointer as time expired for the 18-point lead.
– The Eagles maintained an advantage of 16 or more points the entire second half. EIU managed to get it to 68-53 with 8:54 remaining.
KEY STATS
– Morehead State hit 53 percent (30-of-57) from the field, it’s second highest FG accuracy this season and the fourth game shooting better than 50 percent.
– The Eagles out-rebounded the hosts 44-34, thus maintaining the conference lead for rebounding margin in OVC games.
– MSU also hit 18 of 24 free throws for 75 percent, the fifth game this year hitting 75 percent of better from the stripe.
– Baker was 6-of-8 from the floor, including 3-of-3 from distance. That tied his career best for three-balls made. That was also against Eastern Illinois, in 2018-19 as a sophomore.
– The Eagles committed a season-low 11 turnovers for the second straight game.
– EIU hit just 37 percent overall, marking MSU’s fifth consecutive game of limiting its foe to 38 percent or worse shooting.
– The 16 assists tonight was the second highest single-game total this year. Junior forward Jaylen Sebree played just 15 minutes but dished out a career-best four helpers.
UP NEXT
Morehead State travels to Southeast Missouri for a 5 p.m. ET game Saturday. The contest replaces a postponement at SIUE and also replaces the game that was to be played at SEMO later on Feb. 19.