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NORMAL, Ill.—Only four times this season has Morehead State been outrebounded. Three of those, including Saturday’s Bracketbuster at Illinois State, resulted in a loss.
MSU was beat on the glass by seven and surrendered the ball 18 times in a 71-62 non-conference loss to Illinois State Saturday at Redbird Arena. ISU won the rebounding battle 36-29 and forced 18 turnovers, although Morehead State tallied 13 steals and forced 23 Illinois State turnovers.
The biggest disappointment was they outrebounded us by seven,” Morehead State coach
Donnie Tyndall said. “We came in with the third best rebounding margin in the country and we got our tails whipped on the glass.”
The Eagles trailed by four at halftime, but ISU opened the second half with a pair of 3-pointers from Alex Rubin and a free throw from Tony Lewis to open up an 11-point lead. Morehead State chipped away at the advantage, thanks to seven points by
Brandon Shingles over the next eight minutes, and pulled within two. But the Eagles missed a series of 3-point attempts and the Redbirds used a five-minute Eagle scoring drought to get the lead as high as 12.
They are a very good team and this is a tough place to play and we came up short,” Tyndall said. “We had our chances, Maze [Stallworth] had two good looks at 3-pointers and we didn’t knock them back.”
Triples by
Maze Stallworth,
Terrance Hill and
Demonte Harper cut the Redbird lead to four with 2:06 to play, but Illinois State went 8-for-10 at the line to close out the game and earn the win.
Osiris Eldridge put the Redbirds in the lead in the first half, scoring 18 of his game-high 26 points on four made 3-pointers. His 18 outscored all other ISU players combined in the half. The Redbirds hit 61.9 percent of their shots in the first half. MSU’s
Steve Peterson countered Eldridge with a 3-for-3 performance of his own from beyond the arc for 11 first-half points.
Kenneth Faired led the Eagles with 13 points and eight rebounds. Peterson and Harper each finished with 11. Brandon Shingles, who finished with nine points had four assists and four steals.
“I thought our kids played hard, but 18 turnovers on the road is tough,” Tyndall said. “We usually overcome those turnovers by outrebounding them, but we didn’t do that and so we couldn’t overcome the turnovers.”
Rubin joined Eldridge in double figures with 15 points and Justin Clark and Dinma Odiakosa each had 10 points. Odiakosa also had a game-high 11 rebounds and Rubin added five assists.
The Eagles, who are winless in Bracketbuster games, will return home to close out the season with Ohio Valley Conference leader Murray State Thursday and UT Martin Saturday. Morehead State has locked up second place and will be the two seed for the upcoming OVC tournament.
