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MOREHEAD, Ky.—Morehead State men’s basketball dominated the second half to cruise to a 73-52 Ohio Valley Conference win over Jacksonville State Saturday night at Johnson Arena.
The win, coupled with a Murray State loss earlier in the day, vaulted the Eagles (11-6; 4-2 OVC) into a tie for third place with Kentucky for the longest home-court winning streak in Division I. Only storied programs Kansas and Duke have won more consecutive home games. Morehead State also moved into a tie for fifth-longest conference home winning streak, equaling Gonzaga and Cornell.
MSU outscored Jacksonville State 45-30 in the second half after leading by just six at the intermission. The Eagles got late spurts from Kenneth Faried, who had just one field goal in the first half, Demonte Harper, who scored 10 in the second stanza, and Drew Kelly, whose career-high 12 points all came in the second half.
After allowing JSU to shoot 60 percent from beyond the arc in the first half, the Eagles buckled down and cut that percentage to 45.5 in the second half. The Gamecocks scored just two first-half field goals that weren’t 3-pointers.
“They have a very good team. I know their record may not indicate it, but they played a brutal non-conference schedule,” MSU coach Donnie Tyndall said. “I have a great deal of respect for coach Green, his kids always play extremely hard. I told our guys before the game, this team is going to come right at us and they did.”
Morehead State dug itself out of a pair of first-half deficits by forcing 15 first-half JSU turnovers, 13 of which came off of steals. The Eagles had 22 steals in the game, resulting in 28 Jacksonville State turnovers and 34 points off of those turnovers. The 22 steals were the most at Morehead State under Tyndall. Terrance Hill had a career-high five steals and Faried, Harper and Sam Goodman each had four steals, which equaled a career-high for Goodman.
“At home your press is always a lot more effective with the energy that you get. We really dogged the basketball, got after them, forced tempo and forced them into turnovers,” Tyndall said. “That kind of wore on them. That was the biggest thing tonight, we had an emphasis of really getting after their guards and forcing tempo.”
Hill, who was 6-of-10 from the field, including 4-of-5 from beyond the arc, led MSU with 19 points, which tied his season high. Faried finished with 13 points and 11 rebounds for the 72nd double-double of his career. He also had a career-high six blocks. Harper had 15 points and a season-high six assists.
The Gamecocks (6-10; 3-2 OVC) came out firing and took a nine-point lead thanks to a trio of triples in the first five minutes, two of which came from Jeremy Bynum. An eight-point surge by the Eagles made the deficit just one, but JSU got it back to eight again thanks to a pair of triples, the final one coming from Bynum, who led Jacksonville State with 15. But Bynum’s triple, which came at 5:33, was the last field JSU goal of the half, allowing Morehead State to double its score and take a 28-22 halftime lead.
Nick Murphy, who scored 11 points for JSU, opened the second half with a jumper and Bynum drilled his fourth 3-pointer of the game to pull within one. MSU then reeled off a 20-3 run that included eight straight points from Kelly. From there, the Gamecocks never got any closer than 13 points.
Stephen Hall led JSU with four rebounds and Murphy dished out a game-high eight assists.
Morehead State, which concluded a five-game home stand, travels to OVC foe Southeast Missouri at 8:30 p.m. Eastern on Thursday.
“When you look at it record-wise, SEMO might be the most improved team in our league. They’re 4-2 just like we are. They’re drawing better at home, people are rallying around what their coach is doing and what they’re building there, so it’s going to be a tough environment and a challenging game.”
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