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MOREHEAD, Ky.—Morehead State men’s basketball wanted to prove that its lack of offense in the January game at Eastern Illinois was a fluke.
The Eagles did so by scoring more points in Thursday’s first half (43) than they did the entire game at EIU (40), winning the rematch with the Panthers 81-65 at Johnson Arena in an Ohio Valley Conference game.
The win was Morehead State’s sixth straight and it kept the Eagles, at 18-8 overall and 10-4 in the OVC, one game behind league-leader Murray, who won at Tennessee Tech Thursday. It also marked the fourth straight year MSU has reached at least 10 conference wins. Eastern Illinois fell to 8-16 overall and 4-10 in OVC play.
“I thought our team was much more efficient tonight than we were the first time we played them at their place,” MSU coach Donnie Tyndall said. “When you think about it, we had 40 for the entire game when we played them before, we had 43 at the half tonight, so we were much more crisp at the offensive end of the floor.
Four of the five starters scored in double figures, none of which reached double figures in the first meeting. Kenneth Faried had the same number of rebounds Thursday, 13, as he did at EIU, but he had 13 more points this time to lead the Eagles with 18. Demonte Harper had 15 points and a team-high four assists. The team-leading performance for the seniors occurred in the first of a pair of home games that mark their final appearances in Johnson Arena for regular season games.
The Panthers kept it close early trailing by just one point four minutes into the game. The Eagles then stymied Eastern Illinois’ offense, rolling off eight straight points to spur an 18-4 run over the next 10 minutes. Trailing by 18 at that point, EIU scored four straight to get back within 15. Isaac Smith tipped in a Shaun Pratl miss at the 4:02 mark that made it 32-18, but that was the Panthers’ last field goal of the first half. Morehead State closed out the half with nine points on threes by Proffitt, Lamont Austin and Hill to take a 43-20 lead at the intermission. Hill finished the game with 13 points and Proffitt had 10.
MSU held those defensive clamps on Eastern Illinois until late in the second half. The Panthers shot just 21.7 percent in the first half, scoring 20 points. An 0-for-7 performance from behind the arc led to a 2-of-11 3-point shooting night for the visitors. The Eagles also kept Jeremy Granger, EIU’s leading scorer with 14.7 points per game, at just seven points. Granger, the Panther leader in assists did not register a single dish and James Hollowell, got just one rebound, well shy of his team-leading 6.2 per game.
“We were able to turn them over in our press, convert some easy baskets in transition, set our press again and wear them down a little bit,” Tyndall said.
The Eagles got the lead as high as 39 with 7:23 left in the second half, but with MSU’s freshman on the floor, EIU made a late run, scoring 26 points in the final seven minutes to get within 16 by the end of the game.
Isaac Smith led EIU with 15 points and Nick McFarlin finished with 13, 11 of which came in the final seven minutes. Curry McKinney scored 11 points and led the Panthers with six rebounds and five assists.
The Eagles close out their home schedule Saturday against OVC foe Southeast Missouri. The game will be the final home regular season contest for Morehead State’s three seniors Goodman, Harper and Faried. Tip-off is set for 7:45 pm following the senior day ceremonies.
