Men's Basketball Eagles Topped by Richmond Friday at Rupp

BOX SCORE

LEXINGTON, Ky. -- Richmond men's basketball shot 56 percent, and that proved to be just too much to overcome for the Morehead State men's basketball team Friday night at Rupp Arena as the Eagles dropped an 82-64 decision in the final game of the Bluegrass Showcase.

The Eagles slipped to 0-2, while Richmond won its season opener after winning 24 games in 2019-20. It was the first matchup between the programs since the 2011 NCAA Tournament third-round in Denver.

Morehead State hung tough with the Spiders in the first half, trailing just 47-40 at the break, despite 68 percent shooting accuracy from the team from Virginia. But the Spiders forced MSU into just 33 percent in the final half and that was a big difference as they outscored the Eagles by 11.

KEY MOMENTS

- Dixon's bucket at 12:29 of the first half gave the Eagles their first lead (16-15) since 2-0. It capped a 10-2 run by the Eagles.
- DeVon Cooper's three-pointer with 9:27 left in the opening half gave MSU a 26-25 lead, but that was the final lead MSU had.
- Dixon's triple with 2:01 left in the half had the Eagles within five (41-36) before Richmond led 47-40 at the break.
- KJ Hunt, Jr., hit a three-pointer to open the second half before the Spiders managed to score the next eight to lead 55-43.
- Skyelar Potter hit his first three-pointer as an Eagle with 3:57 left.
- Sophomore guard Jacob Rice scored his first career points with a triple, the Eagles' final points, with nine ticks left in the game.

GAME HIGHLIGHTS



KEY STATS

- Morehead State shot 54 percent in the first half but only 33 in the second 20 minutes.
- The Eagles committed 19 turnovers, leading to 19 points for Richmond.
- DeVon Cooper led the Eagles with 14 points, two shy of his career high.
- Dixon had 10 points, his second straight double-figure game.
- Ta'lon Cooper scored 11 and had four assists.
- MSU hit eight three-points but was just 4-of-19 in the second half.

QUOTING COACH SPRADLIN

"I thought our guys came out tonight. I thought we had really good fight. The biggest disappointment I had during the Kentucky game was we had spent months practicing to play the game a certain way, and once the lights came on and we played against Kentucky the other night, we completely got away from it. And we didn't execute, we didn't do any of the things that we had worked on. Yesterday we made an adjustment. We practiced, as opposed—and we went live in practice and just reminded the guys of the things that are important to us and how we're going to play the right way, and I thought we came out and did that tonight. The final score ended up being (an 18-point loss). But I don't think our guys worried about the score. It didn't feel like an 18-point game. For us, we wanted to win the game without question, but more importantly we wanted to come in and play to our identity and the things that we've been working towards."

"That's what we needed from him (Ta'lon Cooper) to play, you know he goes 5-for-10, getting up 10 shots, he missed some 3s that I think he's going to make. That's probably fatigue playing into a lot of minutes in a couple of games. In the Kentucky game he had one shot. That's not going to be good for us. We need him to get up there and take double-digit shots. So, a lot of that had to do with the rest of our team, you know he's usually the beneficiary of when we get the ball moving and gets the defense chasing. When we are playing unselfishly, the ball usually gets his way back to him to where he can be effective and give us shots that he got. He was aggressive tonight. He made a lot of pull-ups off of ball screens, which we knew was going to be something that he would be great for us doing this year, but especially going against Richmond with their smaller guards."

"You know, a few things that we didn't do well, I can remember three loose balls to the floor that we got beat to, were not happy about that. We made sure to get those guys out immediately, defensively we did some nice things, you know like blitzing the post with some turnovers. We didn't do as good scrambling. We gave up a couple long defensive rebounds when the clock got under 10 seconds and we made them scramble. When they take a tough shot and they leaked out, so we gave up some defensive rebounds that they turned into points. A few possessions we used zone, they came out and we caught them off-guard in the first possession with zone, they got the clock under eight and we just gave up a straight-line drive, contested the shot and rebounded, which is the two things we talk about every possession defensively especially in zone. You have to make them score from the perimeter and then you can't give up straight line drives and offensive rebounds. We did that. I thought our game plan was very good and when we executed it, it was very effective, but again it goes against a lot of our principles that we work on every day with our aggressive defense, that aggressive defense goes into the hands of a team like Richmond, who uses backdoors and moves the ball so well. So, when we stick to our game plan, but as we got fatigued, we kind of got away from it."

UP NEXT
 
The Eagles are scheduled to face Ohio State on the road on Dec. 2 at 5 p.m. ET.