Men's Basketball Primed for OVC Tournament; Eagles Face SEMO in Opening Round Wednesday
By Matt Schabert, Morehead State Athletic Media Relations
GAME NOTES | ESPN+ | EAGLE SPORTS RADIO NETWORK | LIVE STATS | TICKETS
MOREHEAD, Ky. -- The run for an Ohio Valley Conference championship begins Wednesday night for Morehead State men's basketball. Riding high with wins in 16 of the last 17 games, the second-seeded Eagles will tangle with seventh-seed Southeast Missouri at the Ford Center in Evansville, Ind. Tip off is at 10:30 p.m. ET.
Morehead State (20-7) will be facing Southeast Missouri (11-15) in a tournament setting for just the third time in program history Wednesday. The other two resulted in Eagle wins (No. 2 MSU 91, No. 7
SEMO 84 in 2003 and No. 5 MSU 79, No. 8
SEMO 74 in 2015). The Eagles have an all-time tournament record of 8-3 as the No. 2 seed but have not been in that spot since the 2010-11 season. Since seeding began in 1974-75, MSU has been the No. 2 seed five times before.
The game will air live on ESPN+ as well as MSUEagles.com (
WIVY Radio audio).
LAST TIME AGAINST SEMO (Full Recap | Box Score)
In a slugfest that featured 62 combined free throw attempts, the Morehead State men's basketball team kept its current winning streak intact on Jan. 21, besting visiting Southeast Missouri 76-65 at Johnson Arena in a game featured on ESPNU. OVC Freshman of the Year
Johni Broome posted a strong start for another weekly award in recording his fourth career double-double with 14 points and a team-best 10 rebounds. Junior guard
DeVon Cooper led the Eagles with 17 points, two shy of his career high. Sophomore guard
Ta'lon Cooper registered a season-high 15 points and hit all three of his three-pointers, including a buzzer beating triple to put the Eagles up by five at the half.
INSIDE THE SERIES
Record vs. Southeast Missouri: 33-19
First Meeting: Jan. 18, 1992 (SEMO won 85-74)
Streak: MOR, 4 games
Record in Cape Girardeau: 13-12
Record in Morehead: 19-7
Last 5 Meetings
2/8/18 MOREHEAD, KY. L 78-62
1/17/19 MOREHEAD, KY. W 73-69
1/30/20 MOREHEAD, KY. W 90-74
1/16/21 Cape Girardeau, Mo. W 64-50
1/21/21 MOREHEAD, Ky. W 76-65
NOTABLE
• Morehead State set program records for OVC wins (17) and OVC road wins (8) in 2020-21. The Eagles also tied the program mark for longest winning streak with a 12-game success streak this year.
• Freshman
Johni Broome earned OVC Freshman of the Year honors, First-Team All-OVC and All-Newcomer. The 6-10 Plant City, Fla., product set a program record with nine OVC Freshman of the Week accolades (just two short of the league record). Broome leads all OVC freshmen in rebounds, offensive rebounds, blocked shots and field goal percentage. He is just the third Eagle frosh to earn the major accolade, joining Erik Brown (1998-99) and Ricky Minard (2000-01).
• Head Coach
Preston Spradlin is the 2020-21 OVC Coach of the Year, leading the Eagles from an eighth-place predicted OVC finish to second. Spradlin put high praise for the honor on his staff as well with assistants
Scott Combs,
Jonathan Mattox and
Dominic Lombardi as well as managers of operations
Adam Gage and player development
Brent Arrington. He is the fifth MSU bench boss to win the award and first since Donnie Tyndall (2007-08).
• Junior guards
DeVon Cooper and
Skyelar Potter also earned all-conference awards. Cooper, who led MSU with 20 double-figure scoring games, was named to the second-team. Potter, who had three double-doubles and averaged nearly 12 points a game, earned an All-Newcomer honor.
•
Johni Broome has established Morehead State's freshman record for blocked shots with 49, and he leads the OVC in blocks as well. Broome also needs just 16 more rebounds to surpass Kenneth Faried's MSU freshman record for rebounds, set in 2007-08 at 241.
• Since 1929-30, there are only eight Morehead State teams that won 20 or more games. (1983-84, 2002-03, 2008-09, 2009-10, 2010-11, 2013-14, 2015-16, 2020-21).
• Morehead State finished the regular season as the OVC's best defensive team, leading in scoring defense (61.8), FG pct. defense (.398), 3-pt defense (.291), rebound defense (31.0), rebound margin (+7.5), defensive rebounds (28.2) and blocked shots (5.6).
• The Eagles out-rebounded 20 of 27 opponents this season, including 12 by double digits.
• MSU concluded the regular season with 16 wins in its last 17 games, which is the second best string in program history. This year's squad trails only 1983-84 in that category, which won 18 of 19 games at one point, including a 12-game win streak too.
