MOREHEAD, Ky. -- Morehead State Men's Basketball held a quick seven-point lead over Southeast Missouri in the Ohio Valley Conference Tournament semifinals Friday night, but that advantage was erased as fast as the lead grew. The Eagles never quit though, despite trailing by as many as nine in the second half, and MSU rallied time and time again and finally gained the advantage with 27 seconds left before holding on to defeat the Redhawks 66-61 at the Ford Center.
The victory sent the OVC regular-season co-champions into the title game on Saturday night against the other co champion, Tennessee State. Game time is 9 p.m. ET on ESPN2. Morehead State (20-12) reached the 20-win plateau for the fifth time in the last six seasons.
Morehead State will appear in the championship game for the fourth time in the past six seasons, winning the coveted trophy and NCAA Tournament berth in 2021 and 2024.
Anouar Mellouk erupted for a career-high 22 points, grabbed seven rebounds and blocked a pair of shots, while
Jon Carroll registered his eighth double-double with 10 points and 14 rebounds to go along with three rejections.
George Marshall notched his team-best 23rd double-figure scoring game with 14 points and corralled a career-high tying eight boards.
The Redhawks, who finished the season 20-13, built a 44-35 lead with 14:11 remaining and kept their distance to between five and seven points until the five-minute mark. Marshall's back door cut landed him a thunderous dunk with 4:59 left that finally tied the contest 54-all. SEMO pushed its cushion back to 61-57 with 2:40 remaining, but MSU shut down the SEMO scoring after that.
Davion Cunningham sank a pair of free throws to cut it to 61-59, and then Marshall hit one of two free tosses with 1:46 left for a 61-60 game. SEMO missed four consecutive shots (grabbing three offensive rebounds) in the next 57 seconds before Carroll secured a defensive rebound.
Chase Dawson, who was held to just field goals, hit perhaps the most important bucket of the night with 27 ticks left. He drove to the left side of the rim, faked and calmly sank a 10-footer to send MSU ahead 62-61. After a Redhawk turnover, the Eagles heaved a length-of-the-court in-bounds pass, caught by
Josiah LeGree on the run, and he was intentionally fouled by Luke Almodovar with seven ticks left. LeGree hit both charity tosses before Marshall was fouled and sank two more with six seconds left. Marshall then stole the final in-bounds pass by SEMO and iced the final seconds.
Braxton Stacker led SEMO with 17 points.
MSU managed to hit only 38 percent on the night (3-od-12 from distance) but locked down the Redhawks to just 33 percent. SEMO hit just 9-of-30 (30 percent) in the final 20 minutes. MSU also out-rebounded their foes 44-40.
