Murray State finally loses; now must reinvent itself

You have to be realistic these days in any of the D-1 collegeiate basketball conferences.  No one, I mean, no one, is going to go undefeated through a league season.  The talent across the boards is at a peak in the college game, and every team has one or two players who can beat you themselves in any scenario on a given night.  Not to mention, homecourt advantage is as daunting a task for a visiting foe as sometimes the opponents themselves.

The Murray State Racers felt the wrath on Thursday night as Tennessee State took advantage of a couple of late Racers’ turnovers and made free throws to win a 72-68 Ohio Valley Conference contest, surprisingly at Murray.

The Racers could have felt the pressure of the 23-game winning streak, the No. 7 ranking in the nation, and getting the best shot of their OVC foes every night.  In the end, TSU made the plays that ended one of the 2011-12 season’s most enduring stories.

After Tennessee State’s TSU’s Patrick Miller intercepted Jeuwan Long’s inbounds pass, Robert Covington missed two free throws with seven seconds remaining. The Racers trailed by one as it seemed like the Basketball Gods might once again smile on first-year coach Steve Prohm’s team once again. 

However, leading scorer Isaiah Canaan, who has had a stellar year for the Racers, lost his dribble in the front court and turned the ball over.  Tennessee State retained the ball and MSU fouled Robert Covington, who made both free throws. In the end, the Tigers took advantage of 18 Murray State turnovers on the evening, scoring 22 points in the process.

For Murray State, going forward, the impetus is about how the Racers can reinvent their mindsets.  With a starting lineup that features three juniors and two seniors, this shouldn’t be such a tough sell for Prohm.  Sometimes a team can win an enormous string of games at the beginning of the season, then take a loss, and that appointed loss morphs into three or four more.

The backcourt of junior guard Isaiah Canaan and Donte Poole is a tough matchup for anybody.  Canaan led Murray with 31 points last night as he made 10-of-13 from the floor.  The rest of the team was 13-of-35.

The sharp-shooting back court is the catalyst for Murray State and will be the subject of game plans going into March Madness.  It has accounted for 123 threes and average about 40% of the Racers’ points. Prohm must get the usual results out of Poole and Canaan, who is beginning to pop up on NBA Draft boards, to see the Racers advance past the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament. 

Going forward, Murray State should have no problem soldifying that NCAA bid as a win over Southeast Missouri State on Thursday will allow the Racers to capture the OVC crown.  Then, next Saturday’s home Bracket Buster date with St. Mary’s could totally solidfy things should the Racers be upset early in the OVC Tournament, which is highly unlikely.

-Ken Cross

 

Around the nation

Most figured it would be a down year for the PAC-12, but what was once one of the nation’s mightiest three or four leagues has slipped mightily. Through games of Sunday, WarrenNolan.com had the league as the ninth-best RPI league thus far this season. According to Joe Lunardi’s Monday edition of “Bracketology,” (subscription required) just two of the league’s teams — Cal and Stanford — would get in the NCAA Tournament if the season ended today.. Part of the reason for the league’s slide is that two preseason Top 20 teams, UCLA and Arizona, have had off-years and probably wouldn’t make the tourney if the season started today. Meanwhile, Oregon State, which has big wins over Texas and Cal and looked ready to perhaps challenge for its first NCAA Tourney appearance since 1990, is now 1-5 in league play. … At least the PAC-12 can take consolation that it’s not the SWAC; that league ranks dead-last among Division I’s 33 conferences (if you group the independents as a league). The league’s 10 teams went a combined 7-96 in non-league games. … Among the teams included in Lunardi’s field of 68 is Bill Carmody’s Northwestern Wildcats, who are 24th in Nolan’s latest RPI. Northwestern is just 2-3 in Big Ten play so far, but the conference is the top-rated league thus far, and the Wildcats have scored huge wins over Michigan State and Seton Hall thus far. Northwestern has never made the NCAAs, even though it started playing basketball in 1905. … Among other teams that started the year in the Top 25 but fell out include Memphis, Pitt and Vanderbilt. Memphis is going to have to pick things up just to make the Tournament; the Tigers are 12-5, but just 1-5 against top-50 RPI opponents. Pitt has now lost seven in a row after an 11-1 start, with four defeats coming by five points or less. The Panthers remain the only winless team in the Big East. They’ve not missed the NCAA Tournament since 2001, but this might be the season. Vanderbilt, however, seems to be hitting its stride, standing 13-4 with Festus Ezeli back and in the starting lineup. VU has won seven in a row, all by double figures. The Commodores have two huge tests later this week: at Alabama on Thursday, followed by Mississippi State in Nashville on Saturday. … The three undefeated teams from last week — Baylor, Murray State and Syracuse — all remain unbeaten. Now, there are only two 1-loss teams (Kentucky, Missouri) and eight 2-loss teams. … Perhaps the most-shocking score of the season was this one from Saturday: Florida State 90, North Carolina 57, with the Seminoles getting 32 points from Deividas Dulkys, a senior who averaged 7.3 points per game last season. How out-of-the-blue (no pun intended) was that scoring outburst? Dulkys has a reputation as a practice shooter, but hadn’t scored more than six points in any of the previous nine games, and had been shut out twice in that span. This was the first really big win for FSU, which lost by 20 at 9-8 Clemson just a week before, and also fell to 8-8 Princeton on Dec. 30.

- Chris Lee, VandySports.com

 

Around the nation: Tuesday edition

Austin Peay was the coaches’ preseason pick to win the Ohio Valley Conference, but stumbled out of the gate by losing its first nine games. The Governors finally stopped the slide with an overtime win over Arkansas State on Dec. 5, then pulled a huge upset of in-state rival Tennessee on Saturday. Coach Dave Loos’s team was helped by the return of starting center John Fraley, the OVC’s fourth-leading rebounder from a year ago, who missed the previous nine games with injury until returning to get 12 points and five boards in 29 minutes vs. UT. … Two of Peay’s losses have come to 9-2 Middle Tennessee State, which is surprisingly the NCAA’s leader in field goal percentage (53.5 percent). The Blue Raiders ranked 243rd in Ken Pomeroy’s effective field goal percentage last season, but neither of its two leading scorers, transfers LaRon Dendy (14.2 ppg) and Marcos Knight (13.6) were on campus a year ago. … Kansas point guard Tyshawn Taylor played through pain in KU’s win over Ohio State on Saturday, and passed out a career-high 13 assists, though also committing seven turnovers. But the damage was done: Taylor was playing with a torn meniscus and a sprained MCL, and now is expected to miss three weeks. If the timeline is correct, that should put him back in time for the Jayhawks’ next really-tough game, which comes at home against 6-1 Kansas State on Jan. 4. Kansas has nine days between the OSU win and a game with Davidson on the 19th. The Wildcats will play KU in Kansas City in a rematch of the classic Elite Eight game between the two teams, which Kansas won 59-57. Davidson lacks a big-time play-maker like it had in Stephen Curry that year, but DC has given both Vanderbilt and Duke all it wanted already this season behind 6-foot-7 sophomore forward De’Mon Brooks, who’s a load for anyone to guard. … UCLA coach Ben Howland finally kicked last year’s leading scorer, Reeves Nelson, off the team after a suspension earlier in the season. Nelson had already been suspended twice this year, and was averaging just 5.7 points per game for the 3-5 Bruins. … Patric Young, the one non-guard in Florida’s starting lineup, was named the Southeastern Conference player of the week after consecutive double-doubles last week. The biggest performance was a 25-point, 10-rebound effort over Arizona in what is UF’s only real quality win so far. The problem with getting Young the ball more is that he’s hitting 53.3 percent of his free throws. Of course, the Gators aren’t much better as a whole, ranking 317th nationally with a 59.3 percent mark.

- Chris Lee, VandySports.com

 

Here’s to you, Golden Eagles.

As writers, we all do our best to bring objectivity to the table when covering this game.   We break down match-ups, analyze both sides, and examine different scenarios.

But we’re all human.  Subjectivity is part of the game.  After all, there are times when being objective just isn’t an option.  And don’t expect me to employ the overused and equally implausible, “I’m a writer so I can’t ever be a fan” explanation.  That’s garbage.

After upending top seed (and double-bye recipient) Murray State by a score of 64-59 in the OVC semifinals, courtesy of stellar play from Kevin Murphy (19 points, 4 rebounds) and Jud Dillard (14 points, 11 rebounds), plus a clutch shot by Zac Swansey, the Tennessee Tech Golden Eagles (20-11 overall) are bound for the OVC Final and a chance to Dance.

And I’m rooting for them to make the field of 68.  Period.

Why?

To make a long story short, it was two years ago that Chris Mack at Xavier emailed me the name of an assistant coach at TTU, Russ Willemsen, who he thought would be a great addition to the National Coaches’ Diary Series; so I gave him a call.  He was right about that… and more.

Over the past couple of years, Russ has become a close friend and unquestionably my best buddy in the business of college athletics.  He’s a tireless worker (he drives about 80,000 miles each summer on the circuit), student of the game and flat-out, good guy – there’s not anything he won’t do for you.   Hell, he’s even wired into the Twitter world (though his rep may have just taken a hit with some of you for that…). 

Bottom line, however, is that I’ve run across many administrators, coaches and others around the game while covering the best sport on the planet.  And, as you’d expect, they come in all shades.  Some are easy to root for… some, not so much. 

Russ – and the fourth seeded Golden Eagles  (who broke in this blog back in December) – are easy people to root for… So root for ‘em tomorrow night as they play on ESPN2.

You can bet I will.

- Chris DiSano