Inside the Boxscore: Murray State 66, Morehead State 60

1. Murray State beat Morehead State to advance to 19-0, and 7-0 in the Ohio Valley Conference. The Racers started the 2009-10 Ohio Valley season 16-0 before they lost their 2nd to last game against Morehead State. The last team to go undefeated in the conference was Autin Peay in 2003-04. And that team lost the conference tournament (to Murray State) and finished out of the NCAA Tourney. But they had begun the season 3-7 in out of conference play with two of the three wins coming against non-Division I teams. Obviously 2012 Murray State is in better shape than that. In fact, according to Ken Pomeroy’s site, Murray State just passed their 2nd most likely opportunity for a loss. He had their chances of winning at 85%. The next five games he has at 95-96% per game, and then the Racers finish vs Austin Peay (92%), at SE Missouri State (89%), at Tennessee State (86%) and at Tennessee Tech (78%). The odds are in favor of them dropping one of those games and finishing the regular season 27-1. Of course, they’ve already defied the odds to get this far.

2. The list of national players having better seasons than Isaiah Canaan is a short one. A week ago I listed the top-5 juniors in the nation, and Canaan was on that list. Against Morehead State he didn’t play his best game – he only made 2-8 of his 3s, but he made both his 2s and 10-11 FTs. And he never came out of the game. Playing every minute was one of the few things he’d yet to accomplish in his career, so why not?

3. The Racers as a team shot 5-18 (27.8%) from beyond the arc. This is a team that entered the game shooting 43.7% (against D1 opponents) which is 4th nationally. Only twice this season have the Racers made fewer than 5 3-pointers in a game. Apparently the recipe for an upset is hoping they miss.

4. Morehead State turned the ball over 19 times (two different players had 5 each!). This was a 63 possession game. That means the Eagles turned it over on 30.1% of their possessions. Surprised? You shouldn’t be. Entering this game Murray State had turned their opponents over on 24.5% of their possessions (29th nationally) and Morehead State had turned it over on 25.3% of their offensive possessions (332nd nationally).

5. Murray State won this game, on the road, by 6 points. This is the 4th game they’ve won by six or fewer. It’s fair to say that that the team who played them the closest this season was one (Southern Mississippi) that lost by 9 as it was a double overtime game. The next closest? The Alaska Anchorage Seawolves. That’s right, the Seawolves – a Division II team – playing their first game of the season (to Murray State’s 5th) only lost to Murray State by two. Memphis lost by four. Dayton lost by 17.

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