TUESDAY'S SCORES
@USC Upstate 79,
Eastern Kentucky 67
@George Mason 67,
Jacksonville State 60
@Belmont 80, Lipscomb 75
@Arkansas 69,
Austin Peay 61
@Missouri State 71,
Murray State 69
USC UPSTATE 79, EASTERN KENTUCKY 67
SPARTANBURG, S.C. - The Eastern Kentucky University men’s basketball team staged a furious second-half rally before falling to USC Upstate on the road, 79-67, Tuesday night at the Hodge Center.
Upstate took a 25-point lead, 44-19, when Josh Aldrich converted a pair of foul shots with 15:33 remaining in the game. However, EKU outscored the Spartans 26-9 over the next seven minutes.
A four-point play by senior Ty Taylor capped an 11-0 EKU run and cut the deficit to eight, 53-45, with 8:24 left.
Upstate regrouped and rattled off the next seven points. A fast-break bucket by Everette Hammond pushed the Spartans’ lead back to 15, 60-45, with 6:40 on the clock.
The Colonels kept battling, as a steal and bucket by junior Jacquess Hobbs made it a single-digit game again, 76-67, with 28 seconds remaining. USC Upstate converted three free throws down the stretch to hold on for the 79-67 win.
Sophomore Jomaru Brown led EKU with 17 points. Taylor finished with 14 points. Sophomore Tre King just missed a double-double, recording 13 points and nine rebounds.
Hammond led all players in the game with 27 points.
GEORGE MASON 67, JACKSONVILLE STATE 60
FAIRFAX, Va. - A late run by George Mason University handed the Jacksonville State men's basketball team a 67-60 loss on the road Tuesday night at EagleBank Arena.
JSU (2-5) led by as much as four points in the first half and held a one-point advantage at the break, but the Patriots (9-1) scored the first basket of the latter period and did not let the Gamecocks back in the driver's seat.
De'Torrion Ware and the JSU offense kept George Mason within a basket's reach up until two minutes to go in the game. Despite a 19-point performance from Ware, Mason pulled away with the help of a seven-point run in the closing minutes to claim its fourth win in a row.
"We have to find ways defensively to close games out," head coach Ray Harper said following the game. "I thought we got a little fatigued down the stretch. We had a few defensive plays that didn't go our way. We grabbed a rebound in a one-point game and [George Mason] just took it from us and hit a 3-pointer after that.
"But I think we're showing signs of improvement. The difference in the game tonight was George Mason's ability to rebound the ball offensively in the second half. We didn't give them many second chances in the first, but we didn't defend well in the second."
The Gamecocks took a 29-28 lead at the half, fueled by a six-point run in the last two minutes of the period. Derek St. Hilaire scored a half-best nine points, hitting 4-of-6 shot attempts with a 3-pointer, while Jacara Cross tallied five points with four rebounds.
George Mason, after falling behind four points seven minutes into the contest, rallied back to take a five-point lead with 2:09 remaining before halftime. That's when Jacksonville State outscored the home team 6-0 to take a one-point lead to the locker room.
Derrick Cook started the streak with a 3-pointer from the corner, and Ware followed up with a fastbreak layup. Elias Harden capped the drive with a free throw to give JSU the advantage.
Patriots guard Jamal Hartwell II, the team's leading scorer this season, was kept off the board in the first, but his first basket of the game put his team ahead for good. Hartwell went on to finish the night with six points, while Jordan Miller led Mason with 19 points.
Ware scored 15 of his 19 points in the second, accounting for nearly half of Jacksonville State's points in the final 20 minutes. He came up just one point shy of tying his career high.
As mentioned by Harper, Jacksonville State was rebounded 23-16 in the second. Cook led the rebounding efforts in the closing period with four.
BELMONT 80, LIPSCOMB 75
NASHVILLE - Behind 27 points from sophomore Adam Kunkel, Belmont University men's basketball defeated Lipscomb, 80-75, Tuesday night from the Curb Event Center.
Belmont has now won 15 of the last 17 meetings with Lipscomb, in the Nashville series known as the 'Battle of the Boulevard.'
Kunkel went 10-for-18 from the field, 4-for-8 from 3-point distance and 3-for-4 from the free throw line for his third 25+ point game of the season; he scored a career-high 35 points in Belmont's victory at Boston College Nov. 16.
Belmont trailed by as many eight points in the first half, as efficient Lipscomb offense coupled with Bruin turnovers put the hosts in an early bind. But a 3-pointer from graduate student Tyler Scanlon and a transition basket from senior Michael Benkert enabled Belmont to close within 38-36 at halftime.
Kunkel capped an 11-0 run with a tip-in basket that gave Belmont a 47-40 lead with 16:45 left. Lipscomb got within 53-51 on a Miles Miller basket, but five quick points from junior Nick Hopkins stemmed the tide. A Kunkel reverse layin made the score 71-58 with 2:42 left.
All told, Belmont shot 51 percent (29-for-57) from the field - including 10-for-28 from 3-point distance.
Nick Muszynski scored 14 points, while Scanlon added 13 points, six rebounds and six assists. Hopkins had 11.
Andrew Fleming led Lipscomb (3-6) with 20 points.
Belmont (6-3) has won 115 of its last 124 home games.
ARKANSAS 69, AUSTIN PEAY 61
FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. - In many respects, the style of basketball Arkansas plays—high-tempo, maniacal defense—is the archetype to which Austin Peay State University head men's basketball coach Matt Figger strives to get his young Governors acclimated.
Tuesday showcased how close the Govs are to achieving that vision, yet still how far remains to go following a 69-61 defeat by the Razorbacks at Bud Walton Arena. The effort, the fight, the determination—top notch. Once the execution matches up with it, look out.
Austin Peay (3-4) showed early that they weren't going to roll over for an SEC opponent; the Govs raced out to a 5-0 lead on an Evan Hinson three and a Hinson-to-Terry Taylor lob and never trailed by more than a possession through the first 14 minutes of play. Even a six-minute stretch without a field goal seemed to be mitigated by the attacking presence of Antwuan Butler and Eli Abaev; the duo willed themselves to the line when shots weren't falling from the floor, but Arkansas seemed at the point of breaking out when an Isaiah Joe three-point play capped an 18-6 run to give the Razorbacks a 34-26 lead late in the first half.
But the Govs went into the break with all the momentum, bookending a Jordyn Adams bucket with a Taylor layup to beat the buzzer, sending the Govs into the break down just four.
As well as it ended the first half, Austin Peay could never quite get all the way back in the second half. Myriad times—on an Adams bucket out of the half, on a Carlos Paez three following the under-16 media, on back-to-back Abaev-to-Taylor lob plays around the under-12 media—the Govs seemed poised to start a run that would allow them to take control of the game. To Arkansas' credit, the Razorbacks never wavered and countered every Austin Peay burst with one of their own.
The three-point shooting of the Razorbacks, dormant for much of the season at 25.6 percent entering the contest, provided the ultimate dagger. After a Desi Sills three made it 62-49 with 2:42 to play, Butler answered with a three of his own. Seconds later, Sills—who entered the night 2-of-30 from three—raced down the court and hit another three to push the deficit back to 13 points.
MISSOURI STATE 71, MURRAY STATE 69
SPRINGFIELD, Mo. - The Murray State Racers lost a late lead in a battle with the Missouri State Bears and absorbed a 71-69 defeat Tuesday at the JQH Arena in Springfield, Mo.
The Racers (4-4) return home Saturday to host Middle Tennessee in the second game of a doubleheader day at the CFSB Center at 7 p.m. The MSU women’s team hosts Indiana State at 5 p.m.
Tevin Brown led three Racers with 19 points, while Jaiveon Eaves added 14 and Anthony Smith had a double-double with 12 points and 10 rebounds. Freshman Demond Robinson came off the bench to score six points on 2-of-2 shooting from the field and the free throw line. He also added a pair of blocked shots.
Trailing 25-22 at halftime intermission, the Racers took their first lead of the second half 42-40 on a fast break layup by Eaves with 11:00 remaining. When Anthony Smith dunked after the Racers made a defensive stop, the lead went to four with 9:45 to play. The Racers’ sleepy shooting had awakened with a 14-2 run over four minutes.
The Bears answered with their own run to put the Racers behind 57-52 with 5:09 left.
The Racers dug in and got a 3-pointer from DaQuan Smith, a blocked shot by Robinson and an Eaves layup to tie the game 61-61 with 1:50 left. When Brown fed Robinson for a dunk with 49 seconds left, it looked like the Racers were going to escape Springfield with their first road win of the season. The defining moment came when Missouri State’s Keandre Cook hit a highly contested 3-pointer at the top of the key to give the Bears the lead for good with 27 seconds left.
The Racers gave themselves a chance to win by nearly doubling their field goal output in the second half and getting to the free throw line 23 times where they swished 16 of them. Putting together their best defensive rebounding game of the season, the Racers only allowed six offensive rebounds to Missouri State and hauled in 11 of their own.