THURSDAY'S SCORES
Belmont 88, @Tennessee Tech 67
@Jacksonville State 65, Tennessee State 64
Morehead State 87, @Eastern Illinois 61
BELMONT 88, TENNESSEE TECH 67
COOKEVILLE, Tenn. - Behind active defense and balanced offense, Belmont University men's basketball defeated Tennessee Tech, 88-67, Thursday.
Fueled by the all-court play of junior Grayson Murphy, the Bruins held Tennessee Tech to 28 percent shooting and forced 13 turnovers in leading 43-21 at halftime.
Sophomore Ben Sheppard and junior Luke Smith combined on seven of Belmont's 12 made 3-point field goals.
A 3-pointer from sophomore Mitch Listau gave Belmont a 72-43 lead with 7:43 left.
Belmont (13-1, 7-0 OVC) handed out 22 assists on 30 made field goals and outscored Tennessee Tech, 38-24, in points in the paint.
Sheppard led four Bruins in double figures with 15 points. Smith had 14. Murphy had 14 points, five assists and a career-high seven steals. Freshman JaCobi Wood had 10.
Shandon Goldman led Tennessee Tech (1-13, 1-6 OVC) with 19 points.
Belmont has won 25 of its last 26 games.
JACKSONVILLE STATE 65, TENNESSEE STATE 64
JACKSONVILLE, Ala. - Brandon Huffman's bucket in the final seconds of Thursday's game lifted the Jacksonville State men's basketball team to a 65-64 win over Tennessee State at Pete Mathews Coliseum.
With five seconds to go in the Ohio Valley Conference contest, Darian Adams fed a wide-open Huffman on the low block from the wing. The reigning OVC Newcomer of the Week banked in the jumper and drew a foul as the Gamecocks (8-4, 4-2 OVC) went ahead by one.
Huffman missed the ensuing free throw, but the Tigers (2-7, 1-5 OVC) were unable to get a shot off before time expired.
The senior finished with a career-high 17 points, going 7-for-8 from the field and 3-for-5 from the free-throw line. The high-scoring performance was complimented by five rebounds, a pair of blocks and a steal.
Huffman has now scored double figures in his last three games, tallying double-doubles at Eastern Kentucky and Morehead State with 16 and 13 points, respectively. The trip to Kentucky yielded OVC weekly honors for the North Carolina transfer.
Jax State led Tennessee State for a total of 59 seconds the entire game. After scoring the game's first basket, the Gamecocks trailed the remainder of the first half - finding themselves down a game-high 14 points in the first half - before regaining a short-lived lead almost midway through the final period.
Adams, who was 0-for-16 from beyond the arc in his last two games, nailed a pair of big 3-pointers down the stretch to keep the Gamecocks in striking distance. His first trey came with less than six minutes to play and cut the Tiger lead down to two, 55-53, and his second triple came one minute later to shorten the deficit to one, 57-56.
The 3-pointer referenced by Huffman earlier came with one minute to go in the game. TSU guard Ravel Moody, who posted a career-high 23 points, hit the field goal to put the Tigers up 64-60. Afterwards, Adams hit a free throw to make it a 64-61 game, and Huffman set up his game-winning shot with a layup of his own with 34 seconds on the clock.
MOREHEAD STATE 87, EASTERN ILLINOIS 61
CHARLESTON, Ill. - Morehead State's basketball program had only won six times ever at Eastern Illinois' Lantz Arena, and the largest margin of victory was only eight. Thursday night, the current Eagles shattered that figure by knocking off the Panthers 87-61 for MSU's fourth consecutive win to stay perfect (4-0) in the New Year.
The 26-point triumph also tied for the largest margin of victory in a conference game in head coach Preston Spradlin's tenure. His Eagles defeated Eastern Kentucky 80-54 in 2016-17, during his interim head coach season. Morehead State improved to 8-6 overall and 5-2 in the conference, while the Panthers dipped to 5-7 and 2-3 in the league.
Freshman forward Johni Broome was nearly unstoppable in the paint, scoring a game-high 20 points (on 9-of-11 shooting) while also grabbing nine rebounds. Broome is the first freshman since Ricky Minard in 2000-01 to score 20+ points in at least three games in his inaugural collegiate season. He led five Eagles in double figure scoring as senior James Baker (season-high 15), junior guard DeVon Cooper (14), junior guard Skylar Potter (10) and junior guard KJ Hunt, Jr., also contributed 10 or more.
Of note as well, Morehead State (which leads the OVC in scoring defense) held EIU senior guard Mack Smith to 0-for-10 from three-point range, ending his NCAA record streak of 91 consecutive games making at least one triple.