Story by Gage Johnson
Sports Editor
Sitting in a three-way tie for seventh place in the OVC, Murray State will play UT Martin and SEMO in a set of weekend games that are crucial to making a trip to the conference tournament.
“We’ve got four games left and we have to try to win all four of them,” Head Coach Rechelle Turner said. “We want to get the tournament because we do feel like we’re playing some of our best basketball. We just have to take one game at a time. We’ve got a tough road ahead of us, so we know how difficult the task is, but we’re going to continue to compete and try to be resilient in our effort until we don’t have any other choice.”
Meeting Martin:
After falling in a close battle to Austin Peay, the Racers will return home to take on UT Martin for their first game of the week.
The last time these two met on the hardwood, the Skyhawks came away with a 75-67 victory on their home court. Thirty bench points and 16 points off of 22 Racer turnovers was a key factor in the loss for Murray State.
Turnovers are a crucial aspect to the UT Martin offense, as they are top-two in the OVC in turnover margin, but 11th in scoring defense. In short, no turnovers means baskets for the Racers.
Meanwhile, in the previous matchup the Racers were led by a 25-point performance from junior forward Evelyn Adebayo and an 11-point performance from freshman guard Macey Turley, but were unable to receive support from the rest of the team.
Murray State’s lack of a third scorer on a nightly basis has been a key contributor to whether or not the women’s basketball team comes out on top. Turner believes that the Racers need to be more aggressive in shooting offensively to be able to have that third scorer on a consistent basis.
“That’s one thing we don’t do a good job of; getting shot attempts,” Turner said. “Sometimes we don’t take good shots and sometimes we wait until a perfect shot and that’s not going to come. So we’ve got to do a better job of finding a happy medium. I think we need to pick up the pace of play in these last four games to get some shot attempts up.”
Murray State will also be challenged by a balanced scoring team in the Skyhawks that leads the OVC in scoring with 80 ppg.
Scouting SEMO:
In the last matchup against the Redhawks, Turley put on an offensive clinic by pouring in 32 points to lead the Racers to their first road victory of the season at 64-59.
The Racers were able to overcome 16 turnovers with 8-for-14 3-point shooting. They also held SEMO to just one scorer in double figures.
The Redhawks currently sit at sixth in the OVC and will take on the fifth-seeded Austin Peay Governors before facing off against the Racers.
Home, sweet home:
Murray State will take on UT Martin at 5 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 21, and SEMO at 5 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 23, at the CFSB Center.
