Story by Gage Johnson
Sports Editor
After being picked to finish last in the preseason OVC polls, Murray State women’s basketball is now in a position to shock the conference in postseason play.
“As a coaching staff we didn’t feel we were 12th preseason,” Head Coach Rechelle Turner said. “We felt like we knew what we had in this recruiting class and we also knew what we had with Evelyn. We felt like we could make a run. We didn’t know how big of a run we would make this year, but our goal was to take a huge step [forward] this year.”
After splitting the weekend games against Morehead State and Austin Peay, the Racers clinched the No. 6 seed in the OVC tournament.
Morehead State earned the No. 2 seed, UT Martin sits at No. 3 and Tennessee Tech rounds out the top four. Belmont received the No. 1 seed for the second year in a row.
Belmont are the reigning OVC Champions and are currently riding a 14-game winning streak. The Bruins are 22-5 (15-1) and are led by OVC Player of the Year candidate, senior guard Darby Maggard (17.0 ppg).
Murray State will take on UT Martin in the first round, splitting the regular season series at 1-1. The Racers lost to the Skyhawks on the road 75-67 and won the second matchup at home 76-73.
While the Racers may be considered underdogs at 13-16 (9-9), the phrase should be used with caution. Outside of blowout losses to SIUE (71-54) and Morehead State (81-63), Murray State’s average margin of loss in conference play is 6.5, with one of those losses being a seven-point loss to Belmont.
A crucial factor to Murray State’s play has been finding offense from other Racers outside of junior forward Evelyn Adebayo (18.4 ppg) and freshman guard Macey Turley (13.4 ppg). Junior guard Janika Griffith-Wallace has taken on the role of a third primary scorer, scoring in double figures in nine of their last ten games.
When Griffith-Wallace and other players like freshman guard Lex Mayes and sophomore forward Briana Crane get in on the offensive action, Turner thinks they are capable of defeating anyone.
“When we make shots, we defensively play well enough that we can win and play with anybody,” Turner said.
Coming into the most crucial part of the season, Turner and company want to continue to shock teams across the conference.
“Our motto all year long has been to prove people wrong,” Turner said. “We wanted to prove people wrong; all the doubters that didn’t think we were going to be able to compete and those that did vote us last.”
Murray State will take on UT Martin at 3 p.m. on Thursday, March 6 at the Ford Center in Evansville, Indiana.
