Gage Johnson
Editor-in-Chief
A dominating performance offensively from junior forward KJ Williams and the Racers led them to a 73-53 win over Tennessee State.
The Racers came out of the gate with a lot of energy, stifling the Tigers’ offense, but that didn’t turn into any offense of their own.
While Murray State held a meager 12-9 lead, both teams were shooting under 40% from the field and were a combined 2-12 from beyond the arc.
The shooting woes continued throughout the first half, as both teams went through numerous scoring droughts.
TSU put together a small run off of numerous Murray State turnovers, allowing the Tigers to take their first lead of the night at 15-14 with just under seven minutes until halftime.
However, the Racers slowly started to piece things together offensively at the end of the half, with Williams being the lone bright spot.
He went into the locker room with 11 points on 4-8 shooting to go along with nine rebounds. Add on seven points from junior guard Tevin Brown and the preseason All-OVC selections combined for 18 of Murray State’s 31.
This helped the Racers reach the 40% mark from the field and take a 31-22 lead going into the second half.
Murray State carried that momentum into the second half, slowly building their lead before going on a run that would make the difference for the Racers.
Getting off to a 6-9 start in the second half, accompanied by an 8-0 run helped Murray State get out to a 47-29 lead with 11:27 left to play.
Everyone was getting involved for the Racers, with nearly every player except for sophomore forward Demond Robinson scoring to contribute to their 53-38 with eight minute to play.
Williams continued to lead the charge in the second half as Murray State closed out the game to win 73-53, marking his career-high in points with 25 points and tying his career-high with 16 rebounds.
Opposing teams had been packing the paint recently to thwart Williams and others from having successful offensive opportunities in the paint, but Head Coach Matt McMahon said his energy and where he was posting up allowed him to have such an all-around performance.
“The defensive rebounding,” McMahon said. “Rebounding out of his area. I thought he was just chasing rebounds all over the floor… I thought he did a great job of posting up hard in the lane against the zone, finding the open areas to get a couple of nice moves in the post.”
Williams said just going out and giving his all while trying to enjoy the game as much as possible is what’s helped him to have such a successful stretch of games.
“Just going out and playing hard, playing my game,” Williams said. “Just go have fun and just go out and play basketball with my teammates and go get a win. That’s what we did tonight.”
Williams was a huge part in the team’s rebounding success, as the Racers outrebounded the Tigers 45-25. McMahon has talked about rebounding being an effort stat and said they’ve worked on the mental side of the game to fix their defensive rebounding woes.
“Mindset, a lot of physical collisions and ultimately you gotta box out,” McMahon said. “You can talk about all the neat techniques and all that, but ultimately you gotta go get the ball. I thought we did a much better job chasing rebounds than hoping they just fall into our lap.”
This dominant advantage on the glass also allowed them to grab a barrage of offensive boards leading to 12 second chance points on the night.
The win moves Murray State to 7-7 overall, while sitting at 4-5 in OVC play. Heading into a rematch with Belmont, who is 11-0 in conference play, McMahon said the team has to continue to find a way to stay consistent for all 40 minutes in order to come away with a win.
“I think we just have to stay focused on trying to get more and more consistent in all areas,” McMahon said. “We have to keep focused on improving… That’s the bottom line. There’s a lot of basketball left to be played… Just trying to keep getting better, keep building our team. Obviously we’ve got a little bit of a different rotation now, so we just want to keep growing and keep moving forward.”
The Racers will take on Belmont at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, Jan. 30, at the CFSB Center.
