Gage Johnson
Editor-in-Chief
Murray State bounced back after a tough loss to Belmont, grabbing its second road win of the season at 77-60 over SEMO.
Sophomore guard DaQuan Smith got the Racers going early, scoring the team’s first six points with 3-4 coming from the charity stripe.
Sophomore guard Chico Carter Jr. and junior forward KJ Williams got involved shortly after, as the trio combined for all of the Racers points, giving them a 16-12 lead over the Redhawks with 11:12 left to play.
Smith and Williams continued to show their offensive prowess throughout the half, combining for 18 of Murray State’s 36 points and heading into the locker room up 12 on the Redhawks.
Offensive rebounding and three-point shooting were a huge factor for the Racers, going 6-11 from beyond the arc, while also grabbing six offensive rebounds that led to 11 second chance points.
Murray State carried this offensive momentum into the second, going on a 10-0 run to start the second half and taking a 46-24 lead. From there on, the Racers never looked back.
They continued to spray the Redhawks from deep, shooting 55% from three while continuing to control the glass (32-26) and winning the turnover battle (8-13). This helped Murray State walk away with its first road win of the week, 77-60 over SEMO.
Williams continued to have a dominating performance, setting his career-high in points for the second time in two weeks, scoring 26 points on 10-16 shooting and a career-high 5-7 from three, to go along with 11 rebounds for another double-double.
Williams has been on a torrid run as of late, winning OVC Player of the Week and grabbing double-double after double-double. Smith says the recent outburst is all because of his effort outside of the games.
“Credit to his work ethic,” Smith said. “I mean he works a lot. We believe in him a lot as you see. We want him taking those shots and he’s making them at a high percentage. So it’s a credit to him doing great, working everyday getting better. I like to see it.”
Williams’ rebounding and post presence has been evident for the Racers, but Head Coach Matt McMahon said that when Williams is hitting threes at the rate he has been recently, it opens up a lot of opportunities for the Racers offensively.
“Well I think it’s really important, especially in today’s style of basketball,” McMahon said. “It’s hard just to play the game today with two big bruisers out there who can’t pass or shoot from the perimeter. The spacing opens up for us and it allows us to spread the floor out and create some easier scoring opportunities. Late in the shot clock it’s been really effective for us too over this stretch with his ability to pick and pop.
Smith also finished with a career-high in points as well with 16 on 5-8 shooting with 3-6 coming beyond the arc.
McMahon has talked all season long about continuing to improve game-by-game and Smith said his focus has been improving as a leader while also working on his game.
“Honestly I’ve been working on being a leader on this team,” Smith said. “I feel like I can be that on this team and just knocking down threes, being aggressive and playing great defense, that’s what I’ve been working on all season.”
McMahon was happy to see Smith find the bottom of the net consistently from deep against the Redhawks, knowing that he’s starting to piece all of his game together.
“He’s been so good for us at the defensive end of the floor,” McMahon said. “He’s really helped steady our offense from an assist to turnover standpoint, but he hasn’t shot the ball as well as he’s capable of. So I was thrilled for him to see him step up with 16 big points tonight, three assists, just one turnover and I thought he was terrific at the defensive end of the floor.”
Defensively Murray State was able to run SEMO off the three-point line, as McMahon said the game plan was to be disciplined, not let them get to the charity stripe at will and heavily contest their shots from deep.
“I think in their wins they’re averaging somewhere around 32 free throw attempts a game and scoring almost 20 points from the free-throw line,” McMahon said. “So we wanted to be really disciplined defensively. I thought we were able to do so in the first half, we forced a lot of contested threes. We held them to 1-12 from behind the arc in the first half and 24 points [total] and you’re always going to have a chance to win when you do that.”
Coming off the win, Murray State now has a couple days of rest before finishing out a three-game week.
The Racers’ second matchup of the week will be in Morehead, Kentucky, when they take on Morehead State on Thursday, Feb. 4, at 6 p.m.
