The Morehead State men's basketball team used a 17-0 run in the second half to pull away for a 79-53 Ohio Valley Conference victory over Tennessee Tech Saturday night (Feb. 15) at the Eblen Center.
The Eagles, who have won 10 of their last 13 contests, improved to 18-9 overall, 9-3 in the league and 9-5 in road games. It was the Eagles' third straight road triumph, something that hadn't occurred since Feb. 4-15, 2012. MSU remained perfect in February at 4-0.
"We didn't play well the other night at Jacksonville State and came out of there lucky with a win, so we wanted to make sure we played much better tonight," Head Coach Sean Woods said. "Our guys are learning how to close out games strong, and I thought they were strong mentally down the stretch and took care of the ball."
MSU improved to 78-63 in the all-time series with Tech, winning for the 12th time in the last 14 meetings.TTU, which had won its last three OVC games, fell to 13-14 overall and 6-6 in the conference. Tech dipped to 9-4 in home games.
Senior Drew Kelly led Morehead State with 18 points, his 12th double figure game of the season. Freshman Greg Dotson registered 14 points, his third double-figure output in his last four contests. Junior Angelo Warner, who tallied eight points in the contest, notched his 1,000th career point with a second-half free throw at the 3:18 mark. He becomes the 30th member of MSU's 1,000-point club.
Senior Chad Posthumus notched 10 points and nine rebounds. MSU out-rebounded the hosts 36-30 and has still only been out-rebounded once in 27 games this season.
"Tech is a great rebounding team, and they are very athletic," Woods added. "We didn't want to let rebounding be the difference in the game, so I challenged our team."
Holding a 42-35 advantage at the 11:47 mark of the second half, MSU scored the next 17 to push ahead 59-35.
"I thought we took our time on offense, especially in the second half," Woods said. "We got the right shots and made every possession count."
Morehead State held the Golden Eagles without a field goal for 9:15 of the first half and put together a 12-3 run over that period. Posthumus started the scoring flurry with a layup at 9:35, and Kelly finished it with a lay-in at the 2:38 mark. Jeremiah Samarrippas led TTU with 11 points, while Dennis Ogbe chipped in 10.
MSU shot 60 percent (15-of-25) in the final half when it outscored Tech 45-29. The Eagles managed a 55 percent (27-of-49) efficiency for the game and held the hosts to just 35 percent (18-of-52).
Morehead State returns home Wednesday (Feb. 19) to host an OVC contest with Austin Peay. The game is set to tip-off at 7 p.m.
