Reaction to SIUE at Murray State

By Allan Lewis

Alestle Sports Editor

Allan Lewis, Alestle Sports Editor

Murray State is a very good college basketball team. They are the class of the Ohio Valley Conference, and have a decent shot at an at-large bid in the NCAA tournament if they fail to win the conference tournament in Nashville.

SIUE, well, that’s a different story, and when the two teams met at the Regional Special Events Center in Murray, Ky. Wednesday night, well, let’s just say things got ugly.

I had a dream last night I would like to share, passing out shortly after game time and sleeping for 15 hours, and for some reason I thought it was real. real, that is until I actually checked my phone. I have ESPN text alerts for SIUE. Every time the Cougars tip off, reach halftime or a game goes final, they tell me about it. In my dream, I got a text: MURR 90 SIUE 88.

About 10 this morning I checked my phone for real and it read: MURR 86 SIUE 49.

That sounds about right.

Not having the liberty to watch the game, I have to break it down statistically, to find out exactly what happened. SIUE played a great first half against the Racers at the Vadalabene Center, before the ordinary second-half hangover hit and the scoreboard had them down 30 in the end.

Like I said, Murray State has a great all-around team. They are ranked No. 8 among midmajors, and sport a 19-3 record, as winners of their last ten games, and boy did they show SIUE who owns this conference.

Murray was hot, shooting 58 percent from the floor. No one is going to beat a team shooting that hot on any given night. They were also 7-13 from beyond the arc, which provides an example to SIUE.

A three-point shot doesn’t count for three points unless it goes down the bucket.

Aamir McCleary went down with a hip injury in this game for the Cougars, early in the first half. His presence was inevitably missed, because he is one of two players on this team we can usually count on for a good game. If he played the entire game, we are probably looking at a 28 point loss, as optimistic as that may seem.

Anyways, lets go inside the numbers.

Nikola Bundalo got his second career double-double in this one (12 points, 11 rebounds,) a performance they have desperately needed from him night in, night out as the Cougars have struggled from the inside all season long. This is encouraging, wish we would have seen more of this from the big fella’ throughout the year.

SIUE OUT-REBOUNDED THE RACERS 44-31 INCLUDING 23 ON THE OFFENSIVE GLASS.

Why the all-caps? This is a huge moral victory and head scratcher. Why? We found a new way to lose.

If anyone told me the Cougars strength was inside the paint and they got a double-double from Nik and out-rebounded a team by 16, I would have thought they won. Oh contrar.

SIUE was actually outscored inside the paint 50-18 and scored zero on the fast break, to 25 for Murray. Moral of the story?  TURNOVERS.

SIUE had 17 of them, which really isn’t a whole lot, it’s what the Racers did with them and the way they took care of the basketball. Murray only had eight.

The Racers also scored 25 points off those turnovers, a ridiculous amount, and got 40 point from their bench.

The Cougars depth was nowhere to be seen again, they had 20 points off the pine with McCleary missing a big chunk of time. SIUE did not score a single point off the bench in their loss to UT Martin.

Stat of the night: Assists. Murray had 25, to SIUE’s 10, contributing to their fast break scores and points in the paint. Really hard to lose a game with 25 assists, that’s unselfish team basketball at its best. Speaking of unselfish team basketball, how about Murray having three players in double-figures and another four with eight points. Their leading scorer for the game only had 13.

The Cougars lost to team basketball last night despite a better effort inside than we are used to seeing.

The 27 percent shooting and 5-18 from three were factors too, and the offensive rebounds don’t mean anything if you can’t capitalize on them, which SIUE did not, as is justified by their low shooting percentage, and 10 second chance points. 23 offensive rebounds were turned into five baskets. That just doesn’t cut it.

All the analysis for now, SEMO up next, they are improved from a year ago, when SIUE beat them in overtime on new years eve.