Well, Belmont and Murray State had their lone regular-season meeting on Thursday, and it was quite the battle. Check out this score by quarters:
1st: Belmont 27, Murray St. 16
2d: Murray St. 29, Belmont 18 (game was tied 45-all at the half)
3d: Belmont 28, Murray St. 20 (Belmont led 73-65 with 10 minutes left)
4th: Murray St. 31, Belmont 26 (Belmont won 99-96)
Belmont actually maintained a 10-point lead for most of the fourth quarter, but Murray made a 7-1 run in the last minute and missed a 3-pointer at the buzzer that would have tied the game.
It's really rare to see two teams score 90 points in a conference game without overtime, so the folks in Nashvegas got to see a real show. The two teams combined for 21 three-pointers, and each shot at least 45 percent from behind the arc.
We knew, of course, that Murray had been on a roll -- after opening the season by going 5-7, the Racers had won 8 out of 9 games. But a lot of those victories had been against weak teams from the OVC West. In this game, Murray put a scare into Belmont, which is probably the best team in the Conference, on Belmont's home floor. So the Racers now look as though they should be treated as serious title contenders.
Here are the latest standings, along with Ken Pomeroy's rankings. Basically, the big story for the OVC will be whether one of the Kentucky schools can go to Nashville and beat Belmont in the OVC tournament:
EAST
127. Belmont: 9-2
136. E. Kentucky: 7-3
168. Morehead St: 6-3
294. Tennessee Tech: 4-5
282. Jacksonville St: 4-6
317. Tennessee St: 2-9
WEST
170. Murray St: 8-2
307. E. Illinois: 6-5
290. SIU-Edwardsville: 5-5
289. Austin Peay: 4-5
235. SE Missouri St: 3-7
319. UT-Martin: 2-8
That last minute of Murray's game at Belmont was playing out during the sports report at the end of Channel 6's 10 p.m. news Thursday, so the dude in the studio kept giving in-progress score updates. You could really hear the disappointment in his voice when, right before they switched over to Jay Leno's last Tonight Show, he had to report that the Racers' big comeback had come up short.
ReplyDeleteIncidentally, my wife and I watched Jay Leno's whole last episode, and it was pretty sweet. I will forever most fondly remember Jay Leno as a totally lovable regular irregular on David Letterman's Late Night, and it stinks that they apparently had such a distinct parting of ways.
I'm very excited about Jimmy Fallon as host of Tonight. His last Late Night last night was a delight.