Murray State vs. Austin Peay
Murray State and Austin Peay meet for the third time this season on Friday in the semifinals of the Ohio Valley Conference basketball tournament. Peay won the first two games narrowly as they defeated MSU in Murray 58-57 and 83-80 in Clarksville.
The Racers come into the game off of an 88-74 victory over Tennessee State on Tuesday. And there was some concern going into that game about starting two-guard Tyler Holloway who dislocated his shoulder on Saturday against Eastern Kentucky.
But Holloway seemed fine as he hit 3-of-5 shots overall and 2-of-4 from three point range. But head coach Billy Kennedy indicated in an interview this afternoon that he thought Holloway lacked his usual aggressiveness. That isn't expected to be a problem against the Govs though.
"I think he's feeling better," Kennedy said. "And I expect him to be more aggressive on both offense and defense than he was against TSU."
The first two games look like they were played very differently as one game wound up with both teams in the 50's and the other had both in the 80's. That's deceptive though. The first game had a game pace of 62 and the second game was just slightly higher at 66. The reason the score of the second game was so much higher was that both teams shot the lights out. Murray State shot 52.5 percent and APSU shot 60.4 percent. In the first game both teams shot right at 42 percent.
So what do the Racers have to do to turn the tables on the Govs?
"We have to execute better in the last seven minutes," Kennedy said. "And we definitely have to do better job defensively on Wes Channels. We also need to get off to a better start and get the ball inside instead of settling for three-pointers."
Channels burned the Racers for 16 points the first time the two teams played and he had 22 in the second game. The odd thing is that although he is a deadly outside shooter he only took one three-pointer in the game in Clarksville.
The Racers come into this game having won eight in a row and 11 of their last 12. Austin Peay has won three in a row and five of their last seven. But the two losses were ugly defeats at the hands of Tennessee State and Drake.
The regular Sagarin Ratings favor Murray State by 2.96 points and the Sagarin Predictor Ratings favor MSU by 4.85 points. Only once in the last 13 years has Austin Peay beaten Murray State three times in one season.
Morehead State vs. Tennessee-Martin
Morehead and UT-Martin split during the regular season with Morehead winning 80-71 in December at home and UTM winning in Martin 79-65 in late February.
How did the Skyhawks turn the tables on The Eagles?
"Well when we played them the second time we had two players that we didn't have in early December - Olajide Hay and Delrico Lane," the Skyhawks head coach Brett Campbell noted.
Hay, a 6-6 forward, averages 9.8 points and 5.1 rebounds while Lane, a 6-1 guard averages 5.1 points and 4.6 rebounds. Both started in the second game against Morehead but neither was effective as Hay was held scoreless while grabbing two rebounds and Lane tallied just four points and four rebounds.
One real difference was Marquis Weddle. In December Weddle hit just 4-of-17 shots overall and 3-of-12 three pointers for 13 points. Last week in Martin he hit 11-of-21 shots and 8-of-14 three-pointers for 30 points.
The other difference was the play of Morehead's Dermonte Harper. He was 8-of-19 in Morehead and 3-of-17 in Martin.
As Martin prepares for the rematch with the Eagles Campbell said his team will focus on "defense and rebounding."
The key for Morehead - challenge Lester Hudson and Weddle's perimeter jump shots. If you do that they have shown that they will take those shots anyway but their shooting percentage will drop significantly.
The Sagarin Predictor Ratings favor UTM by 3.78 points and the regular Sagarin Ratings favor UTM by 4.04 points.