FINAL:
MTSU 73
Chattanooga 82
MURFREESBORO Tenn. – The Blue Raiders welcomed The Chattanooga Mocs to Murfreesboro for the 50th anniversary of The Murphy Center Thursday night, but the celebrations would be cut short by a Mocs team that showed up ready to play and were hot out of the gate.
To start the game Chattanooga went 4/4 from three-point range and 5/6 from the field. This produced a big lead early (that got up to 16 points at the 10:31 mark) that MTSU was never able to recover from, as they never lead once in the game. However, The Raiders ended the first half by making their last four shots, three of which were three pointers, two by Eli Lawrence who paced the Blue Raiders in scoring with 21 points total. This cut the lead to 7 at the half as Chattanooga led 47-40.
The Mocs continued to shoot well in the second half, ending the game with a 52.6 three-point percentage and a 56.5 shooting percentage. This allowed them to build multiple double digit leads throughout the second half. The Blue Raiders would reel them back to single digits, but Chattanooga would always pull right back out ahead. These MTSU runs never seemed to be enough and fell just short snapping a 20 game home win streak for The Blue Raiders
One of the biggest statistical trends was the rebounding. Chattanooga beat MTSU in that department 37-21, led by Jake Stephens with 11 who also led the Mocs in Points (24) and assists (5).
This is what MTSU Head Coach, Nick McDevitt, had to say post-game (via goblueraiders.com)
“Congrats to coach Earl and his team. I thought they were good, really good tonight. We knew how good they were from watching them on film. They’re tough to defend, they’re really good offensively because of the way that they shoot the ball. Particularly Stevens, it’s different when you’re facing somebody that big, 7-foot, 275, that can also really shoot it.
“We got too many defensive assignments wrong to start the game. We lost by nine, and we were down 11-2 in two minutes. That was really the difference. In the first half, they were 8-for-13 from three. We started defending that portion of their offense better and they were 2-for-6 the rest of the night.
“You’ve got to credit them. It felt like multiple times, it was a one or two possession game, and they made the big shot. You cut it two or three or four, and somebody gets loose, and they don’t miss it. I thought we had a couple of opportunities on the reverse, where you’re down two, you’re down three and the big shot, we just didn’t make it.”
The Blue Raiders next game is against Murray State at home in The Murphy Center at 6:00pm on Wednesday.
