 "Photo: Sholten Singer")
Head coach Donnie Jones knew it was going to be tough before the game started. Forty-six fouls and a tough shooting night later, he was right.
Marshall defeated Middle Tennessee State 63-60 in front of 4,598 fans at the Cam Henderson Center on Tuesday.
Jones said he knew it was going to be a grind, and it was good to get that physical of a game early in the season.
“There are no ugly wins,” Jones said. “One word on the board before the game was ‘grind.’ G-r-i-n-d. Expect that in this game. They play physical.
“It was a good test for our basketball team,” he said. “You are not always going to play pretty.”
The ugliness of the game was shown early. At the 12:09 mark of the first half, Hassan Whiteside was taken down to the ground hard by MTSU’s Theryn Hudson.
“It looked physical but the refs were calling everything, so you couldn’t be as physical as you wanted,” said senior forward Tyler Wilkerson. “But it was a physical game and stay focused, stay within our team and it worked out. We couldn’t really get into a groove during the game.”
There were 25 fouls called in the first half, many of them off the ball and in the paint.
With a majority of the first half dominated by drives and working the ball into the post, Marshall moved to a 30-29 halftime lead after Chris Lutz hit a three-pointer to close the game’s first 20 minutes.
MTSU moved to a zone early in the second half to close down the penetration lanes, forcing the Herd to rely on jump shots.
The idea worked as Marshall couldn’t find the basket in the opening minutes.
“Obviously we have to shoot the ball better from the free throw line and the three-point line,” Jones said. “(If) some of those shots go down, it changes everything.”
Marshall shot 55 percent from the free throw line and 18 percent from beyond the arc.
With the zone forcing Marshall to shoot from the outside, the Blue Raiders went on a 12-3 run to open the half and open up a seven-point lead. With the Herd falling behind, guard Shaquille Johnson used his defense to create offense.
“That was what I was talking (about in) the huddle,” Jones said. “I told those guys they were focusing too much on (their) offense. You got to defend and turn your defense into offense.”
Two straight possessions by MTSU led to two straight steals and two straight Johnson dunks. Following that a Wilkerson three brought the Herd within two.
Another Wilkerson jumper tied the game up at 42.
The Blue Raiders made one more run and held a 54-53 lead over Marshall with 4:04 left in the game. But then junior forward Tirrell Baines decided to take over the game.
Baines scored on three consecutive possessions to give the Herd its final push.
The Laurens, S.C. native, led Marshall in scoring with 12 points. Johnson and Wilkerson each added eleven.
Jones said experience helped guide Marshall in the game’s waning moments.
“It was veterans down the stretch that made the plays ,” he said. “I would have loved to play the bench more, but it was a game of experience down the stretch.”
The Blue Raiders gave the Herd one more scare though. A Pitts turnover led to MTSU getting the ball down 63-60 with 6.7 seconds yet. They would get two chances to tie it up, but couldn’t get the ball to fall as the buzzer sounded.
While happy with the win, Jones said his team has a lot to work on before heading to Old Dominion on Saturday.
The Monarchs return all five starters from a squad that won the College Basketball Invitational a year ago.
“I think our team still has a long way to go,” he said. “ For us to really be a top one hundred team we have to win on the road. And we haven’t done that yet in this program.”
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Game Notes: This was the second game of the Global Sports Invitational. The next game is Nov. 21 against Lamar University… Pitts played for the first time this season after suffering a concussion in a late October. He scored eight points and had three assists. … Pitts was six for six from the foul line. Dating back to last season, he’s made 36 of his last 38 free throws in the last five minutes of games … Marshall is now 15-21 against the Sun Belt Conference … Freshman center Hassan Whiteside had eight points, 10 rebounds, four blocks and only one foul in 23 minutes … Camden Miller had four points while Antonio Haymon had five.
Kyle Hobstetter can be contacted at hobstetter@marshall.edu.
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