Big win strengthens Eastern Kentucky for postseason run

RICHMOND — With Eastern Kentucky newly atop the Ohio Valley Conference East men's basketball race, the Colonels have plenty of motivation to keep playing well.

"I'd say we're in control of our own fate, and we got it done tonight," center Eric Stutz said after scoring 25 points to lead EKU past visiting Morehead State 69-57 Wednesday night. "So we just need to keep on winning so we can keep our spot and get that double-bye come tournament time."

The top two seeds earn a double-bye in the OVC tourney, set for March 4-7 at Nashville.

Wednesday's win left Eastern 15-9 overall, 7-4 in the OVC. Morehead and Belmont, which lost to Jacksonville State, are a half-game back with 7-5 records.

Eastern won last year's OVC tourney despite not securing a double-bye, a fact not lost on Coach Jeff Neubauer.

"I think we proved last year that to our program (a double-bye is) not that important. We won three games in three nights," Neubauer said. "Last year, we only trailed for 41 seconds of those three nights.

"I do think that we have a very good basketball team. Would our basketball team be in a better situation if we only had to play two games to win it? Yes. But we proved last year that we have a good team and we can play three games in three nights."

Wednesday's win was the Colonels' fourth in a row and completed a regular-season sweep of archrival Morehead.

Defense was a key, Neubauer said.

"Our team did a really good job defending here tonight," he said. "Our man-to-man defense was really good. So in the first half, Morehead was able to score in transition some, but we held them to 12 points for maybe 10 or 11 minutes there in the first half.

"And then again in the second half, I thought we guarded very well. We did play some zone at times just because we needed to mix it up, but our man-to-man defense down the stretch got stops over and over when we needed them. Also, guys played really well. Meaning Isaac McGlone hit another big, big three; Eric Stutz continues to attack the rim aggressively; I was really proud of our team."

Defense has been the constant throughout EKU's success this season, and the missing ingredient when things haven't gone as planned.

"When we struggled — we lost four league games — at least three of those losses were because our defense wasn't very good," Neubauer said. "So the fact that we can get back on course and we've got four wins in a row, our defense has been a lot better than it was when we were struggling.

"Again, this time of year, it's just about growing and learning from our experiences so we can get to March. In less than four weeks, there's going to be a big event in Nashville called the OVC Tournament, and that's what we're building toward."

EKU led throughout most of Wednesday's game, but Morehead stayed close.

Down 32-28 at halftime, the Eagles rallied to tie at 49-all on a basket by Karam Mashour, who led MSU with 16 points. EKU promptly called a timeout with 6:29 left and turned things around with a 12-2 flurry.

The decisive rally began with Corey Walden passing to Stutz for a layup. Walden then hit two free throws en route to a 15-point night, and Stutz scored from the low post for a 55-49 lead.

"They got a slip for a back door. That was a good play-call by (Neubauer)," MSU Coach Sean Woods said. "We turned the ball over, then we had three straight possessions where we come up empty. They're desperate, they're at home, we did come back, we got the momentum, but we didn't take advantage of it."

After Kareem Storey sank a pair of free throws for Morehead, EKU scored another six in a row on a Timmy Knipp dunk, a Walden free throw and a Ja'Mill Powell three-pointer. That made it 61-51 with 2:32 left.

OVC standings

EAST

Eastern Kentucky 7-4 15-9

Morehead St. 7-5 12-15

Belmont 7-5 15-10

Tennessee Tech 3-8 11-13

Jacksonville St. 3-9 10-17

Tennessee St. 2-8 5-20

WEST

Conf. All

Murray St. 11-0 21-4

Tenn.-Martin 7-3 15-8

Eastern Illinois 7-4 14-10

SE Missouri St 5-6 11-13

SIU-Edwardsville 5-6 9-13

Austin Peay 2-8 7-17

Saturday's games

Austin Peay at UT-Martin, 7 p.m.

Morehead St. at Belmont, 7

Murray St. at SE Missouri, 7

Eastern Illinois at SIUE, 8

Tenn. Tech at Jacksonville St., 8:30

Eastern Ky. at Tenn. St., 8:30

This story was originally published February 12, 2015 at 2:07 PM with the headline "Big win strengthens Eastern Kentucky for postseason run."