RICHMOND, Ky. -- Buoyed by 50.9 percent shooting from the field, coach Travis Ford's Eastern Kentucky University Colonels avenged an earlier 80-78 overtime loss to Murray State by upending the MSU Racers, 73-61, Thursday night in McBrayer Arena.
EKU hit 53.8 percent from the field in the opening stanza in building a 36-28 halftime advantage, which included canning 6-9 from three-point range.
Eastern got out of the gate in quick fashion in the closing period, going on a 17-8 run to open the second half to build its biggest lead of the game at 53-36.
Murray State cut the margin to 66-56 with 3:11 to go, but that was as close as the Racers could get as Murray State saw its overall record fall to 10-7 and its OVC mark to 5-2.
"We needed to win after that loss Saturday night," said Ford. "That was a great effort and a great win for our guys over a very, very good basketball team.
"We shot the ball so well that I think our defense fed off our offense and gave us extra energy on the defensive end of the court.
"I was very pleased with the assist column (18) that gave us some good looks at the basket. Basketball a lot of times comes down to making shots, like Samford did last Saturday and like we did tonight."
Murray State made only 39.2 percent of its field goal attempts and only 46.7 percent of its free throws (14-30). For the first time in the past eight games, Eastern was outrebounded, 34-31.
Eastern hit 8-15 from behind the arc (53.3 percent) to MSU's 7-18 from long range (38.9 percent).
Junior guard Matt Witt, who scored 12 important second half points, led four twin-dgit scorers for Eastern with a game-high 18 points. He was also efficient distributing the basketball as he led all players with eight assists.
Junior guard Zach Ingles added 15 points, junior center Alonzo Hird had a double-double of 12 points and 12 rebounds and senior forward Michael Haney scored 10 points for the Colonels.
Sophomore guard Trey Pearson led Murray State with 16 points, while junior forward Darnell Hopkins had 13 points.
EKU, now 12-6 overall and 4-3 in the OVC, hosts UT Martin Saturday (Jan. 29) in a 2:06 p.m. EST contest that will be televised live by Comcast Sports Southeast.
