Scores:
UTEP 50
MTSU 81
UTSA 82
UAB 70
Marshall 74
WKU 85
Southern Miss
La Tech 89
ODU 88
Charlotte 66
FAU 63
Rice 62
Stories:
Matthew Brune:
DJ DRAPER (@draperd55) WITH THE THREE FOR THE LEAD. UNT is up 69-67 with 3.4 remaining. pic.twitter.com/fgUIeOeSZB
— Matthew Brune (@mattbrune25) January 28, 2018
“DJ Draper — he’s more than just a shooter,” North Texas head coach Grant McCasland said on his way out of the team’s postgame press conference Saturday night.
It’s something he’s said before in practice and in post game quotes, but after this game, Draper’s play spoke for itself.
In a 56 second span late in the second half, Draper had two impressive steals, solidifying his spot in the closing lineup for McCasland in a tight game against Florida International University.
David Scott of the Charlotte Observer:
Without Murphy’s career night, however, it would have been worse than it was.
“The first one felt good, the second one felt good, and they kept feeling good coming out of my hand,” said Murphy, whose playing time has increased recently due to an injury to starter Andrien White. “I’ve been in the gym a lot more recently, with coaches and managers late at night.”
Ken Cross of college hoops watch:
Jones had been concerned about the loss of leads as they dropped games against VCU and Western Kentucky where they had and maintained leads. He used game clips of stretches where opponents got back into games to highlight what he wanted his veteran team to do.
“I wanted them to see what it took to get there and what are we trained to do when the teams…what ends up being the biggest lead of the game, they call timeout and how dow we respond?” Jones said, “Good teams will respond. We saw on film finishes that could be coincidental.”
Erik Bacharach of the Daily News Journal
A game after holding UTSA to 30 points below its season average, MTSU was at it again against UTEP, limiting the Miners to a season low in points. The Miners, whose 17-point output in the first half was also a season low for points in a half, entered averaging 69.9 points per game.
MTSU has now held all nine of its C-USA opponents to well below their season average in scoring.
If all the opposing team does is shoot three-pointers and hope for the best, then it might be a good plan to guard the perimeter. UAB did not against UTSA, and the Roadrunners, 10th in three-point percentage in Conference USA before Saturday, made a barrage of threes early and then found that confidence again late in the game.
That was enough for the one-dimensional team from San Antonio to knock off UAB 82-70 at Bartow Arena.
Jared Rosdeutscher of The Towel Rack
The newest basketball edition of the Moonshine Throwdown didn’t disappoint as Western Kentucky was able to win in front of a sold out Diddle Arena crowd of 7,362. Darius Thompson led WKU with 20 points on 9 of 15 shooting while CJ Burks led Marshall with 29 points.
A standing-room-only crowd greeted the Western Kentucky basketball team for the second consecutive Saturday in E.A. Diddle Arena, and this time the Hilltoppers took advantage of it.
A week after dropping a heartbreaker to visiting rival Middle Tennessee, WKU roared from behind with a scintillating 15-0 game-ending run to defeat Marshall 85-74 before a raucous gathering of 7,363.
Louisiana Tech welcomed back the 1987-88 team that was the co-champions of the American South Conference, and with legends in the building Saturday night, the current Bulldog team put together a near legendary performance.
Senior Jacobi Boykins sank his first six 3-pointers of the game to spark Tech scoring 57 points in the opening half, tying its best half point total all year, as the Bulldogs (13-9, 4-5) rolled rival Southern Miss, 89-66, to win their third straight Conference USA game at the Thomas Assembly Center. As a team, Tech made 14 3-pointers, just shy of the program record 17 in a single game.
Glynn A Hill of the Houston Cronicle
Tudor Fieldhouse was still buzzing after Connor Cashaw sank a midrange jumper to give Rice a two-point lead, putting it just three seconds from claiming consecutive wins for the first time this season.
But that left just enough time for Florida Atlantic’s Justin Massey to launch a 3-pointer from well beyond the arc.
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