Jan. 15, 2004

Box Score

What do Samford, Louisville, and Pittsburgh all have in common? They are the only three teams to beat Murray State this season after the Bulldogs ended the Racers 16-game home winning streak with a 61-58 Ohio Valley Conference victory Thursday night.

Tyson Dorsey was 5 for 5 from three-point range and was 5 for 6 from the free throw line to finish with a game-high 20 points. J. Robert Merritt scored 15 points and point guard Jerry Smith led the Bulldogs in rebounding for the third-straight game with eight points and seven rebounds.

The Bulldogs improved to 7-7 on the season and 2-1 in the OVC while Murray State dropped to 12-3 and 2-1 in the OVC.

This week's OVC Newcomer of the Week Kelvin Brown led MSU with 17 points, Adam Chiles had 14 points, and Antione Whelchel added 11 points.

"The most telling stat of the game is Murray had eight offensive rebounds and Samford had nine," said Samford head coach Jimmy Tillette. "Before you tip you wouldn't expect we would have more offensive rebounds than Murray." Samford finished the game out-rebounding MSU 37-25.

Tillette said, "The road is a different mentality for us. We want to slow down, shoot less, and score more. We try to control the clock on offense and hope they shoot quickly on the other end that is how we have to play."

Samford used an 18-0 run midway through the first half to take a 23-6 lead with 7:53 to play in the opening period. Smith and Dorsey each had three pointers at the end of the shot clock during the run and the Racers shot just 32 percent in the first half.

Murray made an 11-2 run to pull to within 25-17 with 2:58 left in the half and Samford went into the locker room with a 32-22 lead.

The Bulldogs opened the second half with a 12-6 run to take a 44-28 lead with 11:47 to play, then things began to get interesting. The Racers turned up the pressure and the crowd of 4,720 got behind their team. The Racers forced 13 second half Samford turnovers and used a 16-5 run to pull to within 49-44 with 4:44 left to play.

Dorsey converted on a pair of free throws to up the lead to 51-44 as the Bulldogs made their first 11 free throws and finished 12-13 from the stripe.

A Brown jumper with 1:36 to play pulled the Racers to within three points at 54-51. Samford continued to run its offense and Merritt got a lay-up off a backdoor cut to move the lead back to five points.

Brown brought MSU back to within three with 19 seconds left but again the Bulldogs made their free throws down the stretch to build a 61-55 lead with just four second to play. Brown's three pointer at the buzzer was not enough and Samford became just the second team to beat Murray State at home in their last 25 games.

Samford will travel to Tennessee-Martin who lost 96-85 to Jacksonville State tonight. Tip-off on Saturday at Skyhawk Arena in Martin, Tenn. is 7 p.m.