Murray State Basketball: 3 keys for Round of 32 matchup with Saint Peter’s

Be patient in the halfcourt

During Saint Peter’s eight-game winning streak, only Kentucky has scored more than 65 points against the Peacocks. They frustrate opposing offenses who become impatient and force shots. When the transition game isn’t available, the Racers want to simply ‘run the offense’.

The Peacocks make opposing teams work extremely hard to find open shots, so the Racers want to be patient.

Murray State has three outstanding scorers in Williams, Brown, and Hill and they score in a variety of ways. Brown is the Ohio Valley’s all-time leading three-point shooter but can slash to the basket. Hill is one of the nation’s best ‘drive and hit a floater’ players. Williams is devastating on the block and will step outside and hit the three.

"“We have relentless competitors,” said McMahon. “We have three guys who have gone over 30 points in a game this season and four have gone over 20. Last night we had five guys in double figures on the biggest stage in college basketball. We have really good players, and that’s great, but I always put the asterisk next to that. We have really good players who are bought into the culture of the program and who are unselfish and tough, and all they care about doing is winning, and that’s why we’ve had the success that we’ve had this year.”"

Those three all average double figures and each can take over a game, but as we saw on Thursday, the Racers can get offense out of Hannibal, Skipper-Brown, and others. McMahon says his team is versatile and his players care about only one thing. Winning.

If Murray maximizes Williams’ ability down low, get out and run, and is patient when they can’t run, they should win this round of 32 contest.