By Rob Schabert, Assistant Athletic Director for Sports
Information
Click here to watch highlights of the victory
NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Defense did the job throughout the first
half, and balanced scoring combined with unselfish ball-handling
took Tennessee Tech to the finish line as the Golden Eagles
dispatched SIU Edwardsville, 74-67, Wednesday night in a first
round game at the Ohio Valley Conference Tournament in Nashville's
Municipal Auditorium.
Senior point guard Jeremiah
Samarrippas led the charge with 16 points and a career-high 11
assists, while three Golden Eagle veterans – Javon McKay, Dennis Ogbe
and Dwan
Caldwell – each contributed 10 points to the victory. In
all, nine different players put digits in the scoring column to
help Tech advance in the tourney.
The Golden Eagles had to withstand a determined Cougar charge down
the stretch in which Tech's double-figure lead shriveled to four
points in the final minutes.
"Both of our games have been like that with them (SIUE)," said
Golden Eagle head coach Steve Payne. "We played well at times
except for a few minutes where we turned the ball over too much in
the second half with questionable decisions."
The No. 5 seeded Golden Eagles (17-15) move ahead to play No. 4
seed Morehead State Thursday at 6 p.m. Tech and Morehead split the
season series, with the Golden Eagles claiming a 91-84 victory in
Morehead just five night ago.
SIUE (11-20), making its first appearance in the OVC Tournament,
saw its season come to a close.
The Golden Eagles got help from up-and-down the bench, in addition
to the four in double figures. Shirmane
Thomas added eight points and four assists, Matt Marseille
had a perfect shooting night (2-for-2 from the field and the line)
and chipped in with six points and four rebounds. Ladon Carter had
six points on 3-for-3 shooting, and Jordan Johnson
netted five points and dished out three assists. Caldwell led Tech
with nine points, narrowly missing a double-double before drawing
his fifth foul.
Tech finished the night with 20 assists on its 25 field goals,
directly leading to a 58.1 percent effort from the floor
(25-for-43).
Samarrippas matched his career-high with 11 assists, a mark he
originally set while playing his freshman season at SMU. His court
sense is what gave the Golden Eagles such balance in the scoring
department, according to McKay.
"Jeremiah is just finding everybody really well right now," McKay
said. "I think it spreads our offense out a lot more and he has a
lot to do with that."
The defense limited SIUE to 25 percent shooting in the first half
as Tech built a 38-22 lead by the intermission.
SIUE attacked the basket in the second half, earning an early 10-1
difference in fouls called against the Golden Eagles. The Cougars
shot a crisp 53.6 percent from the field in the second half, but
saw their perfect (6-for-6) free throw performance in the first
half dip to 12-for-21 in the second half.
Kris Davis led SIUE with 19 points, while Rozell Nunn added 14
points and six rebounds and Donivine Stewart finished with 13
points, five rebounds, four assists and four steals.
After leading by 16 at halftime, the Golden Eagles kept
their margin in double digits for all but 20 seconds of the first
13-plus minutes of the second half.
Still up by 10 at 64-54 with 4:14 to play, Tech saw the lead
dwindle to four points when SIUE went on a brief 6-0 run to make it
64-60 with 1:55 remaining. The run included turnovers by the Golden
Eagles on three consecutive possessions, all while in the paint on
the attack.
Samarrippas, who was charged with two of the miscues, hit a
crucial 3-pointer with 1:31 to play to push the lead back to seven
and give the Golden Eagles enough breathing room to finish the
contest at the free throw line.
After Tech made just three of its first six charity tosses down
the stretch, Ogbe snatched the biggest rebound of the night with 26
seconds left following a miss by Thomas. It was Tech's first
offensive rebound of the second half, and it allowed the senior
from Munich to knock down two free throws and pry open the lead to
nine.
"I thought that (on defense) we got back on our heels a little bit
and let them attack the paint," Payne said. "Our whole game plan
was to net et them get in the paint on dribble penetration and
create open shots, and we did a really poor job of that in the
second half. They did a really god job of attacking us."
GOLDEN NUGGETS: Tech improves to 5-2 all-time
against the Cougars…Tech is now 8-1 this season when
shooting 50 percent or better…Andy Smith was recognized by
the league during halftime as one of two recipients of the Dr.
Thurston Banks Award (both shown in photo at left)