By Mike Lehman, TTU Sports Information
MOREHEAD, Ky. – A career night from freshman Aleksa Jugovic and big run early in the second half just wasn't enough for the Tennessee Tech men's basketball team Thursday evening, as the Golden Eagles (12-17, 4-11) fell to the hot-shooting Morehead State Eagles (14-16, 9-6), 86-73.
Trailing by as many as 20 points early in the second half, the Golden Eagles began to chip away at the Morehead lead just under two minutes into the half behind a free throw from senior Javon McKay. Less than nine minutes later, the Tech squad had trimmed the deficit all the way down to seven, using nine points from both McKay and Jugovic to throw together a 21-9 run.
McKay kicked it off with five consecutive free throws and with the Eagle lead down to 11 with 12:37 on the clock, Jugovic took over. A native of Leskovac, Serbia, the true freshman buried a 3-pointer to cut the deficit to eight. Ninety seconds later, youngster drilled a second trey to again knock the Morehead lead back to eight.
And he wasn't finished. Two plays later, Jugovic drained his third consecutive trifecta, capping the huge run to make it a 63-56 contest with just under 10 minutes to play.
But the run just wasn't enough to overcome a second straight half of hot shooting from the Eagles. Morehead missed just one of its 12 free throw attempts in the second half and shot 48 percent from the field to stymie any momentum the Golden Eagles had left in the tank.
Brent Arrington led the Morehead squad with 17 points on the night, followed closely by Karam Mashour, who totaled 16. Corban Collins grabbed a team-high seven rebounds and added 12 points while Kareem Storey and Anthony Elechi each chipped in with 11 and 10 points, respectively.
The Golden Eagles enjoyed Jugovic's breakout performance, watching the freshman lead all scorers with a career-high 18 points on 4-of-5 shooting. He knocked down seven of his eight attempts at the charity stripe and dished out four of the team's 17 assists.
Huge in the paint late in each half was big man Charles Jackson. The junior recorded his 17th double-double of the season after scoring 15 points and corralling 10 rebounds. His 17 double-doubles on the year ranks second all-time in single-season history by a Golden Eagle, trailing only Lorenzo Coleman, who notched 20 during the 1996-97 campaign.
McKay did a little bit of everything for the Tech squad in the loss, scoring 12 points behind an 8-for-10 performance at the free throw line while adding four rebounds, five assists and two steals in 29 minutes of action. Despite battling through foul trouble for much of the contest, fellow senior Dwan Caldwell still managed to put together a solid run, going 5-for-8 from the field for 12 points and pulling in three rebounds.
Each team could not have started differently on the night as Morehead State opened the contest on a 9-0 run, holding the Golden Eagles scoreless for the first six minutes of the contest. Tech missed its first seven shots of the game, but it didn't take long for the squad to heat up, finishing the first stanza shooting 11-for-17 and 45.8 percent for the half.
Unfortunately for the Golden Eagles, the home team didn't miss much of anything. Morehead State connected on 57.1 percent of its field goal attempts over the first 20 minutes and an impressive 15-of-17 from the charity stripe. For the game, the Eagles shot 52.8 percent from the field and 89.7 percent from the free throw line.
The Golden Eagle squad will wrap both its Death Valley road trip and regular season Saturday evening as the team heads to Richmond, Ky. for a rematch with Eastern Kentucky. Tip is set for a 6 p.m. CST start as Tech looks to play spoiler to the Governors' attempt at winning the Ohio Valley Conference Eastern Division.
Photo by Jim Dillon
