By Mike Lehman, TTU Sports Information
LAS VEGAS, Nev. – Historical. Just simply the best way to describe the 2015-16 campaign for the Tennessee Tech men's basketball team, a season that saw several individual and team records broken, threatened and rewritten. And with a season like that officially in the books, it was only fitting for the Golden Eagles to make history one more time to close it out.
The Tech squad, along with its Monday afternoon opponent Old Dominion, became the first teams ever to square off in the newly created Vegas 16 Tournament, the newest postseason event to world of college basketball. The Monarchs (23-13) claimed victory on the day, pulling away late to defeat the Golden Eagles (19-12) 75-59.
Old Dominion jumped out to an early 9-2 lead in the contest, extending the advantage to as many as 12 with just over 11 minutes to play in the first half.
True to its mantra all season long, Tennessee Tech never let it bother them and just went to work. Doing a large chunk of damage down the stretch in the paint, the Golden Eagles chipped and chunked away at the Monarch lead before tying the contest with seven seconds in the half. A borderline foul call provided ODU two free throws and a 32-30 lead headed into the break.
The Golden Eagles managed to capture the lead early in the second half, jumping ahead of the Monarchs by one and leading 37-36 just about three minutes into the frame. Old Dominion took over from there, however, using a 25-5 run behind strong defense and a Tech shooting drought to all but put the contest away with eight minutes to play.
Tech cut the lead to as low as 14 with a trey from junior Hakeem Rogers, but the ODU offense kept its hot second half rolling along to finish the contest with the 75-59 victory. Old Dominion simply couldn't miss in the second half, hitting 54.8 percent from the field while holding Tech to just 40 percent from the floor.
Senior Torrance Rowe posted a game-high 22 points in his final contest in the purple and gold, finishing 9-of-16 from the floor. Fellow senior Ryan Martin notched his 10th and final career double-double in the contest, hauling in 11 rebounds while contributing 11 points as well. Rogers rounded out the double-digit scoring efforts for the Golden Eagles, finishing 3-of-4 from downtown on his way to 11 points.
Regardless of the outcome, however, the 2015-16 Golden Eagle squad will go down in the history books of the game of college basketball, having played in the inaugural game in the first-time event. The team also took its turn cementing its place among the all-time great Tech squads.
The 2015-16 TTU basketball team finished with 2,416 points, the fifth-most in program history. The team also knocked down an incredible 266 3-pointers, the second-most in school history. The team's 36.4 3-point percentage was the programs fifth best mark ever while the team's free throw shooting was on par with the best in program history. This season's squad finished with 566 made shots from the charity stripe and a 74.3 percentage at the line, both ranking third all-time in Tech history.
Individually, Rowe's career free throw percentage of 84.0 goes down as the second-best in team history, trailing only the incredible mark of 88.7 percent by Brent Jolly. Rowe also dished out 215 assists in his short, two-year career, the 23rd-most ever by a Golden Eagle. He also played 1,100 minutes in his senior campaign, the fifth-most in a single season in school history.
A four-year wall in the post, senior Anthony Morse ended his Tech career with 110 blocks in 110 games, the fourth-highest total in program history. Sophomore Aleksa Jugovic enjoyed one of the better shooting seasons from beyond the arc in Tech history, ranking fifth all-time with a 3-point mark of 42.0 percent on the year.
Photo by Jim Dillon
