By Mike Lehman, TTU Sports Information
EVANSVILLE, Ind. – It was a heartbreaker of a finish for the Tennessee Tech men's basketball team during its Ohio Valley Conference Tournament first-round battle with No. 8-seeded UT Martin on Wednesday evening, as the Skyhawks edged the No. 5-seeded Golden Eagles 70-67 at the Ford Center in Evansville, Ind.
On a night when the purple and gold (15-17) started red-hot from distance and finished 14-of-32 from 3-point range, the battle on the boards truly played the biggest role. The Skyhawks (14-18) hauled in 43 total boards, including a whopping 18 on the offensive glass. Tech was held to just 31 rebounds on the night, including eight offensive.
After being named to both the All-OVC First Team and OVC All-Newcomer Team, junior guard Jaylon Johnson showed exactly why he took home the honors, opening the night an eye-popping 4-for-4 from distance to give the Golden Eagles a 12-3 lead. The Cookeville crew grew the advantage to as much as 13 with 8:30 to play in the first half.
The Skyhawks cut into the Tech lead just before the break, but the purple and gold still took a 35-28 advantage into the locker room behind an 8-for-15 display from beyond the arc. UT Martin burst right out of halftime to tie the game in the opening 90 seconds and it was a war from that point forward, with neither side leading by more than four points the rest of the way.
Competing in his final contest as a Golden Eagles, local Sparta native Grant Slatten left it all out on the court in essentially 23 perfect minutes off the bench. The guard finished 5-for-5 from the floor, 4-for-4 from deep, and 3-for-3 from the charity stripe on his way to a career-high 17 points to lead the Cookeville crew.
Slatten hauled in three boards and dished out two assists without committing a turnover. In a second half that saw the Golden Eagles struggle to repeat its shooting rhythm from the first stanza, the fan-favorite kept his team in the with 11 points in 14 minutes of action.
With the contest squared at 65-65 with 1:15 to play, UT Martin's Tarence Guinyard hit a tough triple to put his team up for good. Tech got one last look at a tying bucket after the Skyhawks missed the front end of a 1-&-1, but senior guard Matthew Sells' look from the corner just rimmed out.
Johnson ended the contest with 16 points and five makes from downtown, leading the purple and gold with five assists and three steals. The Houston, Texas native's 153 assists on the year represented the most by a Golden Eagles since Jeremiah Samarrippas dished out 158 as a senior in 2013-14.
Senior forward Rodney Johnson Jr. flirted with a double-double, scoring nine points with a team-high nine rebounds. Sophomore guard Kyle Layton also chipped in nine points while sinking 3-of-6 tries from deep. Fellow sophomore JaJuan Nicholls joined the nine-point club, finishing 4-for-5 from the field with seven boards.
Sells capped his lone season in Cookeville with a historic showing from 3-point range, turning in the seventh-best 3-point field-goal percentage (minimum 35 makes) in program history with a mark of 43.0 percent. The local Rickman native sunk 49-of-114 tries from downtown.
File photo by Jim Dillon
