Murray State vs. Belmont preview
WBB: The Racers look to win their third-straight game as they host the Bruins
Murray State will try to pull into a tie for 2nd place in the Missouri Valley Conference race when they host Belmont Sunday afternoon.
Belmont (16-10 overall, 11-4 Missouri Valley Conference) at Murray State (17-7 overall, 11-4 MVC) — 2:00pm at the CFSB Center
NCAA NET Rankings: Murray State #60; Belmont #63
Series history: 28th meeting (Belmont leads 23-4)
You can stream the game on ESPN+
Jeremy Rose will have the radio call on WNBS, with the pregame show starting at 1:30pm.
Murray State Scouting Report
The Racers enter today’s game having won back-to-back games, after Thursday’s 81-55 victory at Bradley. The Racers are part of a three-way tie for 3rd place in the Missouri Valley Conference with Belmont and Illinois State. The winner of today’s contest will pull into a tie for 2nd place with Drake, and take a giant step toward securing a Top 4 seed in the upcoming conference tournament.
Katelyn Young scored 28 points in Murray State’s win over Bradley. In her last five games, Young is averaging 24.6 points per game, while shooting 52.3% from the field. She continues to climb the NCAA Division I all-time scoring list, as Young is 43 points from moving into the Top 25 all time. Young is also five blocked shots from 100 for her career, and five assists away from 300 in a Racer uniform.
In the first meeting with Belmont, a 96-89 win by the Bruins, Young scored 39 points on 15-of-20 shooting. Murray State Head Coach Rechelle Turner expects Belmont to find a different way to try to stop her best player.
“We definitely know we have an advantage in the post and they didn't really do a whole lot to try to take that away last time, so we expect them to,” Turner said. “We've worked on some counters, we’ve worked on some cutting. We feel like that surely they'll double-team the post early, especially for us to not get going. We put some stuff in offensively that hopefully will counter that, but what will make that go away is our kids making shots early, because they're going to be open. So they've got to be able to step up and make those shots and shoot it with confidence. If we start making threes, then they can’t guard her with two to three people, so it's important that our guards get off to a great start.”
Against Bradley, the Racers held the Braves to 35.3% from the field. From a shooting-percentage standpoint, that was the fourth-best defensive night of the season for the Racers. Bradley’s 55 points were the second-fewest a team had scored against Murray State this year.
Belmont Scouting Report
In the win over the Racers in Nashville, Belmont made 16-of-28 three-pointers — the most triples they’ve knocked down in a game in three years. In their other 25 games this season, the Bruins are making just 32.4% from beyond the arc. You can definitely argue 16-for-28 is a bit of an outlier, but the Racers are committed to making sure it doesn’t happen again.
“We just gave up way too many uncontested threes,” Turner said. “Out of the 16 they made, five were contested which, you know, hats off to them. They even made the ones where they were open. We don't always make our open ones, obviously, but we have to guard the three-point line. We have to make sure that is not a weapon for them, because that is our weapon. We have to make sure that we beat them in the threes and the free (throws). We have to be physical. We have to rebound and we have to play at the pace that we want to play.”
“They made some contested ones, which you can't do anything about that,” Young said. “Just focusing more on the open threes they got, try to contest those a lot more and just sit down and guard the guards. They got out in transition a couple times and got some layups, so just focusing on guarding your yard and the three-point line.”
Belmont averages a little more than 70 points per game, and they present a very balanced attack. Kendal Cheesman (12.4 points), Jailyn Banks (12.3 points), Kendall Holmes (10.8 points), Tuti Jones (10.4 points) and Emily La Chapell (9.5 points) lead the Bruins on the offensive end.
The Bruins have lost three in a row playing three of the best teams in the league: Drake, Northern Iowa and Illinois State. In those three losses, Belmont shot 25-for-76 (32.9%) from three-point range, so we’ll see if the Racers can keep them at that level this afternoon.
I’ll have a ‘Ride Home’ podcast posted after the game.