By Matt Schabert, Morehead State Athletic Media RelationsGAME NOTES (PDF) | ESPN+ | LIVE AUDIO | LIVE STATS | TICKETS
MOREHEAD, Ky. — Which mighty bird will be the victor Saturday? For Morehead State’s men’s hoops team, they believe it will be the Bald Eagle over the Golden Eagle as MSU continues Ohio Valley Conference action hosting Tennessee Tech at 3 p.m. ET.
The Eagles nearly made a comeback effort stand up Thursday but fell to Jacksonville State by four points to fall to 6-8 and 0-1. The TTU Golden Eagles enter the game with five straight unsuccessful results to their credit and are 3-11 overall and 0-1 in the league.
The game will air live on ESPN+ and WIVY-96.3 FM. Athletics will honor the accomplishments of Clearfield Elementary’s student body with Super Scholar Saturdays and 100 complimentary tickets for that local school.
GAME NOTES
• Morehead State leads the all-time series with Tennessee Tech 86-66. The Eagles own a three-game winning streak over TTU and have won five straight in the series in games played at Johnson Arena. Going back further, TTU has only won one time at MSU since 2005-06 with that being in 2014. MSU is 12-1 against Tech at home in the past 13 seasons.
• In the last four seasons, Morehead State has an above .500 record in games played in the month of January at 17-16.
• Freshman Tyzhaun Claude had a breakout game Thursday against Jacksonville State. In his first career start, the 6-9 forward scored a career-high 19 and pulled in a career-best 12 rebounds.
• Tyzhaun Claude’s 6.9 rebounds per game is the best rebounding average for a freshman in the OVC.
• Ta’lon Cooper is this week’s OVC Freshman of the Week. He had a perfect day against Alice Lloyd (Ky.) on Dec. 28, shooting 7-for-7 overall and 4-for-4 free throws for a career-high 20 points.
• Ta’lon Cooper owns the second-best three-point accuracy in the league at 48 percent.
• With six three-pointers made at Ohio, JordanWalker became just the second player in program history with at least 1,200 career points, 200 assists, 100 steals and 175 three-pointers made, with the only other player accomplishing that being Ricky Minard.
• Senior guard Djimon Henson has reached double figures in four consecutive games, averaging 19 per game in that span. His personal record for consecutive games in double figures is six during his sophomore season in 2017-18.
• MSU has three straight games with less than 10 turnovers. The Eagles’ four mistakes at William and Mary Nov. 26 was the lowest total for the program since the 2000-01 season.
• Junior guard Juice Thomas leads the OVC in steals with 35.
• MSU is 6-1 this year when holding a halftime lead.
• Morehead State has hit at least one three-pointer in 419 consecutive games. The last time the Eagles failed to drain one from distance was in 2007 against Jacksonville State.