(St. Louis, MO) – During an important Saturday for the Missouri Valley Conference, big time players were spectacular at crunch time. Northern Iowa’s Jeremy ‘Captain’ Morgan played perhaps the best half of basketball in the 110 year history of the Valley.
With the game on the line in Oklahoma City, Wichita State’s Daishon Smith was outstanding against Oklahoma, but ‘The Captain’ set a whole new standard for the Valley history books.
The preseason player of the year didn’t score a point in the first half of UNI’s game with North Dakota. Morgan missed five shots in the first half and grabbed just two rebounds, and the Panthers trailed by four points. Then ‘The Captain’ showed up. Morgan outscored the Fighting Hawks all by himself, scoring 38 second half points and grabbing nine more rebounds.
Read It’s Time for Captain Morgan to Shine from midmajormainess.com
Morgan’s fourth career double-double sparked UNI (5-4) to a 78-70 victory. The 6’5 senior fell two points shy of the UNI single game scoring record, and set a McLeod Center mark with 16 made free throws.
Wichita’s Smith was scoreless in the first half of the Shockers’ game with Oklahoma and WSU trailed by two points. Smith’s 13 second half points combined with Zach Brown’s 17 points and Shaq Morris’ five blocked shots, led the Shockers (9-2) to a 76-73 victory over Oklahoma (6-3).
Illinois State took a different approach. Nobody stood out during the Redbird wire-to-wire win over UT Martin. For the third time this season ISU (5-3) had five different players score in double figures. Four of them tied for the team lead with 12 points each.
Milton Doyle (loyolaramblers.com)
Evansville and Loyola both saw a pair of players reach the 20-point plateau. Jaylon Brown (24) and Ryan Taylor (20) were outstanding in Evansville’s dominating win over Murray State (78-46), while Milton Doyle (22) and Aundre Jackson (21) turned the trick for the Ramblers. Doyle has reached double figures in each of Loyola’s (9-2) eleven games, but it was his first time to reach 20 points since his 21 scored on the opening night of the season.
With those victories, RealTimeRPI moved Wichita State to 69th, Northern Iowa has improved to 82nd and Illinois State to 84th. Loyola jumped 25 places to 146. Despite their loss, Southern Illinois is fifth in the league and 118th nationally and idle Indiana State ranks 111th.
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