Defense carries Bears to win against Evansville

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Scott Puryear – for the O-Zone
 
It was an effort that was considered pleasing to Missouri State coach Paul Lusk in every facet except one – all those shots that wouldn’t fall on a 33-percent shooting night.
 
But even that can be overlooked when the other team doesn’t make very many, either. Or, at least, very many when they needed them most.
 
Such was the case for Lusk’s Bears on Wednesday night, when Missouri State built some breathing room in the second half and then fought off every Evansville charge to pick up a 55-51 victory over the Purple Aces in Missouri Valley Conference play at JQH Arena.
 
On a night when the Bears (12-6, 3-2 in the MVC) and Aces (10-8, 1-4) combined to miss 67 of their 107 shot attempts, it was almost fitting that a wild miss turned out to be the game’s most pivotal – and just kind of weird – play.
 
Missouri State, which snapped a two-game losing streak with the win, led 52-51 when Dequon Miller stepped to the line and made two free throws with 9.7 seconds left to push the lead to three. Off the ensuing in-bounds play, Evansville senior standout Jaylon Brown fired a shot from about 60 feet – with 7 seconds still left on the clock. At first glance, it likely appeared to the crowd that Brown might have lost track of time and fired it in desperation. 
Yet, upon further examination, Miller had charged Brown, hoping to get called for the non-shooting foul and forcing the Aces to the line down three with two free throws to shoot. Brown then tried to get a shot off from beyond half-court, hoping the referee would say he was in the act of shooting and give him three free throws and a chance to tie it at the line.
All great intentions on both sides … except, there was no whistle, no foul called.
So Brown’s heave bounced out-of-bounds on the baseline. The Bears took possession, Miller was fouled and made one of his two free throws to push the lead to four (55-51) with 3.2 seconds left, and there’s your ballgame.
“I was actually trying to foul, but we got blessed when the referee didn’t call it,” Miller said with a smile, later admitting that in his eyes, he did commit a foul. 
“But I fouled him before he threw up that shot.”
Evansville coach Marty Simmons said he didn’t see the final shot. “We’ll watch it on tape … we watch too much NBA.”
“I thought we did a good job of executing down the stretch, particularly when compared to the other night at Drake. We had the right guys in the right spots taking the right shots. Just give Missouri State credit, they made a play or two more than we did. But I’m proud of our guys. From where we’d been the last couple of times out, we competed tonight, and that’s the way we have to play to have a chance.”
Missouri State led by as many as 15 points in the second half before the Aces charged back on a couple of occasions. But each time, including a run to make it a three-point deficit twice very late (between the three and five-minute mark), it was Miller who stepped up to keep the Bears with some cushion with a 3-pointer one time, a fadeaway 14-footer the other.
‘(Miller) was our rock out there,” Lusk said. 
Jarrid Rhodes led the Bears with 14 points, while Miller finished with 13 points to go with five assists and no turnovers in 35 minutes. 
Alize Johnson added a game-high 16 rebounds and scored nine points for MSU, which claimed a 39-30 rebounding edge to help overcome a 33-percent shooting night (19 of 57), that included an 8-for-23 effort from 3-point range (35 percent and 9 of 17 at the free-throw line (53 percent).
“I was so pleased with our effort, our defensive intensity, our taking care of the ball … a great win for us,” Lusk said. 
“I thought we really guarded. And I thought we had excellent offense, too. We just didn’t make some shots. We had really good looks .. we missed a lot of easy ones.
“To play against Evansville and to guard them for that long takes a lot out of you, but our guys did some very good things out there.”
Brown and Ryan Taylor finished with 19 points each to lead the Aces, who made 21 of 50 shots (42 percent), but were 2 of 8 from the line.
The Bears made 8 of 34 shots in the opening half Evansville just 7 of 21 as MSU grabbed a 22-16 lead at the halftime break.
Missouri State returns to action Friday at Loyola-Chicago on Sunday and Indiana State next Wednesday before returning home to face Bradley on Saturday, Jan. 21 at The Q (2 p.m.).

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