Herd stomps Rio Grande 119-77

Marshall Men’s Basketball came away with its second win of the season on Tuesday night with a 119-77 win over the Rio Grande Red Storm at the Cam Henderson Center.

The Herd was paced by senior forward Elijah Pittman’s 29 points, while redshirt-freshman point guard Kareem Canty registered his first career double-double with 18 points and 11 rebounds.

Marshall took advantage of a 2-2-1 press to keep the Red Storm off the scoreboard while providing easy opportunities for the Herd in the opening stages of the game. It took nearly 10 minutes for the Red Storm to get into double digits in scoring, and by that time, the Herd had already put 34 points on the scoreboard. Rio Grande was led by Jermaine Warmack’s 17 points.

Fouls were aplenty in the contest, as both teams were in the double-bonus by the 9:57 mark of the first half. Most of the fouls called fell into the portion of the rulebook which was amended this past offseason, making hand checks on the dribbler illegal. In the second half, both teams cleaned up the foul situation.

Head coach Tom Herrion says he was proud the Herd’s focus heading into the game.

“I’m very very pleased with the fact that this group was really locked in and ready to play tonight,” Herrion says. “Our offensive unselfishness is really really special right now. This group really shares the ball well, as evidenced by 28 assists on 45 field goals.”

There were times of sloppy play in the latter stages of the first half and again in the middle of the second half. Herrion attributes them to some personnel issues that shouldn’t be an issue later in the season.

“We played guys too many minutes in the first half,” Herrion says. “We were short-handed by Yous not being able to play tonight due to an academic obligation. His professor would not let him miss class to attend his basketball game tonight, so take him out of the rotation, plus we had early foul trouble with Boykins and Taylor and some other guys in foul trouble. I think we played Canty and Pittman too many minutes in the first half and some of that led to some poor defense.”

In those stretches of poor defense, the Red Storm was able to claw back into the game somewhat, but the Herd kept the lead at 20 or greater for the final 33:59 of play.

Two Herd players were able to register their first career points, as redshirt-freshman Austin Loop netted 11 points on three three-pointers and a slam dunk late in the first half, while Kevin McNair scored on a put-back layup.

“It felt good,” Loop says of his first career points. “It was exciting, but more than anything it was good to get the second win.”

The Herd’s stifling defense held Rio Grande to shooting just 39.7 percent for the game, compared to Marshall’s sizzling 62.5 percent from the floor. That Herd defense also forced Rio Grande into committing 16 turnovers, compared to just nine turnovers by Marshall. Marshall ended the game with a better than 3-to-1 assist-to-turnover ratio.

The Herd will hit the road for the first time this season on Sunday when it heads west on Interstate 64 to Morehead, Ky. for a 2 p.m. matinee against the Morehead State Eagles.

— Braxton Crisp





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