Middle Tennessee men’s basketball (11-8, 5-3 CUSA) lost to conference opponent Jacksonville State University (10-9, 5-3 CUSA) 75-58.
The Blue Raiders started the game slow, quickly finding themselves trailing by 15 points at the 10-minute mark of the first half.
“They got to do really what they wanted for most of the night,” head coach Nick McDevitt said postgame on WGNS radio. “Offensively the ball went where I’m sure they diagramed it to go, we just weren’t disruptive at all.”
Fouls began to plague Middle Tennessee early as center Chris Loofe quickly picked up two personal fouls. In his place, freshman Luka Jovanovic played 14 minutes in the first half going 3-for-3 for six points in the first half.
“He gave us some toughness,” McDevitt said. “He was able to get to the rim and the paint and made good decisions in there.”
The offense got going for the Blue Raiders late in the first half as Tre Green knocked down three shots from behind the arc to cut the Gamecock lead in half.
Kamari Lands added another seven points to the scoreboard for Middle Tennessee to make it a five point game with the Gamecocks leading 39-34 going into the half.
Any momentum the Blue Raiders gained going into the second half quickly diminished with Jax State guard Mostapha El Moutaouakkil putting up six points straight out of the half.
Moutauakkil was a problem for the Middle Tennessee defense as he finished the game with 20 points while going 8-for-11 in free throws.
Lands continued to produce offensively for the Blue Raiders by putting up 15 points on the day while going 4-for-13 from the field and knocking down four free throws.
Middle Tennessee’s offense began to stall later in the half due to foul trouble. Both Lands and Torey Alston finished the game with four fouls apiece.
Jax State keyed in on Alston on the offensive end, as the redshirt sophomore played only 20 minutes where he was held to two points.
Middle Tennessee will head back to Murfreesboro to host CUSA’s top team, the Liberty University Flames (16-3, CUSA 8-0) on Thursday, Jan. 29th.
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