Featured Photo by Cameron Wimberly/MTSU Athletics
Story by Calvin White
Middle Tennessee men’s basketball led by as many as 29 points Saturday afternoon on its way to a 63-48 thrashing of Louisiana Tech in the last home game of the season at the Murphy Center.
MTSU (18-11, 11-7 C-USA) suffocated the Bulldogs for most of the afternoon on defense, holding Louisiana Tech to 5-for-26 from the field at one point. The effort on the defensive end led to results on the offensive end as the Blue Raiders strung together a series of runs to take a 20-point lead into the halftime break.
Louisiana Tech attempted to make a comeback by going on a 15-0 run in the second half but it proved to not be enough as the Blue Raiders coasted comfortably to victory.
“They don’t quit, they don’t go away,” MTSU head coach Nick McDevitt said of Louisiana Tech. “We looked at some of their scores in games over the last week to two weeks where they were down double-digit deficits and cut it four late in the game. We got up 29 and then we were kind of going through motions for four or five minutes. Outside of those four or five minutes, I thought we had a lot of guys that played well.”
Elias King led MTSU with 13 points while also pulling down 10 rebounds for his second career double-double. Eli Lawrence (12) and Justin Bufford (11) were also in double figures for the Blue Raiders. Deandre Dishman scored three points and dished out three assists in his final home game at Middle Tennessee.
“It was surreal,” Dishman said of his last home game as a Blue Raider. “Just feeling the energy from the fans and all the support. They’ve seen me through the downs, they’ve seen me through the ups since I’ve been here. It feels good to get that appraisal from the fans.”
With the win, Middle Tennessee secures a top five seed in Conference USA and with it, a bye in the first round of the conference tournament in Frisco, TX. The Blue Raiders have one last road trip to take for the last two regular season games. MTSU travels to Texas to take on North Texas and UTEP before the Conference USA tournament.
Calvin White is the sports editor for MTSU Sidelines. If you have information for a story, you can contact him at wcwhite2002@gmail.com.
