BOX SCORE
MOREHEAD, Ky.— Morehead State men’s basketball opened the 2009-2010 exhibition season with a decisive 90-58 win over Cedarville Wednesday evening at Johnson arena in front of 2,012 fans.
Three MSU players tallied double figure scoring and junior
Kenneth Faried finished with a double-double to lead the Eagles. Morehead State coach
Donnie Tyndall got a look at 13 of his 16 players Wednesday, 12 of which scored.
“We did some good things tonight, but we also have some work to do on both ends of the floor,” Tyndall said. “I was happy that we came out ready to play tonight.”
The Yellow Jackets hung with MSU for the first 11 minutes of the first half, but an 11-2 Eagle run, punctuated by a pair of threes from senior
Maze Stallworth, opened up the home lead to 11. MSU held Cedarville to just five points in the final six minutes of the half, two on free throws by junior Matt Harner and three on a late 3-pointer by senior Brandon Sok. Stallworth scored 14 of his team-high 17 points in the first half on four triples to give MSU a 45-24 lead at the intermission.
Stallworth hit his fifth 3-pointer just 17 seconds into the second half and sophomore Terrance Hill followed with a 3-pointer 23 seconds later to push the MSU advantage to 27. Cedarville cut the lead to 24 five times in the second half, but did not get any closer.
Faried had two spectacular dunks en route to 14 points. He also had a game-high 13 rebounds, five assists and two steals. Hill finished with 13 points while junior
Demonte Harper and sophomore
Ty Proffitt also dished out five assists each. Senior
Brandon Shingles and junior
Sam Goodman each joined Faried with two steals.
Cedarville senior Ricardo Alliman had 18 points to lead all scorers. He was 6-of-8 from the field and nearly perfect from the line at 6-of-7. Alliman also had five rebounds for CU. Sok tallied 10 points for the Yellow Jackets and junior Derrick Hannon had three assists.
“Cedarville is a good, well-coached team,” Tyndall said. “They are coming off of a 27-win season and they did some things tonight that really tested us.”
Morehead State will host Asbury on Nov. 9 in its second exhibition at Johnson Arena at 7 p.m. The Eagles open the regular season at Kentucky on Nov. 13 at 6 p.m. That game will be televised live on ESPNU.