Marshall University men’s basketball Head Coach Dan D’Antoni picked up his 99th win as the Herd defeated the Bluefield State Big Blues on Wednesday evening at the Cam Henderson Center, with a final score of 86-50.

The Herd found its way back into the winning column, picking up its third win of the season following a three-game losing streak. Marshall is now 3-6 overall in non-conference play.

“I’m trying to feel my way through pushing them and making sure they don’t lose their confidence,” D’Antoni said. “We’re a little fragile. I thought we started out well. I made two substitutions, and then we started missing all of our threes. I played a lot of people. When you play 11, 12 people in a half, there are a lot of different lineups and it’s hard to get into a rhythm.”

Junior guard Jarrod West led the Herd with 18 points, shooting 5-for-10 in field goals and 2-for-5 in three-pointers. West also had six steals, which is now a career-high to his previous five. Junior Mikel Beyers followed behind, with 13 points going 6-for-11 in field goals. Freshman Goran Miladinovic had 10 points and eight rebounds along with three blocks. Sophomore Taevion Kinsey had nine points and a game-high six assists.

“Again, I thought we kind of came out kind of flat,” West said. “We missed a lot of shots, and honestly I thought a lot of them were good shots. I think we did a really good job in the second half, from an effort and energy standpoint just playing a lot harder. We got to be able to sustain that for 40 minutes. We can’t come out flat anymore.”

For the Big Blues, Marquez Cooper completed 5-of-18 shots for 13 points. Chris Knight followed with 6-for-11 shooting and had 12 points. Zhahidi Robinson went 2-for-11 in field goals and 2-for-6 in three-pointers to total his points to eight.

Marshall had 14 blocks compared to Bluefield State’s two.

“I think that our defense was really good,” Miladinovic said. “I feel like that’s what got us playing better on offense. We have size now. We’re long, athletic and it’s just hard to play offense against us because we can cover and recover everything.”

Up next for the Herd, it will travel to Morehead, Kentucky and face the Morehead State Eagles on Monday, Dec. 16. Tipoff is set for 7 p.m. at Ellis T. Johnson Arena.

Taylor Huddleston can be contacted at [email protected].