The Marshall University men’s basketball team picked up its third straight win over the Eastern Kentucky University Colonels on Thursday evening at the Cam Henderson Center, with a final score of 90-72.

Marshall improved to 5-6 on the season while Eastern Kentucky dropped to 3-8.

This marks Herd Head Coach Dan D’Antoni’s 101st win.

“I thought we played well,” D’Antoni said. “Came out a little shaky and didn’t make shots. Basketball is a game of making shots, and you got to make shots. I thought we had good looks. We started to settle down. The good thing about this year is when we shot so poorly, we’re down eight instead of 18, and that’s because we can defend. We rebound, we’re bigger and stronger.”

Sophomore Iran Bennett led the Herd with 21 points and 16 rebounds. Sophomore Taevion Kinsey followed behind with 19 points, six rebounds and four assists. Junior Darius George and freshman Marko Sarenac had 11 points apiece.

“They’re (EKU) a very good team,” Bennett said. “We just came out to play, that’s all it is. We played hard and everyone came with it. We kind of got a little slow start, but we started to pick it up. Everyone started to get in their rhythm. Everyone started hooping and we took off.”

The Herd completed 32-of-69 shots (46.4%) and held the Colonels to only making 23-of-64 shots (35.9%).

“Coach Dan said that teams that press don’t like to be pressed back,” Kinsey said. “We kind of picked it up on defense then we started to press. They started to turn the ball over, and we capitalized off a lot of turnovers.”

Marshall also outscored Eastern Kentucky in three pointers, making nine of 26 (34.6%), while the Colonels only made six of 21 (28.6%).

The Herd had 45 points in the paint while the Colonels had 30.

Eastern Kentucky outscored the Herd off turnovers netting 24 points, while Marshall had 14.

Marshall had 16 second chance points compared to the Colonels’ 15. Marshall also had 19 points off fast breaks whereas the Colonels had eight.

The Herd captured more bench points than Eastern Kentucky: 35-27.

Up next, Marshall will travel to Cedar Falls, Iowa to face the Northern Iowa Panthers (10-1) on Sunday, Dec. 22 at McLeod Center. Tipoff is set for 2 p.m. EST/ 1p.m. CST.

Taylor Huddleston can be contacted at [email protected].