Marshall men’s basketball drops home contest to WKU

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Richard Crank

Marshall basketball player Taevion Kinsey floats to the basket for a dunk.

Marshall University went up against the WKU Hilltoppers on Wednesday evening where the Hilltoppers defeated the Herd with the final score 64-60.

The Herd dropped to 9-11 (3-4 Conference USA) on the season, while the Hilltoppers moved up 13-6 (6-1 C-USA).

“You saw us at our best and you saw us at not so good,” Herd Head Coach Dan D’Antoni said. “We will go back at them again Saturday, again this is going to be an up and down season with this team.”

Marshall won the tipoff by sophomore Taevion Kinsey and the first point to be scored in the Cam Henderson Center was by freshman Marco Sarenac with a 3-pointer. The Herd played strong throughout the first half of the game ending at 39-25 with a 14-point lead on the Hilltoppers. Redshirt sophomore Iran Bennett put up 10 points, followed by Sarenac with seven points and junior Jarrod West with five points.

As the second half rolled around, the Hilltoppers gained points and WKU eventually tied the game 58-58 with a 3-pointer shot by Jared Savage. For the first time, the Hilltoppers took the lead was in the second half of the game at 5:08 with the score of 60-58. The shot to take the lead was made by freshman Jordan Rawls. The Hilltoppers kept the lead until the end and finished out the game 64-60.

“They didn’t do anything that we didn’t know that they were going to do,” West said. “They came out in the second half, did the same thing. It’s not like they changed anything.”

Bennett had the team high with 14 points and WKU’s Taveion Hollingsworth finished with the team high of 20 points. Marshall ending the game with 21 turnovers while WKU finished with 14.

Marshall went 24-for- 53 (45%) from the field and 6-for-19 (32%) from the 3-point line while WKU went 22-for-55 (40%) from the field and 8-for-21 (38%). The Herd was 6-for-8 (75%) from the free throw line and the Hilltoppers went 12-for-15 (80%).

The Thundering Herd will be back in action on Saturday Jan. 25 at Western Kentucky. Tipoff is set for 7:30 p.m. at E.A. Diddle Arena.

Stormy Randazzo can be contacted at [email protected].