Marshall basketball back at it ...

[IE]

Marshall basketball back at it tonight vs. Eastern Illinois


Marshall?s schedule will take a little Eastern swing this week.

The Thundering Herd will kick off the Global Sports Classic tonight with a campus-site game against Eastern Illinois. Tip-off from the Cam Henderson Center will be 7 p.m.

On Saturday, Eastern Kentucky will visit Huntington as the second of a three-game homestand over six nights.
It?s back to the GSC on Monday against N.C. Central.
All three games will start at 7 p.m.

As for tonight, Marshall (0-6) is still looking for its first win of the year. Second-year coach Dan D?Antoni?s squad is coming off a 107-84 loss at James Madison, its second loss to the Dukes in nine days.

As Marshall tries to avoid the worst start in program history, D?Antoni lamented the lack of chemistry his team is fighting through at the moment.

?We?ve been playing against veteran teams and it?s a young team that we have,? D?Antoni said. ?We?ll see what happens. ? We ran into a good ball club. We have to give them credit. They played well. They?ve been through the wars together, and we haven?t.?

Of the five players averaging at least 20 minutes a night, only two played last season. Ryan Taylor is second on the team in scoring (14.0 points per game) and rebounding (6.7), and guard Austin Loop averages 7.0 ppg.

 

[IE]

Eastern Illinois University is the first Marshall Thundering Herd men's basketball opponent this season with a losing record, although the Panthers won their last two to get to 2-4.

Eastern Illinois visits winless Marshall (0-6) at 7 p.m. Wednesday in Cam Henderson Center.

"We've been playing against veteran teams and it's a young team that we have," second-year Marshall head coach Dan D'Antoni said Sunday after the Herd lost at James Madison University, 107-84.


Marshall started the season 0-6 for the first time since 1964-65 when coach Ellis Johnson's club lost its first six on the way to a 4-20 finish.

The Eastern Illinois-Marshall contest is part of the Global Sports Classic, an eight-team event that also has the Herd playing host to North Carolina Central on Monday, Dec. 14, and going to Las Vegas for games against Wyoming (Dec. 21) and either Houston or Grand Canyon (Dec. 22).

Other teams in the Global Sports Classic are Southern and Omaha. Games are Dec. 8-19 at campus sites and Dec. 21-22 at Cox Pavilion in Las Vegas.

James Madison (7-3) also won Nov. 27 at Marshall (89-75) and Sunday's victory completed a season sweep.

"They're (JMU) an accomplished team," D'Antoni said. "They came back from 12-6 in the Colonial (Athletic Association) and had everybody returning. They're all familiar with what they're doing. They're all veterans. We're neophytes."

Eight of the 13 players Marshall used Sunday are in their first NCAA Division I season.

Senior forward James Kelly (21 points, 11 rebounds) is a University of Miami transfer, forward Ryan Taylor (19 points) is a junior, guard Stevie Browning (15 points) is a junior transfer from Fairmont State University in Division II, forward Ajdin Penava (12 points) is a freshman and guard Austin Loop (nine points) is a junior.

Once you get by Taylor and Loop the Herd really doesn't have anybody that played last year, D'Antoni said.

Youthful inexperience has been a problem, but so has the lack of making shots.

Marshall is a 38.8 percent field goal shooting team and Sunday's 7-for-36 performance on 3-point attempts dropped the season team mark to 25.4 percent.

"Hopefully we're going to turn that tide and when we start shooting the ball we'll be fine," D'Antoni said. "But we have to be able to shoot the basketball. We're putting too much pressure on our defense."

The 6-foot-7 Kelly leads the Herd with 15.8 scoring and 8.8 rebounding averages and Taylor (6-5) is next at 14.0 and 6.7 respectively. Browning averages 13.8 points and 4.8 assists per game. Freshman guard C.J. Burks adds 8.7 points and Loop scores seven a game.

Eastern Illinois, an Ohio Valley Conference team from Charleston, Ill., opened with a string of losses to Indiana (88-49), Ball State (73-56), Western Illinois (83-63) and Green Bay (81-72) before head coach Jay Spoonhour's team got it together with victories against Indiana State (68-62) and Northern Kentucky (79-73).

A.J. Riley, a 6-4 junior, and 6-5 senior Trae Anderson are the Panthers' scoring leaders with 15.0 and 13.5 averages respectively. Riley and Anderson both average 4.7 rebounds to lead the team.