Getty The Murray State Racers will visit the Jacksonville State Gamecocks.
The Jacksonville State Gamecocks will host the Murray State Racers at Pete Mathews Coliseum on Thursday for a matchup of the Ohio Valley Conference’s best teams.
The game is scheduled to start at 8:15 p.m. ET. While it won’t be broadcast nationally on television anywhere in the US, you can still watch a live stream of the game on your computer, phone, or streaming device via ESPN+, the new digital streaming service from ESPN (no cable required) that has exclusive coverage to dozens of college basketball games–and several other sports–every week.
You can start a free seven-day trial of ESPN+ right here, and you can then watch a live stream of the game on your computer via ESPN.com, or on your phone (Android and iPhone compatible), tablet, Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV, Chromecast, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, or other compatible streaming device via the ESPN app.
If you can’t watch live, all games — including Murray State vs JSU — that are streamed on ESPN+ are also available to be watched afterwards on-demand via ESPN.com or the ESPN app.
Murray State vs Jacksonville State Preview
The Racers are 16-3 overall and 7-1 in the OVC. Last week they suffered their first home loss, falling to Belmont 79-66. But they responded by hanging 100 points on Tennessee State in a 38-point win on Saturday.
Point guard Ja Morant scored 24 points to go with nine assists and four steals, going 11-of-14 from the free-throw line.
The sophomore is projected to be a lottery pick in the 2019 NBA Draft.
“The thing about Ja is I think a lot of people are wowed by his athleticism and his explosiveness and rightfully so, but his basketball IQ and his feel for the game, his court vision, are just off the charts,” Murray State head coach Matt McMahon recently told the The Courier-Journal. “It’s something you don’t see very often. The best thing about him is he makes everyone around him better.”
Morant is first in Division I with 10.5 assists per game, and his 24.1 points per game rank eighth. He averages 4.8 turnovers per game, but committed just two on Saturday.
The Gamecocks haven’t lost at home all season. They entered conference play with an 8-5 mark, but they’ve gone 7-1 in the OVC to keep pace with the Racers for first place.
On Saturday, they bounced back from their first conference loss (an 88-70 blowout at Eastern Kentucky) by edging Morehead State 77-71 on the road. Senior forward Jason Burnell scored 19 to go with 13 rebounds and four assists, and senior guard Detrick Mostella came off the bench to add 19 points of his own.
“Mostella came alive and made some big shots for us,” said Gamecocks head coach Ray Harper, according to The Decatur Daily.
Harper took over at Jacksonville State in 2016-17, guiding them to their second 20-win season since the school joined Division I in 1995, and first since 2002-03.
On the heels of a 23-win season a year ago, they’re now just five victories from hitting 20 for a third consecutive campaign.
“It’s not the Jacksonville State it used to be when they transitioned from Division II to Division I, and had a bad program for all those years,” McMahon said, according to WPSD. “They’re a really good team. They’ve got elite talent, and high level players. They’ve created a great environment there because they win. They’ve invested a lot of financial dollars into their basketball program to build it up. They’ve done a great job with that. Watching their home games on TV, it looks like a great atmosphere, great environment. It should be a lot of fun to play in on Thursday.”
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