Tulane University
Macmurray
Tarrant's 22 Lead Green Wave over MacMurray
Dec 10, 2011 | Men's Basketball
Dec. 10, 2011
NEW ORLEANS - Ricky Tarrant's 22 points led the Tulane men's basketball team in an 89-59 victory over MacMurray Saturday night in game three of the Skip Prosser Tournament hosted by the Green Wave in Fogelman Arena.
Tarrant scored 16 of his 22 in the opening half and 13 of the 14 Green Wave (10-1) players that played scored at least two points. Ben Cherry added a career-high 12 points and Kendall Timmons chipped in with 12 as well.
"Tonight was one of those games when I thought we had a little bit of a letdown," Tulane head coach Ed Conroy said. "I've got to give credit to MacMurray. They played very well tonight, but I wanted to see a lot of different guys get out there and play in different combinations. We were still able to do that, but there is a lot of guys I'd like to count on come January and February and I was hoping those combinations would have shown a little better."
MacMurray, a Division III school in Illinois, scored the first two points of the game, but their lead last less than a minute as Tulane proceeded to score the next 16 points of the game to take a commanding 16-2 lead with 12:01 minutes left in the half. The Highlanders did chipped away and were able to cut the deficit to three, 26-23, after Cole Busch's free throw with 5:28 left, but the Green Wave rattled off 13 straight points and eventually led by 20, 47-27, with less than a minutes to play in the half.
Cherry sparked that run with two of his game-high four 3-pointers. Tarrant also scored six points during the run.
Busch scored the opening basket of the half to cut the Tulane lead to 17 and the Highlanders never got any closer the rest of the way. Tulane's largest lead of the game, 31, came with 1:35 left after Lotanna Nwogbo scored two of his four points.
The Green Wave shot 49.3 percent from the floor, including knocking down 17 of 34 shots in the second half. Tulane also hit 12 of 16 free throws and made nine 3-pointers.
"We did a nice job on the defensive end of putting pressure on them and turning them over, but for us to give up 10 three's to the opponent and some of the inside scoring late in the shot clock was not good," Conroy said. "Those are two things we've been good at stopping all year."
MacMurray shot 44.7 percent from the floor for the game and drained 10 3-pointers. Tulane won the rebound battle, 41-26, and scored 25 points off 18 offensive boards. The Green Wave also forced 23 turnovers that led to 27 points.
Southern University won game one of the tournament Friday night, 66-57, over MacMurray. The Jaguars then fell to Jacksonville State on game two prior to Tulane's game, 55-50. The Green Wave will face Jacksonville State Sunday at 7 p.m. in Fogelman Arena in the final game of the tournament.
GAME NOTES - Ricky Tarrant scored in double figures for the seventh game this season with his 22 points tonight.
- Kendall Timmons reached double figures in scoring for the eighth time this season and the 50th time of his career with his 12 points tonight. Tonight's game was the 80th game of the junior's career.
- Ben Cherry knocked down a career-high 12 points tonight. It is the second double figure scoring game of his career. The junior hit four 3-pointers in the game, also a career-high.
- Dan Monckton's two points tonight are the first of his Tulane career.
