Murray State (20-4, 11-2) vs. Eastern Kentucky (11-15, 4-9)
McBrayer Arena, Richmond, Kentucky; Saturday, 7 p.m. EST
BOTTOM LINE: Murray State looks for its sixth straight win in the head-to-head series over EKU. Murray State has won by an average of 9 points in its last five wins over the Colonels. Eastern Kentucky's last win in the series came on March 7, 2014, an 86-83 win.
LEADING THE CHARGE: Eastern Kentucky's Nick Mayo has averaged 23.1 points and 8.5 rebounds while Jomaru Brown has put up 13.6 points. For the Racers, Ja Morant has averaged 24.3 points, 5.4 rebounds and 10 assists while Shaq Buchanan has put up 13.3 points, 4.6 rebounds and two steals.
OFFENSIVE THREAT: Morant has either made or assisted on 58 percent of all Murray State field goals over the last five games. The sophomore guard has 40 field goals and 42 assists in those games.
PASSING FOR POINTS: The Racers have recently gotten buckets via assists more often than the Colonels. Eastern Kentucky has 31 assists on 69 field goals (44.9 percent) over its previous three contests while Murray State has assists on 46 of 93 field goals (49.5 percent) during its past three games.
DID YOU KNOW: The Murray State offense has scored 82.3 points per game this season, ranking the Racers 23rd among Division I teams. The Eastern Kentucky defense has allowed 82.6 points per game to opponents (ranked 312th overall).
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This was generated by Automated Insights, http://www.automatedinsights.com/ap, using data from STATS LLC, https://www.stats.com
