Brown's 31 pts leads Murray St. past UT Martin 98-77

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Murray State's Morant clears defender for insane dunk

Probable lottery pick Ja Morant leaps over his defender on the vicious throwdown for Murray State.

Jan 11, 2019, 04:31 am

MARTIN, Tenn. -- Tevin Brown scored a career-high 31 points shooting 9 of 14 from 3-point range and Murray State beat UT Martin 98-77 Thursday night for its fourth straight win.

Murray State (12-2, 3-0 Ohio Valley Conference) is off to its best start since the 2011-12 season when the Racers started 23-0. They finished the year 31-2, losing to West Region No. 3-seed Marquette 62-53 in the third round of the NCAA Tournament.

Fresh off being named OVC player of the week, and selected to the Top 25 Wooden Award watch list, Ja Morant scored 26 points and distributed a career-high 18 assists for Murray State. UT Martin (5-9, 0-3) finished with 19 assists. Morant entered the game leading the nation in assists per game at 9.9 (129 in 13 games).

The Racers led 49-42 at halftime and used a 14-6 run in the first four minutes of the second half to make it 63-48 on Morant's dunk and led by double figures the rest of the way.

Shaq Buchanan scored 21 and the Racers finished 15 of 31 from 3-point range.

Quintin Dove led UT Martin with 27 points and Jailen Gill added 21.