Austin Peay Govs vs. Tennessee Tech Golden Eagles
Thursday, February 15th, 2018 | 7:30pm CT
Clarksville, TN | Dunn Center
Clarksville, TN – Austin Peay State University men’s basketball team begins the final stretch of the 2017-18 regular season with a 7:30pm, Thursday, February 15th contest, presented by Chick-Fil-A, against Tennessee Tech in the Dunn Center.
Tennessee Tech, which has struggled since losing Aleksa Jugovic to injury, has lost three straight and narrowly escaped SIU Edwardsville with a 68-67 win back on February 1st.
The Govs, meanwhile, have won five of their last six and haven’t been beaten in the Dunn Center since December 22nd against Western Kentucky—against OVC foes, Austin Peay has won eight straight at home, dating back to February 4th, 2017.
Austin Peay will play three of its last four at home, hosting the Golden Eagles, Jacksonville State and Murray State, with a Thursday, February 22nd visit to SIUE accounting for the season’s final road match-up.
About the Tennessee Tech Eagles
In their last meeting with the Golden Eagles, Austin Peay snapped Serbian sharpshooter Aleksa Jugovic’s 24-game streak with a made three-pointer. However, he has been sidelined since the Murray State contest, January 13th, during which time the Golden Eagles have gone 5-5.
While Tennessee Tech has as much depth as any team in the league (five players average in double figures), Shaq Calhoun has stepped to the forefront, averaging 12.0 ppg and hitting 40.4 percent from three in the absence of the Golden Eagles top offensive threat.
The Golden Eagles are an opportunistic bunch on the defensive end, leading the league in steals at 7.7 per contest; Austin Peay, with its league-best plus-1.50 turnover margin, gave up just four steals to the Golden Eagles in the January 11th meeting, one of three times this season Tennessee Tech has secured fewer than five steals.
Last Time Out Against Tennessee Tech
Junior Chris Porter-Bunton scored a career-high 23 points but the Governors couldn’t secure their season’s first road win, dropping an 86-74 decision to the Eagles at the Eblen Center in Cookeville to snap a season-long four-game winning streak for the Govs.
Although the teams were fairly evenly-matched in terms of ball control, Tennessee Tech turned 15 Austin Peay turnovers into 24 points, while 11 Eagle turnovers yielded just 10 points for the Govs.
Keep An Eye On
A win would be Austin Peay’s first against Tennessee Tech in the Dunn Center since 2014.
Independent research pegs Terry Taylor as the only freshman in league history with 10 or more double-doubles in their first season; however, he has not recorded a double-double in his last two games and only one other time this season—December 6th-22nd, a span of four games—has Taylor gone longer than two games without recording a double-double.
A victory would guarantee Austin Peay a record of better than .500 in the regular season for the first time since 2010-11.
Taylor has six games with seven or more offensive rebounds this season; only UNC-Wilmington’s Devontae Cacok has equaled that among all players in the nation. He’s tied for 24th in offensive rebounds by a freshman since the 2009-10 season.
A victory would be the Govs seventh straight at home, Austin Peay’s longest home winning streak since 2007-08 (11 games).
The projected starting five of Taylor, Porter-Bunton, seniors Tre’ Ivory and Averyl Ugba and freshman Dayton Gumm are 13-5 this season.
Ivory picked up assist No. 100 on the season at Eastern Illinois in a seven-assist, no-turnover performance; he’s riding a streak of four straight games with an assist-to-turnover ratio of better than two-to-one.
Follow APSU Govs Online
Check back at LetsGoPeay.com and on Austin Peay’s Official Athletics Facebook page often for up-to-date news about all Governor athletics, as well as the Governor men’s basketball Twitter page (@AustinPeayMBB). Live stats will be available during this game courtesy of StatBroadcast.com, and all home games and Ohio Valley Conference games can be viewed on www.ovcdigitalnetwork.com.
Postgame video interviews and other videos from around APSU Athletics can be found on our YouTube page (www.youtube.com/letsgopeay).
