The Marshall Thundering Herd jumped on Virginia Tech’s men’s basketball team in the first half, bolted to a 38-21 half time lead, then held on down the stretch to beat the Hokies 59-58 in Huntington Saturday afternoon. The shocking loss drops the Hokies to 9-4 on the season, while Marshall improves to just 4-8 on the year.
Jamon Gordon hit a jumper to put the Hokies up 9-8 with 15:39 left in the first half, but Marshall then stuck a 29-8 run on the Hokies to go up 38-17. Tech scored the last four points of the first half to make it 38-21 at the break, then stormed back in the second half and took a 56-55 lead with 1:50 to go on two free throws by Jamon Gordon. But Marshall scored the next four points, and a late layup by Coleman Collins made the final score 59-58.
The Hokies were led by Zabian Dowdell with 17 and Gordon with 12. Tech’s top rebounder was Collins with a season-high 14 boards in just 22 minutes, but the Hokies were outrebounded by the smaller Herd, 46-39. Marshall had 19 offensive rebounds and outscored Tech in second-chance points, 16-14.
In a game that was balanced statistically in many ways, the one stat that doomed the Hokies was poor three-point shooting. Tech hit just 1 of 14 three-pointers, while Marshall connected on 6 of 23.
The Hokies return to action Wednesday night, January 3rd, when they host Richmond in Cassell Coliseum.
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