By Shelly Baskin
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/wkms/local-wkms-999104.mp3
Murray, KY – The Murray State Racers men's basketball team is off to their best start since 1936. The undefeated Racers are ranked 19th in the country, and fans are excited about what that could mean for the team. Shelly Baskin took a look at the team to find out what a 15 and 0 start means for Murray State and the Racers.
A crowd of around nearly 6,000 cheer as Racers' starting guard Donte Poole capitalizes on steal with a lay-up to put the team in the lead against the OVC's first place Eastern Kentucky Colonels. Poole and the rest of the Racers turned that lead into a 9 point win Wednesday night, taking first place in the OVC and putting the Racers at 15-0 for the season. It's a start that has fans like Murray State student Corey Stephens excited.
"I think that they've shown, like, that they're good enough to, you know, run with the big teams such as Memphis and teams such as that," he says.
Other fans are looking forward to the OVC and NCAA tournaments already. Murray State Junior Chase Collomp says he thinks the solid start will pay off at the end of the season. He says,
"I hope we go undefeated and everything and get an at-large bid even if we don't win the OVC. I feel like we'll get a pretty good at-large bid at the end of the year."
Typically, a mid-major D-1 college team needs to win their individual conference tournament to get a bid to the NCAA tournament, but schools that have a great record, are ranked nationally, but don't win their conference tournament often get an at-large bid. It is anybody's guess at this point in the season if MSU will go to the "dance."
But no matter what happens, the attention that Murray State gets from the basketball team's success is a huge boost for the university. Murray State's Assistant Vice-President of Communications Catherine Sivills says when the 13 seeded Racers upset 4 seed Vanderbilt in the 2010 NCAA tournament, traffic to the school's website exploded.
"Right after the win happened our service crashed because I think so many people went to the Murray State page and accessed our website," she says.
Sivills says that for a school Murray's size, that kind of attention is normally out of reach. She says after the MSU Vanderbilt game they did an analysis of the media value for the university. The results were surprising.
"It was in the millions of dollars of money spent, you know equal to spending if we were purchasing ads and things like that on national networks," she says.
The top 25 Associated Press ranking has had the same effect this year. Sivills estimates the team's rank this season will be worth millions of dollars in advertising to reach out to future Murray State students. But for current students like Corey Stephens, the most important thing is pride. Corey says,
"It's hard to believe that, you know, a small school like Murray is ranked 20th in the nation. You know, that just doesn't happen much. And to see, like, them on SportsCenter every morning, it's great. It makes you proud to be a Racer."
But while others are looking at the big picture, Racers' Coach Steve Prohm and the players are taking it one step at a time, focusing on adjusting to playing their second game without senior forward Ivan Aska this Saturday against Austin Peay. Prohm says,
"Peay's very good. They got two or three guys that are probably all-league players, or will end up being all-league players. They're gonna be chompin' at the bit for this game, so we're gonna have to be prepared in every aspect of the game."
The Racers tip off in a typically very hostile "Dunn" center in Clarksville tomorrow evening at 7 p.m.