EVANSVILLE, IN. — (ESPN CLARKSVILLE) Monstrous performances from senior Averyl Ugba and freshman Terry Taylor simply could not offset a white-hot shooting performance from Belmont, which brought Austin Peay’s stay in the 2018 Ohio Valley Conference Men’s Basketball Tournament to an end in the semifinals with a 94-79 defeat.
The Govs put the final touches to the OVC slate by proving wrong every doubter. Austin Peay, picked to finish 11th in the preseason coaches poll and dead last by the media, instead turned in an 18-14 record, finishing third in the regular season and making its second appearance in the conference tournament semifinals in the last three seasons.
It was an inauspicious beginning for the Governors, who missed their first six shots and committed five turnovers before senior Averyl Ugba got the Govs on the board with a jumper at the 15:14 mark. Similar to Thursday night’s quarterfinal matchup against Eastern Illinois, Austin Peay’s early struggles staked its opponent to a sizable lead, with Belmont reeling off the game’s first 13 points.
A banked-in three from the top of the key from freshman Terry Taylor gave Austin Peay its first spark, and the Govs ripped off a 17-8 run of their own, cutting the deficit four on another triple from the pride of Bowling Green High. Taylor finished the half with a team-high 12 points and put Austin Peay in prime position to close out strong in the opening 20 minutes.
On the defensive end, Belmont’s motion offense created post mismatches, which the Bruins exploited late in the half for multiple inside looks; the beneficiary was Tyler Hadden—the 6-10 senior, whose previous career-high was 13 points, scored 14 in the first half against the Govs, and Belmont took a 45-34 lead into the break.
Austin Peay got good looks in the second half, hitting 51.7 percent (15-of-29) as a team from the floor. In a normal game, that would’ve certainly given the Govs a good opportunity at getting back in the contest and making a second-half push, especially given Zach Glotta’s second-half effort, which included eight of his 11 points off the bench.
However, this game featured Belmont’s Amanze Egekeze turning into a real-life NBA Jam character. Egekeze hit eight second-half three-pointers en route to a game-high 32 points; while Ugba and Taylor, the low-post duo which have defined the 2017-18 campaign for the Governors, both scored 20 in the same game for the first time as Governors—Taylor with 25 and Ugba with 23, while combining for 17 rebounds—Egekeze hit his first nine attempts from three, and was buffeted by sterling efforts from Austin Luke (18 points, 13 assists) and Dylan Windler (14 points, 12 rebounds).