Box Score By Kevin Farr
Murray State Sports Information
Aggie head coach Josh Davis was looking for a better defensive effort in Wednesday night's battle with unbeaten Hill College and his squad delivered in a big way.

Murray State put the clamps on the Rebels early to set the tone and continued that throttling performance throughout in a 65-48 men's basketball triumph inside Beames Fieldhouse.

Hill College entered the game at 5-0 on the season and averaging 79 points per contest but the Rebels were held to a season-low scoring effort, including a nearly eight-minute drought in the first half in which the Aggies fully took control.

"I was much happier with the defensive effort and rebounding effort tonight," Davis commented. "We were pretty tough on them after our last game performance, and they responded really well and showed a lot of improvement, so I was very happy. Our goal was to keep them out of the lane as much as possible and did a good job on that."

It was a 7-7 deadlock just over three minutes into the expected tight when Murray State turned up the defensive effort, which in turn resulted in a decisive 16-0 scoring run by the Aggies. RJ Chatman's jumper started the flurry and Elijah Tshibangu finished it over seven minutes later.

Hill never got within double figures again, narrowing the margin to 42-30 in the second half before being turned away for good with a 10-1 Aggie offensive spurt.

Chatman paced the balanced Aggie scoring with 14 points. Rustin Coffey tallied 13 and Brandon Ivery also reached double digits with 11.

Bol Agu and Tshibangu each contributed nine points, Chanon Frye scored seven with Ignas Juskevicius rounding out the scoring with two.

Murray State improved to 4-1 on the season and continues the five-game homestand on Saturday, facing Southwestern Christian College at 3 p.m.