Defense Leads Tech Past Eagles Men, 73-60
January 19, 2004

Complete Box Score

What did the Ashland University basketball team need most Monday night (Jan. 19) at Kates Gymnasium?

Another rebounder? Another scorer or two?

How about an escape artist? Is Houdini still available?

Ashland couldn’t shake free of the Michigan Tech Huskies on the offensive end of the floor. The MTU defense hounded the Eagles all night and put AU in a deep first-half hole. That and the shooting of junior guard Jason Marcotte spelled a 73-60 win for the Huskies.

Marcotte led all players in the game with 21 points. All of his points came from beyond the three-point arc, he was 5-of-13 shooting from that distance.

Defensively, Marcotte put great pressure on the ball. AU outrebounded Tech, 33-27 but even when the Eagles got second shots, the attempts they put up came from bad angles and from in heavy traffic.

Michigan Tech pulled away from the Eagles midway through the first half. With 10:27 left before halftime the visitors led, 13-10. Tech outscored Ashland, 27-10 the remainder of the half and led, 40-20 at the break. Ashland shot just 29.6 percent over the first 20 minutes while Tech hit 15 of 24 shots from the field (62.5 percent) and four of six tries from three-point range (66.7 percent). The Eagles ended the evening at 38.3 percent (18-47). It didn’t help that Ashland made only 16 of 27 tries (59.3 percent) at the free throw line.

Marcotte was supported inside by senior forward Josh Buettner, who had 17 points. As of last week, Buettner was the GLIAC leading scorer at just over 21 points per game.

Junior guard Michael Fowler and freshman forward Greg Emmons had 14 points apiece for Ashland. Freshman guard Chris Newell had 12 points.

Fowler and freshman forward Greg Mayes had six rebounds each for AU. Radayl Richardson paced MTU with eight boards.

Ashland had 13 turnovers and Tech made the Eagles pay dearly for those mistakes. The visitors led in points off of turnovers, 15-6. Tech shot 50 percent (25-50) from the floor, 77.8 percent (14-of-18) at the charity stripe and connected on nine of 21 long-range bombs (42.9 percent).