The men’s basketball team looked like a team possessed in Friday night’s Ohio Valley Conference semi-final game against the Murray State Racers, jumping out to a 22-9 lead and never looking back.

Behind 27 points from Henry Domercant and a game-high 28 points from Kyle Hill the Panthers were able to destroy the Racers 97-71.

Eastern dominated in every aspect of the game, including out-rebounding Murray State 46-25. Center Jan Thompson led the

Panthers with 10 rebounds while freshman Ryan Kelly added seven.

“This was a very focused effort and I sensed it in our morning shoot around,” Panther head coach Rich Samuels said.

“Where we did a better job than ever before was on the boards. Murray’s always been an aggressive rebounding team, and we were able to keep them completely off the boards.”

“We lost this game on the boards,” Racer head coach Tevester Anderson said. “I didn’t think they could out rebound us, but they did.”

The Panthers were also able to have their way with Murray State’s back court. The combination of Hill, Domercant and Matt Britton outscored the Racer guards 81 to 38.

“Our defense did not get the job done,” Anderson said. “This is one of the best offenses in the country and we just didn’t compete on every play like we had to.”

The Panther defense accomplished its goal of trying to contain first team All-OVC player Isaac Spencer and not let Murray beat the Eastern defense from the perimeter.

The last time these two teams hooked up on Feb. 10, in Murray, it was the three point shooting of Racers Justin Burdine and Chris Shumate that erased an early Eastern lead and eventually lead Murray to a 92-77 victory. But the two guards shot a combined 5 for 19 thanks to an aggressive Panther defense.

“Our defense did a solid job all night,” Samuels said. “We made them earn every basket and really extended our defense to protect against the three.”

The game marked the first time that Murray had a 20 point loss in the tournament since 1949, and the first time the Racers would not be in the title game in 11 years.

“We were surprised to get such a big lead,” Hill said. “This was the best we’ve played all year, and we did the things we needed to do to win.”