Limited Attendance Allowed During Final MTSU Basketball Games of the Season; Lady Raiders Sit at 11–4

In February, MTSU basketball teams will once again have the sound of cheering fans in the stands after Director of Athletics Chris Massaro announced on Jan. 30 that doors would reopen to a limited number of fans at indoor university sporting events.

“We’re very excited to have our season ticket holders back at Blue Raider sporting events,” Massaro stated. “Their support means the world to all of us, but especially to our student athletes and coaches, and we’ve missed their presence greatly.”

The re-opening of Murphy Center for sporting events will be limited to 10 percent capacity and will initially include only season ticket holders and MTSU students.

Men’s and women’s tennis at the Adams Tennis Complex and volleyball matches at Alumni Memorial Gymnasium will also open to limited capacity.

“I’m ecstatic to have fans return to Murphy Center,” head women’s basketball coach Rick Insell said.

Men’s and women’s basketball squads will each have four home games in February before their seasons end. The Murphy Center will host a game every Friday and Saturday in February.

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The women’s team will enter the month at 11–4 on the season.

Anastasia Hayes comes into the final month of the season leading the entire nation in scoring, averaging 28.1 points per game.

The sensational junior guard poured in a career-high 42 points as the Lady Raiders won a riveting overtime contest at University of Alabama at Birmingham on Jan. 28. In addition to the eye-popping 42 points, Hayes also had a career-high six 3-pointers (on eight attempts) and tied her career high with six steals, while also dishing out four assists and collecting three rebounds.

MTSU needed every one of her points to capture the road win; the team ended up three points ahead of its opponent at the end of overtime.

“I just told our team going into overtime that we were not going to lose this game,” Hayes said. “We had worked too hard and we just battled. We came together and did what we had to do to get this done. I’m so proud of our team.”

Earlier in the month, MTSU took a seven-game winning streak into Southern Mississippi, but a Golden Eagle rally snapped the streak.

The team got right back to winning, though. MTSU swept rival Western Kentucky in two games at Diddle Arena in Kentucky.

“It feels great to get out of here with two wins,” Insell said. “It’s never easy to win at Diddle Arena so to get two wins in two days is pretty special for our group of young ladies. They just battled, worked hard, executed, got after loose balls.”

Contributions from Deja Cage have helped MTSU find its groove as well. As of Jan. 29, Cage had hit 35 3-point field goals on the season and had three games of at least 20 points.

“This is a shooting team, and I’m a shooter, that’s what I do,” Cage said. “The type of offense that we have is something that I’ve done before, so it hasn’t been hard for me to jump in and get things rolling.”

Cage transferred last summer to Middle Tennessee from Ole Miss, where she spent the last two seasons after beginning her college career at her hometown school, DePaul in Chicago.

In addition to bringing her sweet shooting stroke to Murfreesboro, Cage also brought her leadership qualities and cool-headedness. In the Lady Raiders’ first taste of C-USA competition this season, a back-to-back against FAU, the team found itself trailing by 10 with six minutes left in the fourth quarter.

After whittling the lead all the way down, MT took possession with 23 seconds remaining. Anastasia Hayes bled the clock before taking off down the lane, where she was met by a couple of defenders, leaving Cage wide open on a backdoor cut. Cage received the pass and calmly put in a layup with .9 showing on the clock, clinching a 66–64 victory.

Then, six days later in the Blue Raiders’ first of two games at FIU, Cage hit a clutch free throw with 18 seconds left to help secure a 69–65 win. They responded the next day with a season high in points in a 99–89 victory against FIU.

“It’s been an exciting start to our conference season, for sure,” Cage said.

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The Blue Raiders men’s team was not able to find the success and consistency the women’s team did in January.

After a tough conference-opening loss to Florida International, MTSU responded in a big way in the second game of that series on Jan. 9.

The Blue Raiders got out to a 22-point lead in the first 10 minutes and cruised to a 67—56 victory over FIU.

“To be able to come out of here with a good win, I was really proud of our group,” head coach Nick McDevitt said following that contest.

But the men’s team could not keep up the momentum, and dropped six consecutive games, two apiece against Southern Mississippi, Western Kentucky and UAB.

“We just couldn’t get open looks to fall,” McDevitt said after the second loss against Southern Miss.

In the first game against UAB, MTSU held a 10-point lead with under 10 minutes to play, but the Blazers erased the deficit and took over with a 29–8 run to close out a 70–59 road win.

Still, in the midst of the losses, McDevitt said he was not disappointed in his team’s fight and resiliency.

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