No college basketball team has finished the regular season without a loss since the 2003-04 St. Joseph’s Hawks finished 27-0 behind Jameer Nelson. That didn’t work out all that well for St. Joe’s as it then lost its Atlantic-10 Tournament opener by 20 points to Xavier as the nation’s No. 1 team. St. Joe’s still got a No. 1 seed for the NCAA Tournament but was knocked out in the Elite Eight.
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The NCAA considers conference tournaments part of the regular season, so thus no team has entered the NCAA Tournament unbeaten since UNLV in 1991 – of course that year the Rebels were shocked by Duke in the Final Four. I bring this up because there is one remaining unbeaten in college basketball this year, and it’s quite possible that Murray State does run the table entering the Big Dance. The No. 9 Racers put their 20-0 mark on the line Saturday night against  and are big home favorites on Bovada’s NCAA basketball odds.
Murray State is about to get better as well. Starting forward and All-Ohio Valley Conference playerIvan Aska has been cleared to return after missing the past six games with a broken right hand. Aska averaged 12.6 points and six rebounds in his first 14 games and the senior had played in 113 consecutive games before the injury. Murray State missed him, as it was outrebounded in four of the six games Aska sat. He probably won’t start yet but will play.
Ironically, Aska was hurt on Dec. 30 at Eastern Illinois, a 73-40 Racers blowout. Murray State was on fire from 3-point land that night, going 12-for-22. The Racers’ harassed Eastern Illinois into 12 turnovers and a season-low 27 percent (13 for 48) shooting from the field. EIU led a 6-5 lead 2 minutes into the game, but the Racers broke off a 29-4 run over the next 12 minutes to take control.
Including this one, Murray State has eight remaining regular-season conference games and one nonleague contest at home against a yet-to-be-determined opponent (ESPNU BracketBusters). Assuming that opponent will be over .500, the Racers are likely to have six games against opponents who currently have winning records. Eastern Illinois (9-10) enters on a four-game losing streak, having lost 63-45 at Jacksonville State on Thursday.
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