Herd, UK cruise to wins

Published 11:55 pm Saturday, December 12, 2009

HUNTINGTON, W.Va. (AP) — Tyler Wilkerson scored 19 points and four other Marshall players scored in double figures in a 99-70 win over Troy on Saturday night.

Damier Pitts finished with 16 points and seven assists for the Thundering Herd (7-1), who have won five in a row. Tirrell Baines followed with 15 points, Shaquille Johnson had 13, and Hassan Whiteside scored 11 points and grabbed 12 rebounds — five offensive.

Whiteside also had five blocked shots, finishing with more than Troy’s entire team (four).

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Marshall dominated the Trojans (5-4), jumping out to a 26-9 lead with 12:54 left in the first half on Darryl Merthie’s fast break dunk after a steal by Chris Lutz.

The Thundering Herd pushed their margin to 24 by halftime and never saw their lead trimmed to less than 18 points the rest of the way.

Brandon Hazzard led Troy with 21 points and Vernon Taylor had 13.

No. 4 Kentucky 90, Indiana 73

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. (AP) — Eric Bledsoe scored 23 points and Patrick Patterson had 19 points and 11 rebounds, leading No. 4 Kentucky to a 90-73 victory at Indiana.

John Calipari matched Adolph Rupp’s record start for a first-year Kentucky coach by improving to 10-0, and the Wildcats moved within two wins of becoming the first Division I men’s basketball program with 2,000 victories.

Indiana students had a special greeting for Calipari. They chanted “S-A-T, S-A-T,” a reminder of Calipari’s latest round with the NCAA, in which there were questions about who took Derrick Rose’s standardized tests when Calipari was coaching Memphis. Another student held a sign reading: “Calipari borrowed my SAT.”

The Hoosiers took the cue, feeding off the frenzied energy.