EVANSVILLE, Ind. – Despite leading for just over five minutes of the game, the eighth-seeded University of Martin at Tennessee men’s basketball team rallied from 13 points down to upset fifth-seeded Tennessee Tech, 70-67, Wednesday night at the Ford Center in Evansville as part of the 2025 Ohio Valley Conference Men’s Basketball Championship presented by United Fidelity Bank.
Down 13 midways through the first half, the Skyhawks (14-18) used a 10-0 run over the final minutes of the first half and the first minutes of the second to get back in the game. From there the game went back and forth with nine lead changes and six ties over the course of regulation to follow a similar script to the two regular season matchups which resulted in overtime showdowns.
With 3:36 to play, Vladimer Salaridze gave UT Martin the lead on a three-pointer, only to have Tennessee Tech tie the game with a three of their own from Kyle Layton. On the next trip down the floor, Tarence Guinyard put the Skyhawks on top for good, 68-65, with another three-pointer that allowed UT Martin to hold on for the 70-67 win and advance to the OVC Basketball Championship quarterfinals on Thursday evening.
“This is special, holy cow,” UT Martin head coach Jeremy Shulman stated. “The heartbreak that we had during the regular season and the belief that we have had throughout by getting up off the mat, time after time, with all of these close games chipped at us a little. We just had to reset and came into this tournament with so much belief. To come out tonight and do what we did against a heck of a club, it just makes me so proud of our guys and this team. I’m just excited to play again tomorrow night.”
The performance translated to dominance on the stat sheet where the Skyhawks won the battle of the boards over the Golden Eagles by a 43-31 margin and dominated in fast break points (10-1), second chance points (18-6), and points in the paint (30-14).
Guinyard led UT Martin with a game-high 18 points – scoring all 18 points in the second half – while adding six rebounds. Matija Žužić followed with 10 points and four boards to join Guinyard in double figures while Lamine Niang (eight points, seven rebounds and three blocks), Carlos Cortijo (eight points, three assists) and Afan Trnka (eight points, zero turnovers) sat just outside double-digits in the scoring column.
With the victory, the Skyhawks return to action on Thursday, March 6 for the OVC Basketball quarterfinals against the No. 4 seed Little Rock at 6 p.m.