Total facial: Herd slams Tigers

Before the opening tip, Salem International was already in a 2-0 hole.

 It was a loooong night.     

Marshall used a game-opening 20-0 run to jumpstart a 119-35 historic romp over the Tigers on Thursday at the Cam Henderson Center.

The 84-point margin of victory is the largest in Thundering Herd history.

This was Salem's, a Division II team, first contest against a Division I opponent this season and it showed — from warm-ups to the final buzzer.

 A unidentified Tiger player was assessed a technical for dunking in the pre-game lay-up line, allowing Marshall's Damier Pitts to attempt a pair of free throws prior to the game's start.

 Pitts hit both and the shellacking was on.

 "I thought our guys did a really good job of playing for each other instead of getting caught up in looking at the score or trying to play for the crowd," said Marshall head coach Donnie Jones.

 So maybe it was unintentional but Shaquille Johnson, Dago Pena, Hassan Whiteside and company certainly had the 4,503 at the Cam rocking all night.

 Johnson put the rout in session after he knocked down a pair of 3-pointers to give Marshall an 8-0 lead. A little while later, Pena, seeing his first extended action since suffering a concussion in the preseason, hustled his way to a rebound, bucket, steal and another bucket — all in a 12 second span — to extend it to 16-0.

Then came Whiteside.

As the 7-foot freshman checked in, the crowd roared with approval. When he blocked his first shot, they started jumping frantically. When he threw home his first dunk, they nearly blew the roof off the building.

"I love the fans and I know my teammates love them too," Whiteside said.

As if the first half needed an exclamation point, Whiteside provided it with 5:23 to go. Cruising ahead 44-11, Pena found his big man at the elbow. In between Whiteside and the basket stood Salem's Tori Patton.

Sorry, Tori.

In one swift and aggressive move, Whiteside exploded to the rim and poster-ized Patton with an electrifying dunk.

"I try to do that to everybody," Whiteside said ever so modestly.

Whiteside's 10 first half points accounted for just one-sixth of Marshall's total in the game's opening stanza.

  That's right, the Herd piled up 60 — six-oh — on the Tigers, who had just 14.

It then "slacked" its way to just 59 in the second half.

"They were just outmanned," junior forward Antonio Haymon said of Marshall's overwhelmed opponent. "Give them a lot of credit for being outmanned and never giving up.

"We just worked hard to press them out and just work on our strengths."

Their strengths included superior athleticism, which they took advantage of by applying a full-court press that resulted in 33 Tiger turnovers, and pinpoint shooting, which they displayed by knocking down 13 of 31 threes.

"We played to our level and I think that's the biggest focus we had to put on this week and this game," Jones said. "I didn't want to talk about winning big because I didn't know if we would win big. You always hope that you're going to play well.

"I thought our guys — especially our young guys and our starters — did a good job of not being selfish and pouting because they weren't getting their numbers or they weren't playing. I've been a part of teams that guys were just worried about their stats."

Pena poured in 15  and dished out a career-high 10 assists. Haymon chipped in with a season-high 16 points and Whiteside filled the stat sheet with 19 points, four boards and three blocks.

Other game notes: Marshall (5-1) shot a season-high 59 percent from the floor. It started the second half on a 20-4 run ... Every Herd player saw action.  Only walk-on freshman Bobby Hordyski didn't score. Five MU players reached double figures in scoring ... Johnson scored 12 points, all coming on threes ... The game counted as an exhibition for Salem (0-5), who plays in the West Virginia Intercollegiate Athletic Conference ... Marshall outscored Salem 64-10 in the paint and got 81 points from its bench ...  The 35 points allowed are tied for the fourth fewest by a Conference USA team in league history.

Andrew Ramspacher can be contacted at ramspacher@marshall.edu.