Ja Morant is a monster, something that he established once again in Murray State’s Round of 32 game against Florida State. The bad news for the presumed lottery pick in the 2019 NBA Draft was that his performance was not enough to overcome the Seminoles, and by the time the final horn sounded, the Racers’ season came to an end.
Florida State was able to secure a pretty comfortable 90-62 victory over Murray State. While the game was close early on, the Racers simply had zero answer for the length and athleticism that Noles threw at them in droves. Well, that’s not totally accurate — they had Morant, whose 28-point, 5-rebounds, 4-assist, and 2-steal evening was worthy of primetime.
Basically everything else went wrong for the 12-seeded Racers, which led to them getting run off the floor. Morant did get subbed out with 1:35 left, and the crowd gave him quite the ovation. After hugging everyone on the bench, Morant sat down and put a towel over his head.
Ja Morant makes an emotional exit for what could be his final game with Murray State. pic.twitter.com/V7xZAt1R4R
— CBS Sports (@CBSSports) March 24, 2019
He stayed like that for a while, and after the game ended, Morant made his way to the locker room, posting a tweet that illustrated how tough of a pill this was to swallow.
https://twitter.com/igotgame_12/status/1109623007146848256
Morant eventually left the arena and got love from the fans in attendance, and in one really cool moment, he found a young fan and gave him the Kyrie 4s he wore during the game.
Before he headed to the bus, Ja Morant went back out into the arena to give his shoes to a young boy. pic.twitter.com/j3BsQ61Qhr
— Matt Norlander (@MattNorlander) March 24, 2019
All ❤️ for Ja Morant!#MarchMadness pic.twitter.com/MVcGVXjOXN
— NCAA March Madness (@MarchMadnessMBB) March 24, 2019
Time will tell what comes next for Morant, but it’s assumed he’ll declare for the 2019 NBA Draft and go really high, perhaps even No. 2 overall behind Duke’s Zion Williamson. But no matter where we see Morant next, he put forth one hell of an NCAA Tournament, and it’s really cool that he shared a moment with a fan after his team was bounced.
