Marshall Falls to Akron 67-51

Sunday, January 1, 2012 - 22:32 By Mike Holbrook

HUNTINGTON, WV (HNN) – The Marshall Thundering Herd turned in a horrible second half performance falling to the Akron Zips 67-51 before 6,063 fans at the Cam Henderson Center.

With the loss, Marshall falls to 9-4 while Akron improves to 8-6.

The Zips opened an early 8-0 lead but the Herd fought back to tie the game at 27 apiece at halftime.

In the second half Marshall connected on only 10-of-32(31.3%) shot attempts as Akron hit on 17-of-30(56.7%).

The Zips turned 14 Herd turnovers into 20 points while the Herd turned 8 Akron turnovers into just 5 points.

Shaquille Johnson and Damier Pitts scored 11 points apiece to share team-high honors. Johnson scored his career 1,000th point in the game the 48th Marshall player to score 1,000 in his career.

Joining Johnson and Pitts in double figures was DeAndre Kane who scored 10 points on 4-of-18 shooting.

Marshall opens Conference USA play Wednesday at 8:00 pm as they welcome the UTEP Miners into the Cam Henderson Center.