Marty Gordon
NRVsports@ourvalley.org
The Radford University men’s basketball team turned a beach trip into a championship this past week with a 69-56 win over Purdue-Ft. Wayne in the Ocean Bracket of the 2024 Sunshine Slam in Daytona Beach, Florida.
With the victory, Radford improved to 6-2 on the young season, which has now officially matched the 2018-19 squad for the best start to a campaign in seven years. It is the second straight win for the Highlanders and improved the team to 6-1 over their last seven contests.
The win was another impressive notch for Radford as Purdue Fort Wayne is coming off a 22-13 campaign last season and was picked in the top spot of the Horizon League Preseason Poll. The Highlanders never gave up the lead in the impressive wire-to-wire victory.
When the Highlanders took the floor, there was a familiar face at point guard for Purdue-Ft. Wayne. Quinton Morton-Robinson played in 22 games for RU in the 2020-21 season after graduating from Radford High School.
Morton-Robinson started all 36 games last season and ranked 34th in the nation and best in the Horizon League in 3-point percentage (40.4), making 105 3-pointers.
Morton-Robinson helped lead Radford High School to a combined 112-6 record including a 30-0 (2018-2019) record as a senior. He won the 1A State Championship as a freshman (2015-16) and sophomore (2016-17) and a 2A State Championship as a senior (2018-19). In addition, he committed just 26 turnovers as a junior, averaging 21.1 points per game that season.
In his time at RU, he averaged 7.4 points per game. After his sophomore season, he transferred to Purdue-Ft. Wayne.
Morton-Robertson only managed five points in this week’s contest.
RU’s Jarvis Moss was named the Sunshine Slam Ocean Bracket Tournament Most Valuable Player and Truth Harris joined him as an All-Tournament Team selection.
Moss dropped his fourth 20-plus point game of the season with a 23-point outing. He also added three rebounds and tied for the game-high with three steals.
Harris was nearly perfect in his 18 minutes off the bench with 12 points, two assists, one board and a swipe. He went 4-of-5 from the field (.800), and a perfect 1-of-1 from three (1.000) and 3-of-3 (1.000) from the charity stripe.
