Defense comes up big in win for men's basketball
The Central Michigan men’s basketball team’s defense played a vital role in its 55-52 victory over Eastern Michigan Tuesday night at McGuirk Arena.
The Chippewas out-rebounded their opponent for only the seventh time this season.
They finished with 36 while EMU had 23.
“I look at the stat sheet and it may be the first time in my tenure where everyone on the team had at least one rebound,” head coach Ernie Zeigler said. “Everyone was really locked in to try, and ganging to the ball.”
Sophomore guard Trey Zeigler led the team with 9 rebounds and also had 4 blocks.
CMU limited the Eagle’s leading scorer, guard Darrell Lampley to six points.
“He was a big emphasis on defense for us,” freshman point guard Austin McBroom said. “There was a lot of guys that guarded him tonight, and I thought we all did a good job containing him.”
The Chippewas took the early lead and never looked back.
“I thought our kids did a really good job of executing when we were changing and switching our defenses around,” Ernie said.
EMU was held to 1 point until the 13:27 mark when junior Guard Derek Thompson hit a 3-pointer, cutting the Chippewas lead to 8-4.
The Eagles finished with just 20 points in the first half and shot 6 of 20.
“I thought we did a pretty good job, particularly in the first half,” Ernie said. “We were trying to do things in the half-court to make them start their offense a little bit faster because they do such a good job controlling the tempo.”
EMU’s offense had a little more spark to it in the second half, but the Chippewas came up with big stops when they needed it.
Sophomore Javen Harden made a key block on guard J.R. Sims with 27 seconds left, keep CMU up 7.
The Eagles finished shooting 41% from the field.
