CMU women now tasked with finding replacement for guard Jessica Green
The Central Michigan women's basketball team's hopes for a Mid-American Conference championship took a major hit Sunday following its loss to Toledo.
It was there head coach Sue Guevara announced that starting point guard Jessica Green will miss the rest of the season.
Green, a 5-foot-10 sophomore from Belleville, tore her ACL three minutes into the second half of the Chippewas 77-53 win at Western Michigan on Feb. 20.
“Jessica Green is out for the season,” Guevara said. “Right now, we’re waiting for the swelling to go down so we can set a surgery date.”
Green had started all but three games for CMU before her injury. She is the team’s second-leading scorer, averaging 11.8 points per game. She is also third in assists, averaging 2.6 per game, and leads the team in steals, averaging 2.2 per game.
Her presence was missed in the Chippewas 76-63 loss to the Rockets on Sunday. As an example, twice the team took the ball out of bounds after a UT made basket and had no one to inbound the ball to because all the other four players ran up the floor.
That wasn’t the only area the team missed their young point guard.
“We didn’t have Jessica’s ability to get to the basket and finish,” Guevara said. “We didn’t have anyone else that really penetrated and finished for us.”
Guevara decided to start a bigger lineup against the Rockets, inserting sophomore forward Jas’Mine Bracey in place of Green. Bracey scored four points and hauled down seven rebounds in 21 minutes in the loss.
Guevara added that she started Bracey against Toledo because of its 6-foot-2 senior center Yolanda Richardson but isn’t sure who will be in the starting lineup moving forward.
“It gave us more of a bigger body on Richardson to box her out,” she said. “It’s going to be a lot of game-to-game depending on matchups.”
The team's depth has been a strength all year long but without Green, it played only eight players. Two of whom, senior guard Jalisa Olive and sophomore guard Kerby Tamm, played just six and two minutes respectively.
Senior guard Brandie Baker played the point in the loss to Toledo, something Guevara said will continue throughout the rest of the season.
CMU will play its second game without Green on Thursday when it hosts Ball State on senior night. Tip-off is scheduled for 7 p.m.
