Despite loss to Western Michigan, men's basketball earns No. 1 seed in MAC Tournament
Even though the Central Michigan University men's basketball team was topped by rival Western Michigan University 74-62 on Friday night at University Arena, the Chippewas are headed to Cleveland as the No. 1 seed in the Mid-American Conference Tournament.
The University at Buffalo's 77-75 victory over Bowling Green State University, which came minutes after CMU's loss to WMU had gone final, secured the Chippewas No. 1 seed in the MAC Tournament.
The Chippewas will play at 6:30 p.m. next Friday in the tournament semifinal against the winner of the University of Toledo and an opponent yet to be determined.
The entire MAC Tournament bracket can be seen here.
Head Coach Keno Davis watched the end of UB's win on a cell phone as soon as he stepped off the court Friday night.
"I was doing my post game radio interview and it wasn't very good," Davis said. "My focus was definitely somewhere else. It was easy for me to transfer my attention to Cleveland."
Senior David Brown's 3-pointer gave WMU a 20-12 lead on the Chippewas early in the first half. The Chippewas, who were coming off one of the best shooting performances they have put up all season earlier this week, shot 19 percent from 3-point range during the loss to WMU.
"Sometimes shots fall and sometimes they don't," said junior guard Chris Fowler. "That's just basketball. We have been spoiled with such good shooters on this team, sometimes we expect it to go in every time they throw it up."
Fowler led all CMU scorers with 21 points. He was also 7-for-10 from the free-throw line.
Junior forward John Simons, who drained a league-high eight 3-pointers during CMU's divisional title-clinching win over UT on Tuesday, scored just 10 points against WMU.
"The difference between a one seed and a six seed is not that great," Davis said. "I'm proud of my team to be able to fight the entire year. You haven't seen a lack of energy or effort from our team the entire year. We look at this game as a learning process."
The Broncos were led by guard Tucker Haymond who scored 20 points in the win and helped WMU take a 17-point lead into the halftime break.
During the first half, WMU used a dominating post presence to wear down CMU freshmen forwards Luke Meyer and DaRohn Scott. Meanwhile, the Chippewas struggled to find an offensive rhythm at the other end of the floor.
"We are a team that feeds off our shot making," Fowler said. "We also didn't crash the glass well enough. We can't live and die by the 3-pointer. We need to have energy whether we are making shots or not."
A late Chippewas run cut WMU's lead down to 10 points with less than five minutes remaining, but CMU failed to get defensive stops and had several "lapses" in execution.
"We forced some shots," Davis said. "(After WMU got out to a big lead) we didn't respond quickly enough. The energy plays will only get you so far."
The Chippewas were "confident" following Tuesday's win over UT, but Fowler said his team was humbled against their biggest rival in the regular season finale.
"We didn't take care of business tonight. As a unit, we have to figure out how to handle success," Fowler said. "We can't expect somebody else to have our back in Cleveland.
