Breen scores 23 points, bench steps up in win against Northern Illinois
Sophomore guard Cassie Breen took a quick pass from freshman guard Presley Hudson, pulled up from the corner and nailed a 3-pointer 13 seconds into the game.
Breen made her first three shots from long range and led the Central Michigan women's basketball team in points with 23 in a 95-63 win against Northern Illinois Wednesday at McGuirk Arena. Junior guard Jasmine Harris also had 18 points and sophomore forward Tinara Moore had 12.
“It’s a great feeling to not have a team really key on you,” Breen said. “It’s kind of a little bit disrespectful, but they let me shoot so they have to respect me next time. Northern (Illinois) is a really good team and wanted this one pretty bad [but] we just came out to play."
The bench had been struggling lately, but Harris' production sparked the group. Besides the 18 points, she had five rebounds in 25 minutes.
“I give a lot of credit to Amani Corley,” Harris said. “She came off the bench and she found us. (Corley) was finding us in the right spots and it was a matter of us hitting shots and that’s exactly what she did.”
Junior forward Jewel Cotton also came off the bench nicely with 10 points and 11 rebounds. She was one of two Chippewas on the night to have a double-double, the other coming from Moore — who now has eight in 15 games.
The bench point differential was 37 to 10, in favor of CMU.
“As a bench we want to make sure that we’re making our minutes count and not counting our minutes,” Harris said.
CMU moves to 9-6 overall and 3-1 in the Mid-American Conference, while NIU drops to 8-7 and 1-3 in the MAC.
Kelly Smith, who started off hot and made her first three shots, led Northern Illinois in points with 21 on 8-of-16 shooting. Northern Illinois didn’t attempt a single free-throw during the first half.
“In the third quarter they went to the line the first two times they touched it,” said Head Coach Sue Guevara. “We’ve got to be able to defend one-on-one. I thought we didn’t do a good job of defending one-on-one in the post. There comes a point where you have to be disciplined and you got to start playing defense before they get the ball and that’s what we have to continue to work on.
The Chippewas were also able to limit the Huskies’ star guard and MAC leading rebounder Ally Lehman. Coming into the game, she was averaging a double-double per game with 13.2 points and 11.8 rebounds per contest. CMU kept her at her average for points and held her to eight rebounds.
Through four games in January, CMU is averaging 83.5 points per game and have won three of the last four games. In December, the team was 2-4 and averaged 66.5 points per game.
The Chippewas will start a two-game road trip starting at 2 p.m. this Saturday at Ohio, the only undefeated team left in MAC play (12-3, 4-0 MAC).
