Women's basketball falls in season opener to No. 1 Notre Dame
The Central Michigan women's basketball team waited an entire off season to get back out on the court.
They were eliminated by Buffalo on a buzzer beater in the Mid-American Conference Tournament with just 3.4 second remaining.
On Friday night, they took a loss in another tournament, only this time it wasn't close from the start.
The Chippewas lost to No. 1 Notre Dame, 107-47 in the first round of the Women's National Invitation Tournament in South Bend.
The Fighting Irish opened the game with a 15-0 run, and the Chippewas played from behind all night long, never getting closer than 12 points.
“It really was a snowball that kept getting bigger all night long,” head coach Sue Guevara said. “We had no way of stopping it.”
After CMU seemed to gain confidence and was more competitive in the second quarter, the Irish opened up the second half with an 11-0 run.
Notre Dame's sophomore guard Arike Ogumbowale scored a game-high 30 points. The Irish had five players finish in double figures. As a team they shot 61.5 percent from the floor and 54.5 percent from beyond 3-point range.
The Chippewas had little success offensively and defensively. CMU shot 27 percent from the floor and turned the ball over 20 times. They were also out-rebounded 45 to 33.
Junior guard Aleah Swary had 15 points and added three boards off the bench for CMU, while junior forward Tinara Moore had 10 points with three assists. Sophomore forward Reyna Frost had two points but grabbed 11 rebounds. Sophomore guard Presley Hudson finished with four points and four assists.
Guevara said the team was simply playing with a lot of pressure on them right from the start.
“In the first quarter we were playing really tight and were just missing wide open shots,” she said. “We simply could not match them on the other end to slow the game down and take it under our control. We have to work on getting the ball inside more and making it easier on ourselves.”
With the loss to Notre Dame, the Chippewas will have to wait until Friday to play again. CMU will take on Furman at 7 p.m. on November 18 at McGuirk Arena.
