Men's basketball falls at Ball State 98-83
Chippewas drop to 1-4 in MAC play
After winning its first Mid-American Conference game against Toledo at home on Friday, the Central Michigan men’s basketball team traveled to Muncie, Indiana on Tuesday to take on Ball State.
The Chippewas jumped out to a 10-point lead in the first half, but an 18-0 BSU run late in the half was ultimately the Chippewas un-doing in a 98-83 defeat.
CMU is now 11-7 and 1-4 in MAC play. The Chippewas are in last place in the West Division.
“Hopefully we will be able to learn from (tonight) and continue to get better,” head coach Keno Davis said. “We knew that this was going to be a brutal start to the conference and that if we could come out with a winning record we would be in great shape.
“1-4, although not ideal, doesn’t put us out of anything. It just puts us in a little bit of a hole.”
Junior guard Marcus Keene injured his ankle against the Rockets on Friday, but didn’t let it slow him down Tuesday night. The 5-foot-9 transfer from Youngstown State hit six 3-pointers in the first half and his teammates fed off of his energy.
Freshman David DiLeo took two early charges and had a couple 3-pointers of his own. The Chippewas led by 10 and looked to pull away.
After a Ball State timeout, however, the momentum quickly changed.
BSU started to spread the ball around and found an open shot almost every possession. The CMU offense suddenly went cold, and the Cardinals jumped to an 18-0 run.
The second half was more of the same.
BSU gave CMU a dose of its own medicine and pushed the ball down the court. Their running offense allowed them to crash the boards, where they had 6 offensive rebounds in the second half.
The Cardinals had five players finish in double-figures, led by center Tyler Moses with 20. Point Guard Tyler Persons added 18 points and used his size on the smaller Keene to get to the basket.
Keene continued to be aggressive, but only had nine points after the break and couldn’t get much of his own in the paint. Keene finished with 29 points on 9-of-25 shooting and 8-of-17 on 3-pointers. He has led the country in scoring the entire season.
Senior Braylon Rayson was slow out of the gate but came alive late in the contest. The Dallas, Texas native finished with 20 points on 4-of-18 shooting. DiLeo added 14 points on 4-of-5 3-pointers.
“The thought that I had through the second half is that it was two completely different games. We got to be able to react better and sometimes that’s hard to do with a lot of young guys. Ball State responded better. They made a nice run to stretch it out and we couldn’t cut into it. We couldn’t get enough stops and couldn’t get enough rebounds.”
What’s Next
The Chippewas will look to get back on track Saturday when Miami (Oh) Redhawks visit McGuirk Arena. Tip-off is scheduled for 1:30 p.m.
