Women's basketball must limit turnovers in championship game, Guevara says
Central Michigan womens head coach Sue Guevara yells during the basketball game against Miami Ohio on March 9 at Quicken Loans Arena.
If Central Michigan women's basketball head coach Sue Guevara could tell her team one thing before the Mid-American Conference Championship game tomorrow, it would be to limit turnovers.
CMU will face either No. 2 Buffalo or No. 6 Western Michigan in the tournament final. The Chippewas are coming off a 61-58 win against Miami (Ohio) in the tournament semifinal March 9.
Against Miami, the Chippewas committed 13 turnovers. In the quarterfinal matchup against Eastern Michigan, CMU committed 23 turnovers. The Chippewas held their opponent to under 35 percent from the floor in both games.
"Please, take care of the ball," Guevara said. "We had 11 possessions in a row where we turned it over, and you cannot come into a game and turn the ball over. Why we're panicking when we get the ball is beyond me because as much as we work on it in practice, it's like I said at halftime, this isn't physics, this isn't trigonometry."
Guevara's squad jumped out to a 21-10 lead in the first quarter, then Miami made a run to keep it close at halftime. After a back-and-forth second half, junior forward Reyna Frost hit a mid-range jump shot to take the lead.
"We're not going home, that's what was going through my head," Frost said.
Senior guard Cassie Breen made it a 3-point game with two made free throws. Miami missed three game-tying 3-pointers in the loss.
Earlier this season, Buffalo beat CMU in New York to hand the Chippewas their only conference loss. CMU beat WMU in both games this season. Despite success against WMU, Guevara said she doesn't care who CMU faces in the final.
