Men's basketball falls to game-winning shot by Weber State
In the closing seconds of a tight game, the Central Michigan men's basketball team had the lead with a chance to make free throws and guarantee overtime against Weber State.
Instead, junior forward David DiLeo missed a pair of free throws and on the other end freshman guard Israel Barnes drained a 3-pointer as time expired to give the Wildcats (3-1) a 78-76 victory.
"It was frustrating, it was an extremely physical game," said head coach Keno Davis. "Shawn (Roundtree) is going to the hospital for stitches and Kevin McKay got his teeth knocked out and we got the technical fouls against us.
"If this would've been a conference game, I would've been suspended for all the calls (the refs) missed on physicality."
The game-winning 3-pointer was Barnes first made triple of the game. He missed his first two 3-point attempts of the night and finished with just seven points.
What happened
After falling behind 7-6, the Chippewas put together a 11-0 run early in the game capped off by a junior guard Kevin McKay layup to make it 17-7 with 11:25 left in the half.
WSU kept inching closer and closer in the coming minutes until they took a 26-25 lead at the 4:19 mark off a Cody John jumper. Senior guard Larry Austin Jr. would notch a couple free throws before the break to give CMU back the lead at 32-30.
Austin would finish the game with a career-high 30 points highlighted by going 8-of-11 from the free throw line.
In the second half, CMU held the lead like they did for a majority of the game (28:29).
Closing in on five minutes remaining in the game, CMU started a 9-0 run. Transfer forward Rob Montgomery completed a 3-point play followed by a DiLeo triple and Austin layup to give CMU a 69-61 lead with 4:35 left in regulation.
The Wildcats led by Jerrick Harding who had a team-high 25 points hit a jumper with 49 seconds left to make the score 74-73 in favor of CMU.
Following turnovers on both sides in the final 20 seconds, DiLeo went to the free throw line with nine seconds left. He failed to make either shot and Barnes hit the first game-winning shot of his career.
The Chippewas went just 14-of-22 (63.6 percent) from the foul line. Coming into the game, CMU was at 66 percent from the free throw line following a season where they were second in all of Division I basketball.
"We try to turn attention to some of the mistakes we made in the first half or other mistakes throughout the game rather than pointing the finger at one guy," Davis said. "These guys have got to learn how to play with a lead at home or on the road."
CMU (3-1) will now play San Jose State (1-2) at 6 p.m. on Nov. 18 in the first game on the final day of the Junkanoo Jam.
Game notes
- Outside of Austin, McKay and DiLeo both finished with 12 points and Montgomery finished with his first double figure scoring night as a Chippewas with 10 tallies.
- CMU and WSU were deadlocked at 36 rebounds each.
- Each side had seven blocks. McKay had three to lead CMU and Brekkott Chapman had five blocks for the Wildcats.
- The Chippewas won the turnover battle 15-11 but allowed 16 points off their own turnovers and only managed to score 14 of the ones they created.
