A gritty group: How men's basketball proved preseason doubters wrong
Central Michigan guards Larry Austin Jr. (right) and Dallas Morgan (left) celebrate heading into a timeout during Central Michigan's 77-66 win over Eastern Michigan on Feb. 26 at the Convocation Center.
In the bellows of the Convocation Center's thin hallways, there wasn't much to be heard. Moments after doing his normal radio interview with the Chippewa Sports Network, Central Michigan coach Keno Davis walked through the dark tunnel toward his locker room to take more questions.
His smile might as well have lit up that dark tunnel, as it was extended from cheek-to-cheek. Davis' smile after any win is usually large, but this one seemed a little more personal.
Rightfully so.
His team had just finished a 12-point second half comeback for a 77-66 win over Eastern Michigan on Feb. 26 in a game the Chippewas had to have. They now welcome Toledo at 4:30 p.m. on March 2 inside McGuirk Arena in a battle for all the marbles in the Mid-American Conference West Division title race.
That was just the irony of the situation. EMU (13-15, 7-8 MAC) was projected to win the MAC West coming into the 2018-19 season. CMU (20-8, 9-6), on the other hand, was picked to finish dead last, a team that didn't have many faces back from past seasons.
EMU, in third place, is currently one loss away from being eliminated for the MAC West title. CMU controls its destiny. A win over the Rockets would earn the Chippewas at least a share of the regular season championship.
When asked about his feelings toward the preseason rankings and where his team sits now, Davis was honest — it was nice to prove the doubters wrong.
"Sometimes you get picked to finish at the top and you know you're not as good as some of the other teams," Davis said. "With this team, I felt like we could compete with the very best in this league including Buffalo.
"Every time we step on the court I feel like we don't have to play our best game to win and that is a great feeling."
That's just it. The Chippewas are a different breed than Davis-coached teams in the past. They don't win by out-scoring their opponent every game or relying on the 3-point shot. They aren't flashy, and they don't often throw down ferocious slam dunks.
Instead, they work harder than the opposition. When they get down, the Chippewas find steals, a category CMU ranks first in the MAC with 221 of them. They are third in the MAC in turnover margin and don't give away possessions. They fly to loose balls and get on them to hang with teams in the rebounding category.
If you ask any member of CMU's team, they relate it back to one word that defines them from head to toe — grit, and a lot of it.
"We don't care who the heck is scoring, we just want to win," said senior guard Larry Austin Jr. following his nine-point, 10-assist and nine-rebound performance. "We have a lot of dogs that play with a lot of grit, energy and passion. It's hard to slow down heart, and this team has it."
Essentially playing for their regular season championship lives on Tuesday night, the Chippewas showed up again when they had to. They've done so since Feb. 16 when they took on Ohio three games ago. After Elijah Minnie and James Thompson IV made life impossible in the first half for CMU by beating them 23-11 on the glass, CMU countered in the second half with a 21-13 margin.
The end result was a second half full of transition triples from junior forward David DiLeo and junior guard Dallas Morgan, or and-one buckets on fast breaks from Kevin McKay. He finished with his second-straight double-double of 23 points and 10 rebounds.
CMU beat down the Eagles 52-31 in the final 20 minutes and blew them out of their own gym.
"There's been a chip on our shoulder since day one," McKay said. "We believe that we are one of the best teams in this league, if not the best, and I think we're doing our best to prove the doubters wrong."
They forced the Eagles into timeout after timeout. EMU head coach Rob Murphy was called for a technical foul twice. The Chippewas got to the Eagles mentally and made them vulnerable on defense, not backing down from playing fast-paced and leaving them gasping for air.
Murphy didn't even show up for his postgame press conference.
"We became to content, we let them get comfortable in our gym," Thompson said. "That's why they got the momentum with their fans getting into it and bench. We let them get on a run and let their shooters get comfortable and they gained confidence.
"They just kept it rolling and didn't stop."
When it was all over, CMU found itself in a place not many people thought they would be in — the second slot of the MAC West and sweeping a season series with EMU. The Chippewas defeated the Eagles without their anchor at point guard in senior Shawn Roundtree Jr., who was replaced by Morgan in the starting lineup.
Morgan, who dropped 12 points and a pair of very timely baskets, was the last out of the locker room following the game to speak with reporters. He didn't think much differently of his first start compared to his role coming off the bench as the sixth man.
When asked about where his team currently sits, Morgan said he's believed since day one they could be here.
"When we saw the rankings at the beginning of the year, we knew we would shock a lot of people," Morgan said. "We never lost confidence in ourselves, every game we try to play like it is our last and always think we will win the game no matter who we play."
When Morgan walked away, the hallways were once again empty with the only sounds coming from the cleaning crew in the gym. Silence became a theme for the night and really a theme for the Chippewas this season.
From opposing crowds to the doubters who picked them to finish last in its division, CMU has put itself in a position to prove a lot of people wrong over its final three regular season games.
Shock the conference? They just might.
