Men's basketball shows intensity, blows past rival Western Michigan
For three of the Central Michigan men's basketball team's five starters and eight of the 15 active roster members, it was the first time they hosted rival Western Michigan at home.
They showed in the opening minutes of the game that they understood the meaning of the rivalry.
CMU (16-6, 5-4 Mid-American Conference) opened up a 15-point lead early in the first half and brought a nearly full McGuirk Arena to its feet. The Chippewas blew out the Broncos (6-15, 0-8) by a final score of 85-64.
"You never know as a coach how a team with new faces is going to react to a rivalry like this with a larger crowd than normal," said head coach Keno Davis. "Sometimes you try a little too hard offensively. I felt like for a little while we did; maybe even the whole game. Defensively, we got what we hoped for by feeding off the crowd and making stops."
The Chippewas are now 10-2 at home on the season and have won their last two games against WMU.
What happened
Following an 8-2 run to start the game for CMU, junior guard Dallas Morgan came off the bench to continue his dominance as the sixth man with back-to-back triples. He then hit a layup and CMU led 20-8.
The Chippewas would get the lead to as high as 15 points in the first half. However, after a Broncos' sophomore guard Michael Flowers layup and a a string of other buckets WMU trailed 27-19 at the 7:47 mark of the first half.
The Broncos kept charging. By halftime they had trimmed CMU's lead to four points, led by 16 points from Flowers. After a 8-of-9 shooting start for CMU, they finished the half 6-of-27 from the field.
After trading buckets for the opening five minutes of the second half, a junior forward David DiLeo triple and senior guard Larry Austin Jr. layup put CMU ahead 51-41 with 13:45 left in the second half.
"We have a tendency to wear other teams down," Davis said. "Some of the things you do against us in the first half you might struggle to do in the second half. Even more so in this game it was a learning process of us of getting in the right position and finding better defensive help in the second half."
The Chippewas would only extend that lead, at one point to its largest of the evening at 21 points, where they would also finish the game.
"The energy was great all game and we fed off of it," Austin said. "Our practices leading up to this game were intense. I think that translated into our good start and finish. If you practice with a high intensity it will show in the game. We did that this week."
WMU shot 53 percent from the field in the first half but were held to 37 percent in the second half. CMU forced 20 turnovers on the Broncos that resulted in 25 points.
Austin led the Chippewas with a double-double, scoring 22 points with 11 rebounds. Junior forward Rob Montgomery scored 16 points on 7-of-14 shooting, senior guard Shawn Roundtree tallied 13 points and Morgan added 11 off the bench in 15 minutes.
After transferring from Xavier and Vanderbilt, Austin said this rivalry was just as intense as his previous schools foes.
"The rivalry was good and, honestly, I really enjoyed being a part of it," Austin said. "It's definitely up there with my previous rivals of Tennessee and Cincinnati."
Next for CMU is arguably the toughest test it will face in MAC play. The Chippewas travel to Buffalo for a 3:30 p.m. tip on Feb. 9 following six days with no games.
