Central Michigan Life

Issue date: 2/18/08 Section: Sports

Senior guard Giordan Watson was held to 11 points on 3-of-14 shooting Saturday in the men's basketball team's 67-64 loss at Eastern Michigan. [Click to enlarge]

YPSILANTI - Eastern Michigan coach Charles Ramsey said his team's Jan. 6 62-53 loss to CMU at Rose Arena was like being beat up in the schoolyard.

But he had the perfect answer Saturday in EMU's 67-64 win at the Convocation Center.

"Central is very physical - they're going to come at you," Ramsey said. "I'm not promoting violence, but when somebody punches you in the eye, you've got to punch them right back."

The Chippewas threw an early punch by getting off an 11-1 lead, but were unable to finish around the basket, and EMU closed the gap.

Poor ability to finish shots resulted in 34.4 percent shooting for CMU.

"We couldn't make layups," said CMU coach Ernie Zeigler. "We have guys that want to quick-shoot and not slow down around the basket, and we're missing point-blank layups."

Central went without a field goal for eight minutes in the first half and nearly seven in the second half.

The opposite was true for the Eagles, which finished the game at 61.1 percent.

"They got straight-line drives for layups," Zeigler said. "You should not win when that happens. We're just fortunate it looks like on paper, that we played OK."

Despite its offensive struggles, CMU still had a chance to win with 10 seconds remaining, trailing by three.

But sophomore guard Robbie Harman's off-balance 3-pointer from the top of the circle fell well short, and Eastern won its fifth consecutive home game.

Eastern (10-14 overall, 6-6 Mid-American Conference) had four players score in double figures, with sophomore forward Justin Dobbins leading the way with 15 and six rebounds.

"We've got some guys that have made their minds up that, 'Hey, we don't have to defend,'" Zeigler said. "The score does not indicate how bad we were defensively. This was a game if Eastern had the opportunity, could have beat us by 25."

Travis Lewis and Tyler Jones forced CMU senior guard Giordan Watson into 3-of-14 shooting for 11 points. Many of his misses came in the paint.

"What we wanted to make him do more than anything was work, work, work," Ramsey said. "If he scored, he was going to have to work. And we did that for 40 minutes - the numbers show that. Giordan is not the biggest guy, so I think that kind of wore on him."

The loss dropped CMU to 1-6 in MAC road games.

"We need to win the games we know we're supposed to win," said freshman guard Jeremy Allen. "We've had a lot of those games already this season. Games like this we can't let slip away."

Allen finished with a team-high 14 points while coming off the bench in 22 minutes. He said the loss was tough to take.

"With all the things going against us, we still had a chance," he said. "We just had to make plays down the stretch, and we didn't."

Central (10-14, 5-7 MAC) returns home to meet Ball State at 7 p.m. Wednesday at Rose Arena.



sports@cm-life.com

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