This will be the second game with starting freshmen Crystal Bradford, Jessica Green, and Jas’Mine Bracey back since being suspended after a fight during a game against Ohio University on Jan. 25. With the reappearance of these three freshmen, the Chippewa basketball team aspires to regain mojo lost when they were suspended.

“The return of those players adds strength to the team by having everyone back,” said sophomore forward Taylor Johnson.

Buffalo is 0-4 against Mid-American Conference opponents at home. During these home games, Buffalo is averages 67.5 points per game while allowing an average of 79.8 points by opponents.

Head coach Sue Guevara’s main focus points for Saturday are transition defense and knowledge of the opposing team’s players.

“Buffalo contains an array of players,” Guevara added. “Some can post up and grab rebounds, while others are deadly outside of the arc.”

Johnson said he feels focusing on the defense, especially rebounding, can help the Chippewas pull off a win.

“If we can treat Saturday as every other game, and not go out with a mindset that we are going to crush them, or we are going to lose, but focus on playing together as a team, anything is possible,” she said.

Buffalo currently averages 38 rebounds per game, led by forward Beth Christensen, who averages 7.7. CMU has an average of 43.2 rebounds per game, which is headed by Bradford, with an average of 8 per game.

Buffalo’s leading scorer is guard Brittney Henderson, averaging 20.6 points per game. Bradford also leads CMU in scoring with 14.4 points per game.

It was a rough Wednesday night for the Central Michigan women’s basketball team from start to finish losing to Miami 79-57.

The RedHawks (17-5, 7-2 MAC) jumped out to an early 11-0 lead behind two 3-pointers from senior guard Maggie Boyer.

Miami did not slow down from behind the arc hitting nine 3-points. The RedHawks were 43 percent from three.

“We had the same shots, and it was because before the game we said we were not going to help  (Maggie) Boyer and (Courtney) Osborn and we did, it went in one ear and out the other,” said head coach Sue Guevara. “When you have shooters like that it’s tough to catch up.”

The Chippewas (12-11, 4-5 MAC) had plenty of open looks, and after trailing by 20 points in the first half they cut the lead to 11 points with 3:08 left in the half.

But they could not get any shots to fall while the RedHawks, true to form, hit back-to-back 3-pointers to end the half.

CMU would never cut the deficient back to 11 points as MU ran away with the game in the second half.

“When your frustrated on the offensive end you need to take it out on the defensive end, and that was probably one of the most embarrassing things,” Guevara said. “They pushed the ball down our throats, and I think it was because we weren’t getting back.”

Sophomore forward Taylor Johnson led the team in scoring and rebounds with 13 points and seven boards. She also got in foul trouble, and with the rest of the team struggling offensively it put the burden on the bench.

Junior guard Brandie Baker, in her second game since returning from an injury, scored 11 points on three 3-pointers and had six rebounds.

Junior guard Brandie Baker fights her way to the basket during the second half of Wednesday night's game against Miami at McGuirk Arena in Mount Pleasant. Baker finished the game with 11 points and six rebounds during the 79-57 loss to the Redhawks. (Andrew Kuhn/Staff Photographer)

“Until we find someone who can consistently score for us we’re going to be in big trouble,” Guevara said. “Our energy level was low … so you bring in some subs and it didn’t get any better.”

The Chippewas will be welcoming back freshmen guards Crystal Bradford, Jessica Green and freshmen forward Jas’Mine Bracey after serving their two-game suspensions this weekend.

They’re hoping that getting back their top three scorers back the team can not only find some consistent scoring, but will be able to put last week’s incident behind them.

“Has it been easy no, everywhere I go the first thing people do is put their fists up,” Guevara said. “That’s tough … let’s let it go and move on.”

CMU will be looking to get off its two-game skid Friday when it travels to Akron.

Wednesday’s game will be the Chippewas second without freshman guards Crystal Bradford and Jessica Green and freshman forward Jas’Mine Bracey. They were all dealt two-game suspensions following a fight between CMU and Ohio last Wednesday.

Those three also make up the team’s top scorers. Without them in the lineup, Taylor Johnson has stepped up in their absense.

She scored 18 points against BGSU including the game-tying basket with a second left.

Those three also make the team’s three leading scores.

Head coach Sue Guevara is confident her team will use the close game Saturday as inspiration to play well against another top Mid-American Conference team in Miami, Ohio. Guevara plans to use the same starting line-up she had against BGSU since it worked well, even without its three top scorers.

CMU will rely on the sixth man in the stands.

“The basketball team feeds off the energy from the fans and uses it to push themselves,” Guevara said.

On the court, she wants to see her team get back to the basics.

“If we can focus on the process and fundamental aspects of basketball rather than trying to just outscore the other team, while continuing to work on transitioning between offense and defense, a win is easily within reach,” Guevara said.

CMU is looking to gain ground on MAC-West-leading Eastern Michigan and Toledo. Miami is in second place in the East and trying to catch BGSU.

Miami has the third-highest scoring average in the MAC with 69 .8 points per game. The Redhawks leader is Courtney Osborn, who scores 19 points per game, also third best in the conference.  Kirsten Olowinski cleans up missed shots leading the conference with 10.4 rebounds per game.

Following CMU’s 67-53 win against the Bobcats, highlighted by a first-half fight that resulted in the ejection of two players, players did not speak to the media, and head coach Sue Guevara would not speak about the incident.

Instead, the department issued a four-sentence statement from the university and Athletics Director Dave Heeke touting sportsmanship and accountability before closing: “The incident will be reviewed by the department and by the conference office. Until that process is done and we clearly understand what occurred, it would be premature to comment any further.”

It was clear sportsmanship was thrown out the window during those few minutes, so why not spend a few minutes after the game taking accountability for it? Every one of the 543 listed people in attendance saw what happened. Thousands more that evening on YouTube did, too (and still are).

Officials should have immediately said players involved in the fight would be suspended.

Instead, athletics waited to comment until after the Mid-American Conference had handed down a two-game suspension to CMU freshman guards Crystal Bradford and Jessica Green and freshman forward Jas’Mine Bracey, along with OU junior forward Porsha Harris.

Punches were thrown, benches cleared and, while most tried to stop the melee from worsening, others tried to get involved. Let’s call it what it was: a schoolyard fight on a basketball court. And for what reason? Bracey and Harris may be the only ones to know.

So why not come forward right away and take accountability for the situation? Instead, the athletics department tried sweeping it under the rug by diminishing the incident and not directly addressing it. To this day, no mention of the fight, ejections or suspensions have been made on cmuchippewas.com.

A passionate, unfiltered reaction from Guevara after the game could have gone a long way in taking responsibility for her players’ actions. Letting Crystal Bradford and Jessica Green speak on the team’s behalf, apologizing for what transpired on the court, would have been the adult thing to do.

It wasn’t until 36 hours later, after suspensions were handed down by the MAC, Guevara and her players — reading off a prepared statement apologizing to the school, fans and community — were allowed to discuss the situation.

CMU should not have waited until it was punished to apologize or admit something wrong happened on the court Wednesday night. Enforcing self-imposed suspensions immediately would have been the responsible way to handle the situation.

The punches thrown and reactions caused hits to not only players but to the reputation of this university and, even more so, the reputation of CMU’s athletics department.

BGSU head coach Curt Miller did not make the trip with his team after suffering a stroke during a game Jan. 22 against Eastern Michigan.

“I hope for Curt’s sake, I know how passionate and how emotional he is and for a 43-year-old to suffer a mild stroke. I know he has a couple kids, and I want to see him around long enough to see his grandkids,” Central Michigan head coach Sue Guevara said.

Associate head coach Jennifer Roos took over for Miller on Saturday during the team’s 77-72 overtime win over CMU.

“I think teams always look at the assistant coaches as the good guy and the head coach as the bad guy, because the head coach controls the playing time. Today I went from good guy to bad guy,” Roos said. “We wanted the routine to be the same even though we were missing coach Miller.”

CMU gave Roos and her team all it could handle, despite being without its top three scorers (Freshmen guards Crystal Bradford, Jessica Green and forward Jas’Mine Bracey) due to suspensions.

Miller normally controls the offense. The Falcons struggled without him committing 20 turnovers.

“I’ve got to give coach Miller credit, something just wasn’t there today,” said senior guard Jessica Slagle. “I think we were all a little more off than we planned to be because we’re used to coach Miller on floor controlling everything.”

Miller, 43, became head coach of the Falcons on May 8, 2001. He has won 74 percent of his games with a record of 251-88 overall, and is 128-39 in Mid-American Conference play.

He is the third-winningest coach in MAC history, and in his fourth season the Falcons won the regular-season and tournament championships. They haven’t lost the regular-season title since, and they are heading in that same direction again this season.

Miller has taken BGSU from MAC powerhouse to a national player. The Falcons have made five tournament appearances, including a trip to the sweet-sixteen in 2007 after beating Oklahoma St. (70-66) and Vanderbilt (59-56). He has a 2-5 record during March Madness.

Both teams came into Saturday’s game with some adversity; in fact Roos called it Adversity Bowl 2012.

The two teams don’t play each other again this regular-season, so a rematch could only happen in the MAC Tournament. It is very possible that the two could meet up again for the conference championship, and if that is so hopefully coach Miller will be there.

Head coach Sue Guevara was unable to comment on the incident and the players were made unavailable to the media At  around 6 p.m. Thursday freshman guards Jessica Green and Crystal Bradford along with fellow freshman forward Jas’Mine Bracey received two-game suspensions from the Mid-American Conference.

Friday, for the first time since the incident, Guevara and her players were able to talk.

“I want to apologize on behalf of myself, Jessica (Green) and Crystal (Bradford) for our behavior in our game against Ohio (University),” Bracey said. “We just want to say we’re sorry to our fans, our community and especially our university, and also to Ohio and their coaching staff.”

The suspensions come at a tough time for the Chippewas (12-9, 4-3 MAC) as they prepare for defending MAC champions Bowling Green (17-3, 7-0 MAC).

“Our team, the last two days at practice, have responded very well,” Guevara said. “We understand what we’re losing and it’s a good opportunity for other players to get in and step up.”

These next two games will show how much this bench has come from a year ago. CMU this season has pride for its bench play this season and it’ll need the remaining players to take their game to another level.

“We have to play as a team and come out there and pick up what we don’t have,” said sophomore forward Taylor Johnson. “It’s unfortunate, but we as a team need to come together and leave it all out on the floor.”

Bradford, Green and Bracey are the teams top three scorers and top two rebounders.

“We’ve got to crash, our guards have to crash, and our posts have to be strong and big because Bowling Green is physical and they want to get every rebound,” Johnson said.

“Offensively we have Kerby (Tamm), we have Niki (DiGuilio) and we Skylar (Miller) working the middle we have a bunch of people who can score and it’s an unfortunate situation but we have a deep bench.”

CMU still has a strong 3-point game and Guevara mentioned that the fans that come to the game can expect to see a few more shoots from behind the arch.

The Falcons come in with some matters of their own.

Head coach Curt Miller suffered a mild stroke late in the team’s 70-54 win over Eastern Michigan last Sunday and his return to the bench is still unknown.

John Manzo/Staff Reporter

The unavailable information from Central Michigan University within its athletics program needs to be stop.

Obviously it is public relations’ job to make a negative story have minimal exposure. So sweep it under the rug and do not talk about it.

But guess what? When it is a big deal you have to do damage control.

Damage control is not solely keeping people hush-hush. Ignoring something doesn’t make it go away.

A fight broke out between CMU women’s basketball player Jas’Mine Bracey and Ohio player Porsha Harris in the first half of the Chippewas 67-53 win Wednesday night.

I was courtside and saw what happened.

The coaches know what happened. Those players know what happened.

During the post game press conference, players were unavailable for comment and head coach Sue Guevara did not talk about McGuirk Arena’s version of the Palace brawl.

The university athletics program should allow its players, or at least its coaches to speak about the incident. An awful fight broke out Wednesday. The head coach should be allowed to say how awful it was.

Instead, CMU released this:

“Central Michigan University, the athletic department, and our teams stand for the highest degree of sportsmanship. Any of our student-athletes who don’t adhere to this standard will be held accountable. The incident will be reviewed by the department and by the conference office. Until that process is done and we clearly understand what occurred, it would be premature to comment any further.”

That’s laughable. It says literally nothing. That statement is not sending the proper message to players, coaches, students and alumni that this is going to change.

You know what would? Guevara talking about how embarrassing it was and how it will not be accepted or tolerated.

Your head coach is in charge. She should take responsibility and explain how and why this will not happen again. Get those players up there and explain what happened and if you want to have good pr, make them apologize.

Players on both teams threw punches. Players on both teams were knocked down. Benches cleared.

It happened, so talk about it.

Do you want to make your image look better in this bad light? Take responsibility and explain that it won’t be tolerated or accepted.

The statement doesn’t tell the true meaning of what happened Wednesday night at McGuirk Arena.

Send a message … a real one.

If you simply looked at the score you’d think it was an ordinary 67-53 win for the Central Michigan women’s basketball team over Ohio University Wednesday night at McGuirk Arena.

It was anything but ordinary for the 543 people at the game.

Early in the first half during a timeout CMU freshman forward Jas’Mine Bracey and Ohio junior forward Porsha Harris started a fight on the court. Punches were thrown by several players, benches were cleared and both Bracey and Harris were ejected from the game.

“Central Michigan University, the athletic department, and our teams stand for the highest degree of sportsmanship. Any of our student-athletes who do not adhere to this standard will be held accountable,” said CMU in a statement from its athletic department and Athletic Director Dave Heeke.

“The incident will be reviewed by the department and by the conference office. Until that process is done and we clearly understand what occurred, it would be premature to comment any further.”

After a long break for the officials to clear up the situation and assess the fouls and ejections the game continued and the Chippewas (12-9, 4-3) rolled over the Bobcats (9-12, 2-5).

CMU head coach Sue Guevara would not comment on the fight after the game, and players were not available to talk to reporters.

Guevara adjusted the starting lineup putting in sophomores forward Taylor Johnson and guard Niki DiGuilio in place of sophomores guard Kylie Welch and Jordan LaDuke and it paid off greatly.

Johnson led the team in scoring with 16 points. She also had seven rebounds and three steals, while DiGuilio had 10 points and two steals.

Sophomore forward Taylor Johnson splits the Ohio University defense during Wednesday night's game at McGuirk Arena in Mount Pleasant. Johnson lead the team in scoring with 16 points, two assists and seven rebounds during the 67-53 win over the Bobcats. (Andrew Kuhn/Staff Photographer)

“I liked the lineup change,” Guevara said. “We had our top five leading scorers and four of our top five rebounders so instead of bringing them off the bench we started off with them and it worked.”

Freshmen guards Crystal Bradford and Jessica Green also had big games for CMU.

Bradford had a double-double scoring 10 points with 11 rebounds to go with her four blocked shots.

“Crystal (Bradford) is a baller, but she doesn’t quite get it yet,” Guevara said. “She’s still learning to play with other people.”

Green had a big game as well with 15 points, six rebounds, six assists and two steals.

“I thought Jess Green did a really good job of pushing the ball today,” Guevara said.

It was a much needed win for the Chippewas after losing their last two against Kent State and Eastern Michigan.

“It’s a confidence builder to get back on the winning streak,” Guevara said. “I think for our freshman, after the game against Kent State, have to understand you have to come in from the get go.”

CMU needs the confidence with defending Mid-American Conference champions Bowling Green come at 3 p.m. Saturday to McGuirk Arena.

CMU (11-9 overall, 3-3 Mid-American Conference) will play all three games on the home-stand against teams from Ohio. After playing the Bobcats, the Chippewas will host Bowling Green Saturday and Miami on Feb 1.

The Chippewas are coming off a 67-64 loss at Kent State on Sunday. A performance that led head coach Sue Guevara to criticize the play of her talented freshman class.

“When you rely on freshmen the season gets long,” Guevara said after the loss. “I think mentally right now the season is a little long for the freshmen, and I’m going to have to rely on the experienced players.”

One of those players will be sophomore guard Niki DiGuilio, who is coming off a season-high 22-point performance against the Golden Flashes.

Freshman guards Crystal Bradford and Jessica Green are the two leading scorers for CMU, averaging 14.6 and 12.2 points per game.

Ohio (9-11 overall, 2-4 MAC) is coming off a 52-33 loss at home to Toledo. Its leading scorer is senior guard Tenishia Benson, who is averaging 14.2 PPG. She also leads the Bobcats averaging seven rebounds-per-game.

“Our next three games are at home against three very quality opponents,” Guevara said. “They’re all from the East Division. They’re going to come in pretty confident and think they can win no matter where the game is being played.

The all-time series between CMU and Ohio is tied at 27 wins.