Men's basketball defeats Western Michigan, rematch set for Monday night
The Mid-American Conference Tournament is set. For the Central Michigan men's basketball team, they did their job, but could not score the first-round bye.
The Chippewas (21-10, 10-8 MAC) ended the regular season with a 82-75 victory over the arch rival Broncos (8-23, 2-16) at Read Fieldhouse in Kalamazoo.
Kent State's 68-65 over Akron gives the Golden Flashes the number four seed in the MAC Tournament and grants them a first round bye. They will automatically advance to the quarterfinals to be played at Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, Ohio.
This means that CMU has the fifth seed in the tournament and they will play against the 12th seed WMU for a third time this season at 7 p.m. on March 11 in McGuirk Arena.
Junior forward Rob Montgomery participated in warmup before the game, but was unavailable for the third straight game with his lingering groin injury. There is no set timetable for his return.
Senior guard Larry Austin Jr. opened the scoring with a layup in the paint just eight seconds into the game.
The Chippewas and Broncos battled back and forth through the middle portions of the first half. WMU held the biggest lead of the first half with its 12-8 lead.
Head coach Keno Davis said that his team started off well, but could have started better.
"The first four minutes were not our best," Davis said. "Obviously, there was a stretch there where Western (Michigan) made some shots and we didn't react as well. We took our foot off the gas pedal."
Austin stole the ball from Bronco senior Josh Davis for his 65th steal of the season. That steal gave Austin the single-season steal record. He broke Dave Grauzer's record during the 1978-79 season.
At the 8:30 mark of the first half, official Ed Phillips collapsed to the floor due to reported chest pains. He was stretchered out of the arena and is currently in stable condition.
"It puts things into perspective," Davis said. "Playing a basketball game is secondary to that situation and hopefully (Phillips) is in good health."
Davis said that he had not experienced a situation like the one he and his team faced.
His approach to the situation with his team was to be direct and make sure his group knew exactly what was going on.
"I think just about everybody would in any situation," Davis said. "You want to know as much information as you have."
Following the hour delay, CMU resumed the game on a 10-0 run with a pair of triples from junior forward David DiLeo and sophomore guard Dallas Morgan.
DiLeo connected on three more 3-pointers in the final five minutes of the first half as the Chippewas closed the opening period on a 23-10. Senior guard Shawn Roundtree Jr. capped the run with 31 seconds to play in the half with a make.
CMU led the game 41-26 at the halftime intermission.
The second half started out as a back-and-forth battle with each team trading baskets over the first 10 minutes of the final frame.
A make from Morgan extended the Chippewa lead to 21 points and seemingly put them in control.
The Broncos had other ideas.
WMU charged back with a 24-11 run spanning over nine minutes capped by a 3-pointer by Michael Flowers to cut the CMU lead down to five points at 78-73 with 31 seconds to play.
The Chippewas were able to finish the game with free throws made by Roundtree, DiLeo and Austin to cap the seven point victory.
DiLeo finished the game with a team-high 24 points and added 10 rebounds for a double-double. Austin was one assist shy of a double-double of his own as he scored 20 points and nine assists. Roundtree contributed 14 tallies of his own on 50 percent shooting from beyond the arc.
Senior center Seth Dugan led the Broncos and all scorers with 26 points and 15 rebounds.
Davis recognizes the fact that Dugan has been the star of the Bronco lineup and has been able to shine against the rest of the MAC this season. But his group was only out-rebounded by three even without Montgomery.
"We're undersized as it is and when you take away Montgomery, we're more than undersized," Davis said. "We were able to find other ways to win this game."
