CMU women's basketball loses to Ball State at home
Graduate student forward Nadége Jean seeks to keep the ball away from her opponents during the women's basketball game against Ball State Wednesday, Jan. 17 in McGuirk Arena. Jean scored eight points and had four rebounds during the game. (Ella Miller | CM Life)
CMU women's basketball was unsuccessful in continuing its momentum following a win against Eastern Michigan last week as it fell to Ball State 79-47 Wednesday.
With a roaring crowd of over 3,000 people in attendance for the annual Hoops for Hunger game, the Chippewas performance slowly faded away during the third quarter.
Throughout the first half, CMU kept a high intensity to stay within reach of a win against undefeated Ball State. After halftime, the Chippewas began to lose that intensity only putting up seven points in the third and nine in the fourth.
"In the past few games our third quarter hasn't been good," head coach Kristin Haynie said. "We will make some adjustments at halftime about how we come back out at halftime. We pretty much only play three quarters...and in the third quarter, we are not consistent in. We have to do a better job of coming in with urgency."
After earning their second win of the season in its last game, CMU seemed to gain confidence and hope after a rough start. From the beginning of the season until now, the Chippewas have grown in themselves and as a team, according to Haynie.
"We have grown," Haynie said. "It's a process, unfortunately. We're going to figure it out, there's been coaches around the MAC that have talked about 'Man your team is playing well' or 'They're fun to watch' so we just have to keep staying with it."
CMU now stands 2-12 overall and 1-4 in conference play. The Chippewas have since moved up in the MAC standings to 11th just above rivals Western Michigan.
The next few games for CMU are crucial to stay in the running for the MAC tournament that is slowly approaching.
Only the top eight teams will advance and the Chippewas must be consistent in winning to eliminate the chances of their season being cut short.
"It starts in practice," Haynie said. "We have to make sure that we're locked in on energy, if not, we're just going to perform how we performed today and that can't happen. Now being with this team for a while, I see us being hungry coming back from practice. We're going to be ready for Northern Illinois and we're going to give them a good game."
CMU will travel to DeKalb, Illinois to face off against Northern Illinois on Saturday at 2 p.m.
