CMU women's basketball suffers eighth-straight loss against Buffalo
Central Michigan women's basketball concludes its second Mid-American Conference matchup with a 77-69 loss against Buffalo.
Although a tough loss as they now sit at 1-10 overall and 0-2 in conference play, the Chippewas saw personal bests in many different aspects.
As the game opened up, forward Nadége Jean was sent to the line shooting two and making both. She returned to the line six more times where she went 6-of-7, a season best. Jean ended the night with her second-straight double-double, putting up 18 points and 10 rebounds.
CMU was just shy of a perfect percentage from the line, going 10-for-11.
Head coach Kristin Haynie said shooting discipline has contributed to improving the percentage goal that she set at the beginning of the season.
"Just getting in and shooting a lot of free throws," Haynie said. "Putting them in pressure situations as well. We hoped we got to the free throw line a little bit more tonight...so we could score more points."
In addition to the growth in free throw percentage, CMU reached a season-high in three-pointers. The Chippewas shot 34 total three-pointers and only seven were completed.
"We're losing games," Haynie said. "I mean we're shooting 38% overall, we can't win many games shooting that. We took too many threes, Buffalo barely plays in the zone so we were surprised to see that and we got to get ready for other teams."
Two of them came from guard Alina Anderson, a new addition for the Chippewas, who earned her first points since joining the team which got McGuirk arena loud.
As CMU continues the season with aspirations of gaining more wins, the team gets a lot of momentum from the crowd. While the clock ran with minutes left in the final quarter, the phrase 'keep fighting' could be heard from numerous spectators.
"We're going to keep fighting, we have to," Haynie said. "Like we've been talking about all year, we have to figure out how to put 40 minutes together and we didn't give up."
Fans throughout the arena could also be heard cheering CMU on as the Chippewas went from an 11-point deficit to within four points of Buffalo. Throughout the season, the fans have motivated the team through the ups and down.
"It's awesome and we love our fans," Haynie said. "They're our sixth man and it's just too bad we couldn't pull out a win at the last two home games, but we have to go on the road and be road warriors and bring home two wins."
The Chippewas will travel to Akron, Ohio to take on the Zips on Wednesday at 7 p.m. and will remain on the road until returning on Jan. 17th to battle Ball State.
"We just got to shoot the ball better," Haynie said. "Limit our turnovers, (turnovers) have been killing us. We have to keep taking care of the ball, it starts in practice."
