CMU men's basketball falls to Northern Kentucky
With 1:23 remaining in the first half Central Michigan men's basketball trailed Northern Kentucky by 16 as the offense struggled.
CMU guard Logan McIntire knocked down back-to-back threes to cut the deficit to zero, breathing life back into his team and McGuirk Arena. NKU answered back as it had all half, jumping out to a 14 point lead going into halftime.
"Those are great life lessons and they're great basketball lessons too. You want to bring 'big mo' into the locker room with you at half time, that's momentum and we had an opportunity to do that and we didn't," head coach Andy Bronkema said.
The Chippewas were unable to fight back after halftime, falling to the Norse 90-66.
CMU falls to 2-3 on the season.
The maroon and gold offense got off to a shaky start, yielding a 16-11 deficit through the first eight minutes as both teams seemed to struggle to dictate the pace of the game.
However, after taking a timeout the Norse defense seemed to click getting two quick steals that turned into points in transition, which the Chippewas continued to struggle with all night.
Northern Kentucky finished the first half with nine steals, forcing 10 total turnovers out of the squad from Mount Pleasant. Turnovers accounted for 16 of the Norse's 44 points in the first half.
NKU's offense also seemed to click as the squad shot 48.5% from the field in the first half and 35.7% from beyond the arc, allowing the team from Kentucky to lead 44-30 going into the locker room.
"Our defense is like a motion offense it has to gain chemistry and trust that the person is going to be where he needs to be," Bronkema said. "Really if you have one or two breakdowns, it can really induce a scramble... and we are just a tick away."
Coming out of halftime CMU's offense showed flashes, going on a 6-0 run to cut the deficit to eight but Northern Kentucky excelled all game at snuffing out any signs of life as Donovan Oday knocked down a three to reclaim a double digit lead.
"I thought we came out of halftime really well, [the team] made another little run, we got the ball in the area we wanted to, and honestly we turned the ball over," Bronkema said.
The Chippewas continued to struggle adjusting to the pace of the game, letting turnovers turn into points in transition, which NKU outscored CMU 25-0.
"Guys have got to make better plays, and they will," Bronkema said. "That is what hurt us today and you look at transition points, a lot of the fast break points, you know 25-0 they are sending everyone back.
The Norse finished with 14 steals on the night, forcing 19 total turnovers by the end of the game.
"Preparing for Northern Kentucky, they run the matchup zone and they play the passing lanes and they convert of turnovers, they create turnovers and they create chaos and they get out in transition," Bronkema said. "The two keys to the game for us was to limit their transition, take care of the basketball and complete passes until their zone got distorted enough to get some good shots. We weren't able to do that, they played their game and they played really well."
Outside of the turnovers, Central Michigan's offense did appear to find its footing after halftime as the squad shot 59.1% from the field, but still came up short from beyond the arc, going 1-5 from three in the second half.
Despite the offense finding a bit of consistency in the second half, it was too late and the Norse closed the game out 90-66
"The moments that shined through is when we were executing the game plan, any time we got it into the high post with a great cut, any time we got a big offensive rebound and put it back in, where we pressed and set up our defense," Bronkema said. "Those were some of the positives, and then some individual play, I thought a few guys played really hard.
Nick Mullen led the Chippewas in scoring with 12 points, also bringing down four rebounds and tallying two blocks.
CMU men's basketball is back on the road, taking on Marquette in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on Saturday, Nov. 22 at 2 p.m.
