Central Michigan University
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Western Michigan
CMU Men Fall, But Claim Share Of Division Title
3/4/2016 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Andy Sneddon, CMUChippewas.com
MOUNT PLEASANT, Mich. - A division championship, yes. But no celebrations.
Maybe just a good dose of motivation.
Western Michigan went on a 12-1 spurt to open the overtime period Friday in handing Central Michigan a 91-82 Mid-American Conference men's basketball loss before 3,292 at McGuirk Arena.
Despite the loss, the Chippewas, 17-14 overall, claimed a share of the MAC West title, finishing 10-8 in league play. They finished tied for first with Ball State, which lost on Friday at Northern Illinois, 80-69.
"That's not enough for us, not enough for this group of guys," CMU senior Rayshawn Simmons said of the co-MAC West title. "We did that last year, so whatever we accomplished last year that's not enough for us this year."
The Chippewas will get a chance to better their 2015 accomplishment next week at the MAC Tournament. They are seeded fourth and will play either Kent State or Bowling Green on Thursday at approximately 2:30 p.m. at Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland. The Falcons and Golden Flashes play Monday in a first-round game at Kent State.
CMU lost in the tournament title game to Buffalo last season.
"It's tough," Simmons said. "We lost to our rival at home on our Senior Night. If that doesn't motivate you to do better the next game, I don't know why you're playing the game."
Thomas Wilder scored 26 points, Tucker Haymond had 20 and Anthony Avery added 14 to lead Western (13-18, 7-11), which plays at Northern Illinois on Monday in a first-round tourney game.
Braylon Rayson scored 26 points, Chris Fowler had 23 and Simmons added 12 to lead the Chippewas, who rode an early wave of Senior Night momentum to an 18-point lead late in the first half.
The Broncos outscored CMU, 35-23, in the second half and the Chippewas got a dramatic 3-pointer from Rayson with 12 seconds remaining to tie it at 65-65 and send it to overtime.
CMU made 56.3 percent of its first-half field goal attempts in seizing a 42-30 halftime lead. The Chippewas slumped to 28.6 percent from the floor in the second half.
"We fed off the emotion of the crowd, off the emotion of the day," Fowler said. "What goes that high has to come down, and I feel like we let our emotions drive us a little too much and this team has been good at not doing that.
"We got up high and when we crashed, it didn't look pretty."
On their heels because of Western's hot start in OT, the Chippewas were forced to foul. The Broncos made 17 of their 22 free throw attempts in the extra session. They were also 4-for-4 from the floor during that span.
Rayson made three triples and scored 15 points in the extra session to keep the Chippewa hopes alive.
"I give credit to our guys," CMU coach Keno Davis said. "It would have surprised everyone if we would have given up when things got away from us, and to be able to continue to fight and have a chance there to tie the game and send it to overtime is a credit to the hard work of our team."
The Chippewas suffered a subpar long-range shooting night, making just nine of their 33 triple tries (27.3 percent), and they finished 11-for-20 from the free throw line, including an 8-for-16 total after halftime.
"We didn't shoot well from the 3, didn't shoot well from the free throw line, there were plays that (Western) made," Davis said. "We've got to make sure on a loss that we don't feel that all of a sudden we're not as good a team as we were a few days ago.
"We understand we're just as good and we've got to make sure that we execute in a game that got into a pushing and shoving match. We've got to be able to win those types of games as well.
"As we go to Cleveland and prepare, we understand it would have been nice to be able to win this game and go out with a win, but to be co-MAC champions of the West and have games to play to try to be MAC (tournament) champions to go to the NCAA Tournament means that we have to get this game quickly in the rearview mirror and focus on what we have to do."
