Thundering Herd Flips Chips, 72-63
MOUNT PLEASANT, Mich. - The Marshall men's basketball team ended its seven game Mid-American Conference road losing streak Saturday afternoon when they defeated the Central Michigan University Chippewas, 72-63, at Rose Arena. The Thundering Herd improves to 5-4, 2-0 in the MAC, while CMU falls to 3-8, 0-1 in conference play.
The storyline of the Herd's win was largely based on Marshall's advantage in three important statistical categories - bench points, rebounding, and free throw attempts. MU's bench came up huge in Marshall's second MAC win of the season, outscoring their counterparts at CMU, 33-8. Central Michigan also had no match for the Herd's aggressiveness on the boards and their ability to get to the basket; Marshall outrebounded the Chips 42-30, and made more free throws (23-of-34) than CMU attempted (16-for-20).
The Chippewas began the game on a 5-1 run, and capitalized early on cold Marshall shooting. A.W. Hamilton (Georgetown, Ky.) made the Herd's first basket nearly three minutes into the game to make the score 5-4, and trailed CMU up to the 15:29 mark in the first half. The 9-8 lead at that time would be the last for Central Michigan, as Marshall put the clamps on any Chippewas' offense for the next 11 and a half minutes, holding the 2003 MAC Champions to no made field goals. During the impressive defensive stand, Marshall's offense finally got going, and by the time CMU's Marcus Moore turnaround fadeaway jumper went down with 4:06 to go in the half, MU had a 29-18 lead. Marshall's grew to 15, 35-20, with 1:54 to go in the period, but the Chippewas whittled the Herd lead down to nine, 37-28, at the halftime break.
In the second half, Marshall maintained its lead, although Central Michigan willed its way back into the ball game, mainly behind senior postman Gerrit Brigitha's 15 second half points. Things got very interesting with just under four minutes to play, when the Chippewas' Kevin Nelson knocked in a three-pointer to make the score 64-63. However, MU quickly responded, as Ronny Dawn (Fort Thomas, Ky.) hit a three-pointer of his own to make the score 67-63. The Herd then scored the game's final five points on made free throws by Marvin Black (Cleveland, Ohio), Eric Smith (Cleveland, Ohio), and Hamilton to put the game out of reach.
Black led Marshall in scoring with 20 points, while senior center Ardo Armpalu (Rapla, Estonia) had 14 clutch points off of the bench. Smith played his best game in a Marshall uniform with nine points, nine rebounds, one assist, one block, and two steals, while Enoch Bunch (Nashville, Tn.) scored seven points backing up Hamilton at the point guard position.
Central Michigan got 26 points from Brigitha, and 11 points from point guard T.J. Meerman.
Marshall has a short rest before returning home to take on Kent State. The Herd takes on the Golden Flashes Tuesday night at 7 p.m. in the Cam Henderson Center.
