COLUMN: Three-game stretch will serve as a barometer for men’s basketball team
Last year, the Mid-American Conference men’s basketball preseason predictions were dead wrong.
Central Michigan and Buffalo were slotted to finish fourth and fifth respectively by the MAC News Media Panel before winning their divisions and meeting in the MAC Championship Game.
This year, it was the Chippewas who dominated the preseason hype. Yet CMU sits at 7-6 heading into the MAC season. The Chippewas didn’t lose their sixth game last year until Feb. 28.
The excuse of losing four of the six games without senior point guard and captain Chris Fowler is a good one, but even some of the victories with him haven’t been very comfortable.
CMU beat Jacksonville State by six, Alma by 15, McNeese State by one and was tied at halftime with NAIA opponent Lourdes before pulling away in the second half. Not exactly what you hope to see from a team looking to do damage in March.
But Wednesday starts a new season. The MAC season. CMU may have the second-worst record in the MAC, but that can all be forgotten with some early conference success.
The next seven days will serve as a barometer, with three big tests for this Chippewa team.
Step one: Eastern Michigan
CMU beat the Eagles by double digits both times last season, but the 8-5 Eagles are always a wild card with a tricky 2-3 zone defense — which is unlike most defensive schemes in college basketball.
It was the 3-point shooting of senior forward John Simons and sophomore guard Josh Kozinski that helped CMU past EMU last season. On a team with less depth than a year ago, these two will need to step up again Wednesday to give maroon and gold faithful some encouragement to open the MAC season.
Step two: Winning on the road
CMU is 7-0 at McGuirk Arena this year and 0-6 at neutral and road sites.
Unfortunately, the most important games of the season — the MAC and NCAA Tournaments — are not played in Mount Pleasant. The Chippewas need to prove that this will not be a concern.
Ironically, that first MAC road game for CMU is Saturday against Bowling Green — the only team to beat CMU at McGuirk Arena last season in the 17 home games.
Fowler scored 42 points in 42 minutes in CMU’s 76-74 overtime loss. The 9-4 Falcons are under different leadership than the 2014-2015 team that fell just shy of a MAC Regular Season Championship.
Their offense is near the bottom of the conference (72.8 points per game), but BGSU has fifth-best defense in the MAC will pose a challenge for the Chippewas at the Stroh Center.
Step three: Beat the best
CMU will come back home for its third game in seven days Jan. 12 to face the projected MAC East Champions, the 11-2 Akron Zips.
Akron has eight wins in a row and looks to be the class of the conference so far. The 7 p.m. game will likely be the most packed it’s been so far this season at McGuirk, as students will be back to school in the midst of syllabus week.
We’ll have a much better idea of where CMU sits after these early tests. A 3-0 record, and the hype returns. And rightfully so.
If the pollsters were correct, Tuesday’s CMU-Akron game could very well be a preview of the MAC Championship game in two months.
Yet, if there’s one thing we learned last year, it’s that the polls don’t really mean a thing once the ball hits the court.
