Wednesday’s first-round CIT game likely to be last home contest this season
For four Central Michigan men’s basketball seniors, Wednesday provides an opportunity to get the bad taste out of their mouths.
An overtime loss to Western Michigan on senior night followed by a loss to the No. 12 seed in the Mid-American Conference Tournament bookended a downtrodden spring break for the team.
Wednesday’s opportunity to play once more in front of the McGuirk Arena crowd — in the first round of the CollegeInsider.com Postseason Tournament (CIT) — is seen as a positive by sophomore forward DaRohn Scott.
“The past is behind us,” he said. “We still get a chance to win a championship, so we need to buckle down and just take care of business.”
Senior forward John Simons said he isn’t sure where CMU stacks up against the rest of the competition and added it’s been tough for the players the past few days after watching their NCAA Tournament dreams vanish.
“It’s tough trying to crank it back up after something like that,” Simons said. “We had a couple days off, so it kind of sets in a little bit.”
Simons said a tournament championship would be a good way for the seniors to go out, but doesn’t make up for falling short of the MAC Championship and NCAA Tournament bid.
“No, I don’t think anything’s going to make up for that,” Simons said.
Head Coach Keno Davis said the players remember when they didn’t have the chance to play in any postseason games a few years ago. Last year’s 89-79 loss to Louisiana Tech in the first round of the National Invitation Tournament (NIT) was CMU’s first postseason game since 2003.
“As a competitor, you want to play,” Davis said. “If you weren’t playing in the NCAA, you want to play in the NIT. If not that, you want to play in the CIT. If they weren’t playing in the CIT, they’d be playing pick-up games. They want to play.”
Hosting at McGuirk
Wednesday’s game will be the first time the men’s basketball team has hosted a non-MAC postseason tournament game since joining Division I in the 1970s.
Head Coach Keno Davis said the team has conversations with postseason tournaments one month before the season ends to gauge interest.
While host teams in the CIT have a large fee to pay — reportedly $30,000 or more — Davis said teams can keep what they make from ticket sales and other revenue sources.
“You don’t make money in it,” he said. “I know some programs are more financially off that can host all the way through and we’re not in that position. We could probably be a home team for longer if we had wanted to, but I think the financial side, it would be our preference to just have the one home game.”
Davis said the tournament is seeded, although the details are not released. CMU is in the top third of the 32 teams, Davis said.
“(The CIT) lets you know, they just don’t broadcast that to the public,” Davis said. “Obviously there’s enough said about seeding and how people would argue it.”
Scouting Tennessee-Martin
The Skyhawks (19-14, 10-6 Ohio Valley Conference) were the No. 2 seed in the OVC Tournament, but were upset in the final by Austin Peay. UT Martin reeled off a seven and eight-game winning streak this season.
“There’s not a whole lot of difference between the teams that are playing in these postseason tournaments, whether it’s the NIT, the CIT, the CBI or whatever,” Davis said. “We know we have an opportunity to win and advance and play a long ways in this, but we also know that the margin of anybody that we play is pretty slight.”
Leading scorer: Twymond Howard (15.5 points per game, ninth in the OVC)
Leading rebounder: Kedar Edwards (7.3 rebounds per game, sixth in the OVC)
Points per game: 72.7 (sixth out of 12 in OVC)
Points allowed per game: 70.8 (fourth out of 12 in OVC)
Last 10 games: 8-2
Head Coach: Heath Schroyer (Second season, 40-27)
