Women's basketball remains confident heading into end of regular season
No matter how unfair it may seem, even a good season can all be changed by just one loss — especially when the competition is close.
After winning seven straight games, the Central Michigan women's basketball team lost this past weekend to Ball State 81-73, and now finds themselves in a must-win position this week if they want at least a share of the Mid-American Conference West Division title.
Head coach Sue Guevara said she didn't feel her team brought everything it could to the game Saturday, and they let that get to their heads throughout the entire day.
“What I didn't see out of the gate Saturday was a sense of urgency in this team,” Guevara said. “It started out pretty physical and we played with our tails between our legs. Instead of getting right back after it, we kind of got quiet and you could clearly see the frustration. Things like frustration is what we need to get past right now."
With two games left in the regular season, getting past those issues is essential if CMU wants to win its final two games in the regular season and be crowned the MAC West champions for the third time in four years.
CMU (21-7, 13-3 MAC) will head to Western Michigan (16-11, 7-9) Wednesday at 7 p.m. and will finish the regular season against Eastern Michigan (6-22, 1-15) for senior day on Saturday at 1 p.m. at McGuirk Arena.
Ball State (20-8, 13-3) is now tied with CMU atop the MAC West standings. The Cardinals will head to EMU this Wednesday and will finish up the regular season at home against Toledo. Northern Illinois (19-8, 12-4) is right behind the Cardinals and Chippewas.
Regardless, the Chippewas still have a lot to play for. If CMU and Ball State both win out, they would share the MAC West title. If CMU even loses one of it's last two games, and Ball State wins out, CMU wouldn't finish higher than second place. The opposite would happen if Ball State slips up in the last two games of their campaign, and the Chippewas win out.
Whichever way you view it, the Chippewas are still in control of getting what they want: A 2017 MAC West championship added to their banner in McGuirk Arena.
“(Monday) was the first day I have brought up that (championship) banner. I haven't brought it up all year,” Guevara said. “We’re in a good position. We are in first place. It’s all in our hands. We don’t have to depend on anyone else. We just need to do what we have been doing all season.”
What Guevara described as an “elephant in the room” is something the players understand as well.
Senior forward Jewel Cotton said she knows what her team needs to do to remain focused on the goals at hand.
“It’s all about not looking too far into the future,” she said. “We just need to take it game by game. It’s easy to get excited with what is ahead for us, but coach G (Guevara) keeps us level-minded and focused on what’s next.”
Junior guard Cassie Breen said she also understands what can happen this week, but is trying to stay in a relaxed state of mind.
“It’s just another week for me,” she said. “We have a couple more games. We dropped one to Ball State, but we just have to pick up right where we left off.”
Coming into the game against WMU, Breen said she wants to see not just the offense improve, but the defensive intensity pick up as well.
“We need to take advantage of our offense against their defense and get back to where we left off against Northern Illinois,” Breen said. “We need to revamp the defense and make it stronger as a whole from start to finish, unlike how it was against Ball State.”
Guevara thinks there are multiple defensive schemes the Chippewas can improve on, but their inside game is a focal point for the offense to feed off of against the Broncos.
“Defensively we have to be better," Guevara said. "We got lost on some switches, we didn't do the best job on the boards this weekend and we really have to look to attack. If we are patient rather than quick, it can lead to the kind of attack we need to play with."
With the season's intensity starting to pick up due to the severity of the final regular season games, Guevara said that the Chippewas are right where they want to be.
“The number one seed in the (MAC) tournament. That is what we are shooting for,” Guevara said. “We have a chance to win two championships Saturday, (MAC) West and Conference. Whether we share or don’t share, we are in a great position.”
The Chippewas have looked at every game with a "championship mentality" this season, and that's what they will do when they take the court on Wednesday.
