CMU men beat WMU, will serve as No. 9 seed in MAC Tourney
David DiLeo's career at Central Michigan has been remarkable.
The senior forward and Iowa City, Iowa native is the record holder in the Mid-American Conference with a running total of 336 made 3-pointers. He is a 1,000-point scorer and has been a leader for the Chippewas.
DiLeo, along with six other seniors, saw their home careers come to a close Friday at McGuirk Arena and did so with a resounding 85-68 win over arch rival Western Michigan.
"It's just crazy," DiLeo said. "You have a moment of just kind of taking it all in, thinking back to where our basketball careers began. We had a great four years of college basketball and it's just crazy that was the last time we'll take the floor as teammates and brothers in McGuirk.
"Once the ball was tipped up, we just focused on basketball."
Rob Montgomery, Kevin McKay, Dallas Morgan, Corey Redman, Michael Kemp and Matty Smith all celebrated their senior night with a win over the Broncos.
Friday's win snapped a nine-game losing streak for the Chippewas dating back to Feb. 4, a 92-82 win over Bowling Green, which was one of the top teams in the MAC at the time.
CMU coach Keno Davis said he was proud of his team –especially the seniors – for the effort both against WMU and the past month before the Chippewas found the win column again.
"When things don't go well it's easy to get your head down," Davis said. "It's easy to look ahead to next year or seniors thinking the year wasn't what they had hoped for at one point. But the group rallied … they had a good focus of turning the page and looking for the next game."
Tournament update
Going into Friday's game, the Chippewas occupied the No. 10 seed in the MAC Tournament with their opponent far from determined.
After picking up the win over the Broncos, CMU moved to the No. 9 seed and will travel to Athens, Ohio on Monday for the first round of the conference tournament.
The Chippewas and Bobcats have played each other once this season as Ohio took a 77-69 win over CMU on Feb. 18 in Athens.
With the conference tournament on the horizon, Davis said he thinks CMU's chances are as good as any to make some noise in the postseason.
"From (No.) 1 to (No.) 12 there's not much difference," Davis said. "You see the (No.) 1 seed versus the (No.) 12 seed or whatever the matchup is, the only surprise would be if the seeds hold.
"We didn't take care of business to get a home game or go straight to Cleveland so we'll have to go in the road and you can't look back, you can only look forward."
As for the rest of the bracket, here is a breakdown of the MAC Tournament. The team's seeds are in parenthesis.
First round byes: (1) Akron, (2) Bowling Green, (3) Ball State, (4) Northern Illinois
First round games (home team listed first): (5) Buffalo vs. (12) Miami (Ohio), (6) Kent State vs. (11) Eastern Michigan, (7) Toledo vs. (10) Western Michigan, (8) Ohio vs. (9) Central Michigan
The first round games are set for Monday and times are yet to be determined.
How it happened
The Chippewas took the first lead with a free throw from McKay but quickly fell behind by as many as five in the early stages of the first half.
As the teams traded the lead through the middle of the opening half, CMU eventually found its groove and started to push the lead further, led by seniors Dallas Morgan and Rob Montgomery on their senior night.
CMU pushed its lead to 10 points on a dunk from junior forward Romello Burrell with 5:10 to play in the first half. It capped a 10-0 run and forced a WMU timeout.
However, WMU would close its deficit to four points several times in the closing minutes of the first half, and trailed by four going into the break.
CMU started the second half with several quick buckets again from Morgan and Montgomery.
Then, DiLeo took over.
DiLeo caught a pass on the right wing and sidestepped a Bronco defender for a wide-open look at a 3-pointer, which he hit.
After a quick WMU miss, DiLeo hit another long-ball from the middle of the lines in CMU's "Flying C" logo.
Despite scoring just two points in the first half, DiLeo stepped up in his final game in McGuirk Arena and hit five 3-pointers in the first nine minutes of the second half, propelling CMU to a comfortable lead.
Morgan stepped in late in the second half and was 4-of-9 from beyond the arc and finished with a game-high 20 points.
"Once one guy is going off, it gets everyone else in a rhythm," Morgan said. "Once I saw Dave's shot go in – the crowd, the energy – had me in a zone. A couple of possessions later, I hit a shot and it just trickles down."
DiLeo finished with 16 points on 4-of-7 shooting from outside. Montgomery also had 16 points. Junior guards Travon Broadway Jr. and Devontae Lane had 12 and 10 points, respectively.
Michael Flowers led the Broncos with 17 points.
CMU shot 31 percent from the field and just 20 percent in the first half from outside, making just two 3-pointers in the first 20 minutes.
In the second half, CMU shot 58 percent from the field and 56 percent from 3-point range.
The Chippewas finished the game shooting 45 percent from the field and 42 percent from the beyond the arc.
Davis said he felt as though his team forced a lot of 3-point shots during the losing streak but found the groove by moving the ball around, especially in transition.
"The 3-point shot is so important in college basketball," Davis said. "But you cannot get into taking bad 3-point shots ... In the first half, we forced some shots – we had some open ones – but we forced some shots. In the second half, there were very few. Maybe one at the end of the shot clock which you understand or a couple where we were running clock."
Friday's win was CMU's sixth straight win over the Broncos dating back to March 2017.
