CMU women's basketball drops winning streak against Kent State
The Central Michigan bench celebrates after a basket in McGuirk Arena, Saturday, Jan. 18, 2025. (Audrey Konitsney | CM-Life)
After starting to find its groove with back-to-back wins, Central Michigan women’s basketball fell to the Kent State Golden Flashes 77-56 on Wednesday afternoon. The loss drops its overall record to 7-11 and its Mid-American Conference record to 3-4.
Kent State led the entire way, with its largest lead of 29 coming in the third quarter.
“A big part of them making shots was because we weren’t following the gameplan,” Assistant Coach Chelsie Butler said. “We talk a lot about U.T.G., it's our urgency, toughness, and grit, and we just didn’t have that.”
Senior guard Jess Lawson led the way with 14 points. Guard Madi Morson, forward Ayanna-Sarai Darrington, and guard Jayda Mosley pitched in 12, 10, and nine points with Mosley shooting 50% from the three-point line.
The Chippewas continue to show improvement with their turnover struggles amounting to only 11 on the night.
“What happens is, if you talk about turnovers a lot, then they play tight and they’re scared to pass the ball; and if you don’t talk about turnovers, they’re turning the ball over 20 plus times,” Butler said. “A big thing that I think is helping now in practice is; if you turn it over, you’re automatically running.”
The Golden Flashes shot 49% from the field, while knocking down eight triples and 13 free throws.
“Our goal going into this game was to limit paint points and to limit threes,” Butler said. “We wanted them shooting in-betweens, so pullup jumpers.”
“The first quarter they had 16 points in the paint. Going into the second half they had six made threes and they make eight for a game, so we just were not following the gameplan.”
After not being able to get much going in the first three quarters, Central Michigan ended the game with a positive, outscoring Kent State 19-14.
“We showed up in the fourth quarter and we turned it around, we were a little bit better, but it was just too little too late,” Butler said. “The shots falling would have made a big difference if our effort was there on both ends, and we just didn’t have that for the first three quarters.”
CMU goes on the road to take on rivals Western Michigan in Kalamazoo at 1 p.m. on Saturday.
