Chippewas Eye Bounceback at Dayton

Dec. 12, 2014

Central Michigan Game Notes | Dayton Game Notes

Jared Porter, CMUChippewas.com

MOUNT PLEASANT, Mich. - The focus is simple for the Central Michigan women's basketball team in the non-conference portion of their season: compete and develop.

Specifically, defensive transition, rebounding and offensive execution are three areas the Chippewas (3-2) aim to improve as they prepare for their road game with Dayton (5-3) on Saturday.

"We did a fair amount of defensive transition drills this week," CMU coach Sue Guevara said. "Any time our guards did not go in and rebound, they were running. We broke the rebounding areas down so that our players understand the zone.

"It's hard to rebound out of a zone defense, because you don't have a specific person as much as you have a specific area. If we did not have five people going to the glass, then there was a consequence with that.

"In our offensive execution, I changed a few parts and put a couple wrinkles into things so that I could get our players attacking downhill more towards the basket. I want our players to penetrate more so our three-point shooters can get open."

In their two losses on the season, the Chippewas started slow and found themselves down by double digits at halftime -- 47-28 to Kentucky and 36-22 to Memphis. CMU was able to bounce back in both the games to make them competitive in the final minutes, but Guevara said finding the most efficient lineups and rotations will prevent sluggish starts moving forward.

"We started the games flat against Kentucky and Memphis," Guevara said. "To fix that, you have to change the lineup. I'm trying to find the five most efficient offensive players that work well together on a game-to-game basis."

"To take that to another step, when we play Dayton this Saturday, they score 22 points off turnovers. So our ability to slow people down and read the defense and not force passes is one of the biggest keys, and I want to use the best lineups and rotations that will give us that ability."

Guevara says senior Crystal Bradford will return to the starting lineup Saturday after being sidelined in last week's game with Memphis. Bradford leads CMU in scoring (17.3 per game), as well as rebounding (10.3) and assists (3.75).

Dayton comes in to Saturday's competition riding a four-game win streak. The Flyers defeated MAC opponent Toledo, 79-57, on Wednesday.

Andrea Hoover, the 2013-14 Atlantic 10 Player of the Year, averages 19.3 points per game and Ally Mallot averages 15 to lead the Flyers.