Central Michigan University Athletics
Determined Chippewas Ready for MAC Semifinal versus Akron
3/14/2014 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
CLEVELAND, Ohio – No feeling sorry for themselves, and their opponents certainly won’t give them any pity.
The Central Michigan University women’s basketball team arrived in Cleveland Thursday, ready to begin defense of its Mid-American Conference Tournament championship.
The Chippewas have long put behind them the disappointment of dropping their regular-season finale four days earlier at Eastern Michigan, when a win would have given them a share of the league’s regular-season title.
They have also shelved the shock of losing MAC Player of the Year Crystal Bradford to an injury in practice earlier this week.
The Chippewas are now a squad of steely determination, galvanized by a long season of high expectations, a tough-to-swallow loss, and an unfortunate injury.
“It’s the old adage, you’re one injury away,” CMU coach Sue Guevara said after practice Thursday at Case Western Reserve University. “This injury is a pretty vital piece of this puzzle, but understand, there are different pieces.”
There have to be. A team doesn’t win the league tournament title and earn a trip to the NCAA Tournament, as it did a year ago, riding a single horse.
It takes a team, and if the Chippewas have proven anything in the recent past, it is that they have plenty of weapons and plenty of depth.
The Chippewas, seeded second in the tournament, will face third-seeded Akron in a semifinal game on Friday at Quicken Loans Arena. Tipoff is at approximately 2:30 p.m.
Top-seeded Bowling Green will take on fifth-seeded Ball State in the first semifinal at noon.
The championship game is scheduled for 1 p.m. Saturday.
The Chippewas defeated the Zips, 109-83, in Akron in their one regular-season meeting in early January.
It was the second-highest point output for CMU this season and, perhaps most importantly, seven Chippewas scored in double figures in that game.
That could bode well for CMU when the teams square off this time around. No one person will pick up all the slack left by the absence of Bradford, who leads the Chippewas in scoring, rebounding, steals, assists and blocks.
“We’re not going to put a square peg in a round hole,” Guevara said. “We can’t. We’re going to have to have contributions from a lot of other people. Specifically Jewell Cotton, Da’Jourie Turner and Taylor Johnson.”
Senior Jordan LaDuke will start in place of Bradford, and LaDuke is no stranger to the starting lineup. She started four times this season.
“Jordan understands this is it,” Guevara said. “I really, really like how she has practiced the last three days, and I just want her to go into the game with that same type of mental attitude.”
The loss of Bradford will, undoubtedly, change the Chippewas’ approach. But this is a veteran team that has been down this path before.
The Chippewas dropped a 72-71 heartbreaker to Eastern Michigan in the MAC Tournament championship game two years ago, and last year beat Akron, 86-68, in the title game. The Chippewas have won at least one game in the MAC Tournament in each of the past five years.
The experience of having played last season in the NCAA Tournament doesn’t hurt, either.
“It might be easier to adapt because of that experience,” Guevara said. “You look at Jas’Mine (Bracey), you look at Taylor (Johnson), you look at Jessica Green, you look at Niki (DiGuilio) – they’ve been in two (MAC) championship games. They’ve been here. They understand.”
Many other Chippewas who will start or see playing time off the bench, such as Kerby Tamm and Da’Jourie Turner, have been through the tournament wars.
“They have been on the floor so they know what the atmosphere’s like,” Guevara said. “They understand what goes with that and how you have to play and how you have to be consistent, and how as a team we have to play together.”
The pain of losing the MAC Tournament final to Eastern two years ago still lingers for the 10 upperclassmen on the roster, Guevara said.
That unheralded Chippewa team scratched and clawed through the bracket, winning four tourney games to earn a spot in the final.
“The beauty of it is, when all these kids were sophomores and freshmen, they made a run and to be quite frank, it hurt that we experienced that two years ago in the championship game, that’s still kind of fresh,” Guevara said. “And the fact that we cut down nets last year. That’s still fresh.
“When you think about those two ideas that are in your head, which one do you want to experience? You know you have to do that much more to make sure you have that (good) experience.
“I told them, ‘You can find reasons to lose, or you can find ways to win.’
“And we have to find ways to win.”
