CMU Men Face Nation's Top Scorer
12/21/2015 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Game Notes: Central Michigan | Howard
Andy Sneddon, CMUChippewas.com
MOUNT PLEASANT, Mich. -- With nearly everybody back from a conference championship team, Keno Davis sought early season challenges when compiling the 2015-16 schedule.
He's gotten them. And there's a big one looming Tuesday when Davis' Central Michigan men's basketball team plays host to Howard in a non-conference game (7 p.m.) at McGuirk Arena.
The Chippewas (5-5) will face a Howard team (7-5) that features the nation's leading scorer, James Daniel, who averages 29.3 points per game.
"He's a guy who can do everything," Davis said of Daniel, a 5-foot-11 junior guard who has scored 30 or more points five times this season. "We're not going to be playing him man-to-man even if we're in a man-to-man defense.
"We've got to make sure that we've got team defensive principles against him at all times and that we give him the respect that he deserves. And being the nation's leading scorer he deserves quite a bit."
Daniel is shooting 41.5 percent from the floor including a 35.1 percent clip from 3-point range. He is an 88.5 percent free throw shooter.
The Bison average 81.2 points per game, the Chippewas 76.6.
"I think it should be an exciting game for fans and for players alike," Davis said. "You have two teams that can score the basketball, play uptempo. We're going to have to be pretty sound defensively and have our focus on their personnel and which players can do what things."
The Chippewas are coming off 98-85 loss at Brigham Young on Friday. CMU made a season-high 17 3-pointers in the game, which was played before more than 13,000 at BYU's Marriott Center.
That BYU game, like the Howard game, serves a purpose, Davis said. In BYU, the Chippewas went into a hostile environment and played a very good team loaded with offensive weapons.
Howard may not feature the array of scorers that BYU did, but the Bison present any number of challenges in their own right.
"You try to get a lot accomplished in the non-conference part of your season and I think one of those things is how are you able to limit the other team's best player," Davis said. "When you have somebody of that caliber you're not going to be able to stop him. The idea is to make sure that he earns every point that he gets and that we have a focus on him.
"That's going to help us throughout conference play because the other team's always got a best player and you've got to make sure he's at the top of the scouting report and that you learn from each opportunity that you get on the court."
The Chippewas made 47 percent of their 3-point attempts and 47 percent of their overall field goal attempts at BYU, and it appears their early season shooting slump is in the rearview mirror. CMU also rebounded relatively well against the Cougars, who held a slight 37-34 edge on the glass.
In CMU's previous game, a 79-71 win over Texas Southern, the Chippewas were outrebounded 38-27. The upward trend is one that Davis hopes to see continue.
"You look early in the season and how we would struggle rebounding the ball offensively and defensively," Davis said. "Part of it you can attribute to being early in the season, part of it to injuries.
"But I think if you look at the BYU game, and it's a small sample size, we were able to score the basketball from the outside and by getting to the basket. We were able to hold our own on the rebounding side with a very physical BYU team in a very tough environment to play in, and then defensively I feel like we're continuing to improve.
"And if we continue to improve in all three areas, that's the idea. You want to be playing your best basketball by the time conference starts, and then it's can you improve by the time the post-season occurs. I think we're feeling good about where we are, but we also understand we've got a long ways to go."
CMU senior guard Chris Fowler played all 40 minutes against BYU in just his third game since returning from an injury. Fowler leads the Chippewas in scoring at 17.0 points per game, but was held to eight on 3-of-14 shooting by the Cougars. His 6.6 assists per lead the team.
Fowler's 17.0 points per game would rank third among the conference's scoring leaders and his assist average would rank second, but he hasn't played enough games to qualify.
Three other starters -- Braylon Rayson (16.6), Rayshawn Simmons (14.2) and John Simons (10.1) -- average in double figures for CMU. Rayson ranks fourth in the league in scoring, Simmons 10th. Simmons also ranks second in the conference at 5.8 assists per game.
