CMU Men Host Aquinas on Monday Night
12/7/2015 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Andy Sneddon, CMUChippewas.com
MOUNT PLEASANT, Mich. - The Central Michigan men's basketball team will look to climb back to the .500 mark Monday when it entertains Aquinas in a non-league game at McGuirk Arena.
The Chippewas (3-4) are coming off a 75-72 loss at Grand Canyon last Thursday.
Aquinas, an NAIA school in Grand Rapids, is 8-3. The Saints are 5-0 in the Wolverine Hoosier Athletic Conference and defeated Cornerstone, the defending NAIA Division II national champion, 62-60, last Wednesday.
The Chippewas' last win came a week ago, over McNeese State, 74-73, at McGuirk Arena.
CMU has played every game this season without injured starting guard Chris Fowler, its leading scorer in each of the past two seasons and the runner-up in the Mid-American Conference Player of the Year voting a year ago.
There is no definitive timetable for Fowler's return, however coach Keno Davis said after the McNeese State game that Fowler had been working out with the team and he speculated that Fowler's return would come sooner rather than later.
The Chippewas play host to Texas Southern on Saturday.
Rayshawn Simmons has moved over from the shooting guard spot to point guard in Fowler's absence, and he leads the Chippewas in scoring at 16.4 points and 5.6 assists per game. Simmons ranks second in the MAC in assists per game.
Fellow guard Braylon Rayson is averaging 15.4 points per game. Simmons and Rayson rank fifth and eighth, respectively, in the MAC.
Senior forward John Simons is averaging 11.3 points and is CMU's top rebounder at 7.3 per game.
The Chippewas have shown signs in their past two games that their early season shooting slump is behind them. Against McNeese State, they made 44.2 percent of their field goal attempts and shot 36 percent from 3-point range; against Grand Canyon, they shot 40.5 percent and 35.7 percent in those categories.
CMU went a combined 41-for-51 (80.3 percent) from the free throw line in those two contests.
Aquinas, like CMU, relies heavily on the 3-point shot. The Saints attempt an average of 17.2 triples per game and are making 34.9 percent.
Two Saints, guard Jake Bullock (17.0) and 6-foot-4 forward Zac VanBeek (16.3), average double figures in scoring. VanBeek has made 49.2 percent of his 3-point attempts this season, and ranks second in the WHAC in that category. Bullock is the league's fifth-leading scorer.
Kail Venema, a 6-7 forward, leads Aquinas in both rebounding (6.0 per game) and assists (3.5).
