Central Michigan University
Furman
Cotton's Career Night Leads CMU Past Furman
11/18/2016 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
Cullen Maksimowski, CMUChippewas.com
MOUNT PLEASANT, Mich. — The Central Michigan women's basketball team looked like a much different basketball team in its home opener on Friday. That's a good thing.
After starting the season with a 107-47 loss to No.1-ranked Notre Dame, the Chippewas downed Furman, 81-71, in the second round of the Preseason WNIT at McGuirk Arena behind a career-high 26 points from senior forward Jewel Cotton.
"Furman isn't Notre Dame and no one we play the rest of the way is going to be like Notre Dame," CMU coach Sue Guevara said. "We're still a work in progress but It's nice to get the first one here at home and it was good to see that we can score."
CMU (1-1) will play its final Preseason WNIT game on Saturday (7 p.m.) against Elon (2-1) at McGuirk Arena. Furman drops to 0-2 and will play Eastern Washington at 4:30 p.m. Saturday at McGuirk.
With the win, the Chippewas are now 8-2 in home openers under Guevara.
Central Michigan finished the game shooting at a 43.7 percent clip from the field and made 34.8 percent of its 3-point attempts. Furman finished at 32.8 percent from the field and 25 percent from long distance.
The Chippewas held a 46-30 advantage over the Paladins on the glass.
Cotton finished 11-of-14 from the field and added six rebounds to lead the Chippewas.
"I was doing a lot visualization and seeing the ball go in the basket," Cotton said. "I wasn't doing anything special, just focusing more on the little things I could control."
CMU junior guard Cassie Breen overcame early foul trouble to finish with 16 points, making five of her eight 3-point attempts.
"Coming off the Notre Dame game I kind of had a break down when we were losing so bad and I got into foul trouble," Breen said. "After the game coach told me to forget about it and that the team needs me on the court.
"I bring the energy. When my energy is low, the team is low. I knew my two early fouls weren't going affect me in this game."
Sophomore forward Reyna Frost led CMU with 11 rebounds, while Tinara Moore added eight boards to go along with 14 points.
Le'Jzae Davison scored 18 points to lead Furman, while Cierra Carter and Whitney Bunn added 15 apiece.
CMU led by six, 50-44, midway through the third quarter, then closed the stanza with a 12-5 run to bump its advantage to 13, 62-49, entering the fourth. The Chippewas increased their lead to as many as 21 points three minutes into the fourth. Furman never got its deficit under double digits the rest of the way.
The Chippewas will see an Elon team on Saturday that defeated Eastern Washington, 76-55, in Friday's first game. Jada Graves led Elon with 13 points, while Ra'Shika White added 11.
