Central Michigan University Athletics
Unwavering Focus, Commitment
3/1/2018 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
Andy Sneddon, CMUChippewas.com
MOUNT PLEASANT, Mich. - Back to work.
Think Sue Guevara would have it any other way?
Some 12 hours after the Central Michigan women's basketball team had McGuirk Arena rocking and rolling in celebration of a Mid-American Conference regular-season co-championship, the Chippewas returned to a quiet McGuirk for practice.
There are plenty more rungs on the ladder, and the higher one goes, the more rarified the air becomes.
The Chippewas play at Toledo in their regular-season finale on Saturday (2 p.m.). If they win, they capture the MAC title outright, and enter the conference tournament as the No. 1 seed. Even with a loss at Toledo, the Chippewas can do no worse than share the conference title with Buffalo and go into the tournament as the No. 2 seed.
For Guevara and the Chippewas, it's been all about the here and now. And today, that here and now is Toledo and only Toledo.
"This group understands we have one more game, we have one more mile in a marathon that we're in, and we have to go in focused and ready to play and do what we need to do because we beat Toledo pretty bad," said Guevara, whose Chippewas pasted the Rockets, 85-47, in McGuirk three weeks ago. "It's Senior Night for them, and it's going to be a slugfest. But we'll be ready and we'll stay focused.
"I've never had a team that's been able to stay as focused and has bought in as much as this team has. And that is (due to) the leadership of this team."
Wednesday's win lifted CMU to 24-4 and 16-1 in the MAC. It is the second-highest win total in program history behind the 1983-84 team that finished 27-3. The Chippewas have also won back-to-back league championships for the first time since that season.
All of that is peripheral, Guevara said.
"Right now it's a tie," she said during the post-game press conference on Wednesday. "I'm really happy for our players. It's great for our program. We've said all along our mantra for this year is 'finish the play.'
"I think everything will sink in when we're all finished. I guess I'll think about it when I get to sit on my back porch and have an adult beverage."
Guevara will also be able to reflect on a long building process that began more than four years ago with a recruiting class that included Cassie Breen and Tinara Moore, the former the program's all-time leader in 3-pointers and the latter a leading MAC Player of the Year candidate.
A year later, Presley Hudson and Reyna Frost arrived on the scene, bringing with them the talents that would develop into the league's best guard and its best rebounder, respectively.
That quartet, along with redshirt freshman guard Micaela Kelly, has started all 28 games this season. Moore, Breen, Hudson and Frost have logged a combined 375 starts in their CMU careers and have already established a legacy of individual and team accomplishments that ranks among the very best in program history.
They haven't been without their share of disappointment. All four started CMU's 73-71 overtime loss to Buffalo in the MAC Tournament championship game in 2016; all four were in the starting lineup last season when the Chippewas went into its MAC Tourney as the No. 1 seed and were upset by rival Western Michigan, 67-63.
What doesn't kill you makes you stronger.
Wednesday's win over Ball State was indicative of where the Chippewas are, and how far they have come. They trailed by nine points at halftime and still trailed by nine early in the fourth quarter. Then they went on a 20-3 run to take the lead and nail down the victory.
Breen entered the fourth having made just one of her 10 3-point tries in the game. Then she hit the two biggest shots of the night - both 3-pointers, the first of which gave CMU the lead; the second of which extended the lead to five points - with under 2:10 to play.
Breen's last triple of the game was the program-record 289th of her career, one of a number of milestones the Chippewas have hit over the past few weeks of the season as the veterans have hit their prime, and the team has hit its peak.
Those numbers are, today, on the periphery. One day, Guevara and the players can unpack it all and weave the tales of the 2017-18 season, of some brilliant careers, and some lifelong memories.
But not now. Not when there is still so much more within their grasp.
"We've talked about this, this group, they've been so good at staying in the moment," Guevara said after Wednesday's game. "I'm going to be really honest. I was so worried that they were going to start reading all this stuff that everybody was talking about that this was The Big Game and you need this many rebounds, you need this many threes and it's like all white noise.
"They understood what this game was. It was Ball State with an RPI of 39 and they're a really good basketball team and (they) just knew what we had to do for today."
And tomorrow? Toledo. Only Toledo.
