Chippewas Use Overtime to Defeat Eastern Michigan 65-62 in Final Regular Season Game

MOUNT PLEASANT, Mich.—Paul McMillan IV scored a game-high 25 points and senior Brian Taylor, playing in his final home game on Senior Night, finished with a career-high 22 rebounds and 14 points as Central Michigan came-from-behind, then used overtime to defeat Eastern Michigan, 65-62, in the season's regular season final contest Friday night at McGuirk Arena.

With the win, CMU closes out its regular season with an 18-13 overall record and 12-6 MAC record. CMU's 12 MAC wins are its most since the 2014-15 season when it also won 12. CMU also swept Eastern Michigan for the first time since the 2020-21 season. It played its fifth overtime game of the year and improved to 4-1 in overtime games on the season. CMU also improved to 16-1 on the year when holding opponents to 70 points or less.

Central Michigan will enter next week's MAC Men's Basketball Tournament in Cleveland on a two-game win streak. Regardless of Friday's result, Central Michigan entered the night locked in as the league's No. 4 seed when it opens the MAC Men's Basketball Tournament First Round play against No. 5 seed Bowling Green on Thursday at approximately 1:30 p.m. ET.

"It's momentum," Central Michigan Head Coach Tony Barbee said. "I told the guys I'm proud of them. To have that kind of conference season with as much adversity as we had with all the injuries, that's a heck of an accomplishment with this group. This group has been tough-minded, relentless, they played for each other, they played unselfish. It's the epitome of a group that I love coaching."

"After we dropped those three games in a row, we regrouped. Momentum is a real thing going into the postseason. We got our mojo back. It started at Kent State even though we didn't win, so these last three games were huge to get us back to where we need to be. Now, we need to get some guys healthy moving into Thursday."

McMillan scored 13 of Central Michigan's final 15 points in the contest, including eight of Central Michigan's 10 points in overtime to register the victory. In overtime, McMillan gave CMU a 58-57 lead on a driving layup with 3:09 to go, then scored on fast break layup. A minute later he extended CMU's lead to five points (62-57) on two free throws with 1:47 to play. Two more McMillan free throws with 22 seconds to go put the game out of reach.

The Chippewas had to battle back from a double-digit deficit to register the win. They trailed by 11 points (49-38), but outscored EMU 17-6 over the final seven minutes to send the game into overtime. Aidan Rubio and Taylor both hit key 3-pointers, McMillan added a fast break layup, Taylor scored on an offensive putback, and McMillan added two free throws. With Central Michigan trailing 55-52, McMillan hit a 3-pointer with 1:05 to play that sent the game into overtime.

"The difference over the game's final seven minutes was we started getting stops and we created offense off of our defense," Barbee said. "When you're missing a bunch of guys it's hard to generate points. Paul stepped up, I'm proud of Brian Taylor who got the reward of laying this program's foundation. Derrick Butler, doing what he did defensively, those guys deserve this win."

CMU played without center Markus Harding, forward Jemal Davis, and guard Anthony Pritchard. With the missing players, Taylor saw action at both the power forward and center positions. His career-high 22 rebounds tied for the fifth-highest game total in school history and he registered his seventh double-double of the year and 11^th of his career. Most importantly, he was playing in his final game on Senior Night at McGuirk Arena in front of friends and family members.

"I knew I had to have a big rebounding game, play tough and get those boards because we were missing a few people," Taylor said. "I had to up my game and make sure I do my part."

For the second straight game, Central Michigan jumped out to an early lead. The Chippewas went up 8-1 on a Butler 3-pointer, then used an 11-0 run to take a commanding 19-4 lead on a jumper by Taylor, a 3-point play by McMillan, 3-pointer Vasko, and Rubio 3-pointer. Another Butler 3-pointer from the corner made it 24-8 with 10:22 to play in the first half.

But it wouldn't last as Eastern Michigan slowly battled back with an 11-0 run and held the Chippewas scoreless for nearly eight minutes to cut the lead down to 24-19. The Chippewas ended the first half with a 29-23 lead.

Early in the second half, Eastern Michigan took the lead and used a 6-0 run to go up 36-31. The visiting Eagles used a 9-0 EMU run on a Connor Serven 3-pointer, two Yusuf Jihad free throws, a Jihad dunk, and Jalin Billingsley alley-oop dunk to go up 11 points (47-36) with 8:14 to play.

Central Michigan outrebounded Eastern Michigan 60-38 and held the Eagles to 34.8 percent (23-66) field goal shooting. Butler added 12 points for CMU, which also converted eight 3-pointers.

Eastern Michigan ends its year with a 13-18 overall record and 6-12 MAC record. The Eagles were led by Arne Osojnik, who finished with 15 points, Jihad, who finished with 13 points and Billingsley, who scored 11 points.

—CMU—

Next Event

Team Stats

Paul McMillan IV

Brian Taylor

Derrick Butler

Aidan Rubio

Players Mentioned

Derrick Butler

Jemal Davis

Markus Harding

Paul McMillan IV

Anthony Pritchard

Aidan Rubio

Brian Taylor