The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
Central Michigan reigns as women’s MAC champs
Central Michigan celebrates after defeating Buffalo, 96-91, in the Mid-American Conference championship game March 10.
Great things were expected this season of senior center Tinara Moore and the Central Michigan women’s basketball team.
The Chippewas delivered on those expectations in the regular season, finishing 25-4 overall and 17-1 in the Mid-American Conference to capture the MAC West title and first seed in the MAC tournament. Moore and her talented teammates kept delivering with a tournament run capped by a 9691 victory over No. 2 seed Buffalo in the title game.
Upping their record to 28-4 with their eighth straight victory, the Chippewas claimed their first tournament title since 2014 and secured the coveted automatic bid to the NCAA tournament.
“Give all the credit in the world to these players,” longtime CMU coach Sue Guevara said in the midst of the on-court celebration after the win was secured. “They didn’t get caught up in the expectations and get ahead of themselves. They focused on the process and getting better than they were last year.”
CMU was beaten in the quarterfinals of the tournament last year by Western Michigan. That came on the heels of a 73-71 loss to Buffalo in the finals of the 2016 MAC tournament.
Freshman guard Micaela Kelly scored a team-high and career-high 26 points for the Chippewas. Junior guard Presley Hudson also scored 26 points as the Chippewas avenged the only blemish on their MAC slate, an 8582 loss at Buffalo on Feb. 14.
“This is an incredible feeling, just awesome,” said Kelly, the MAC Freshman of the Year.
Hudson was a major contributor on the CMU teams that experienced heartbreak in the 2016 and 2017 MAC tournaments.
“This is what we’ve been working toward all season,” Hudson said.
Kelly and Presley combined for 23 points in the first half as Buffalo over the first 20 minutes shut down senior center Moore, the MAC Player of the Year.
The 6-foot-3 Moore was a force in the second half, however, scoring 17 points with a collection of textbook low-post moves. She also had a game-high 14 rebounds.
“My teammates were there for me in the first half. As a senior and player of the year in this conference, I knew what I had to do in the second half,” Moore said.
The Chippewas had to be on top of their games to get the better of a Buffalo team that matched CMU’s regular season record and had prestige nonconference wins over Nebraska and Clemson.
The Bulls got 26 points from junior guard Cierra Dillard. Senior point guard Stephanie Reid added 15 points before she was forced from the game in the closing minutes with an apparent ankle injury.
Buffalo rallied from deficits as large as 13 points in the first half to pull even at 31-31 on a Dillard 3-pointer with 1:59 remaining in the half. CMU had a 43-40 lead at halftime. The Bulls trailed throughout the second half but always were within hailing distance until the Chippewas finally pulled away at the end of the fourth quarter.
“That was one heck of a basketball game,” Guevara said. “You just saw with the two best teams in our league going at each other and giving it everything they had.”