Ball State University Athletics
Men?s Hoops Hosts EMU Tuesday on BSSN/ESPN3
March 02, 2015 | Men's Basketball
Ball State vs. Eastern Michigan
Tuesday, Feb. 3; 7 p.m.
Worthen Arena (Muncie, Ind.)
TV: Ball State Sports Network/ESPN3
Radio: 104.1 WLBC
BSSN Affiliates: WIPB – Muncie; HTSN – Indianapolis; WHME – South Bend; WISE (MyTV 33.2) – Fort Wayne; WJTS – Jasper (tape delay)
The Ball State men's basketball team hosts Eastern Michigan on Tuesday as it settles in for a week at home to close out the regular season.
The Cardinals and Eagles played an exciting affair two months ago when they got together for the Mid-American Conference opener in Ypsilanti, Mich. Ball State overcame a nine-point second-half deficit to force overtime and won on a Sean Sellers 3-pointer with 15 seconds left in the extra period.
Neither team has had the conference season it hoped for since that point. Eastern Michigan (17-12, 6-10 MAC) entered the conference schedule with 11 wins, the most of any MAC team, but has cooled off. Ball State (7-20, 2-14 MAC) wasn't able to maintain its quick start to conference play.
But both teams now have two games left to prepare themselves for a run in the conference tournament. Ball State will be the No. 12 seed and will play a road game somewhere next Monday for the right to advance to Cleveland.
Between now and then, the Cardinals will get a second look at both Eastern Michigan and Northern Illinois (Friday for Senior Night).
The Cardinals are coming off a 70-59 loss Saturday night at Toledo against one of the league's first-place teams. Bo Calhoun exploded for a career-high 30 points in that game, marking the third-most on the road by any MAC player this season.
Calhoun went 13 for 17 from the floor in that game, but Ball State has struggled with its shooting as a team recently. Over the past four games, the Cardinals are hitting 36.4 percent from the floor and 27.3 percent from 3-point range.
They will look to improve those numbers against an Eastern Michigan team that always poses an interesting challenge with its 2-3 zone. The Eagles own the league's top field goal percentage defense at .376. At the same time, they are the worst shooting team in the conference at .410.
Eastern Michigan's Raven Lee has not had any issues with his shot, though. Lee has scored at least 25 points in three of the past seven games and is now the second-leading scorer in the MAC during league play at 17.4 points per game.
Lee led Eastern Michigan with 16 points in the first meeting this season. Sellers led Ball State with 15, while Franko House scored 14.
