Ball State University Athletics
Ball State University
19-13
Miami (OH)
13-19
Miami Edges Men's Hoops in MAC Tournament
March 07, 2016 | Men's Basketball
By Doug Zaleski
BallStateSports.com
MUNCIE, Ind. -- The Ball State men's basketball season may not be over. But if this is where it ends, the team will look back on a year that featured a remarkable turnaround but one that also ended on a sour note.
The Cardinals' less than stellar results at the end of the regular season extended into the first round of the Mid-American Conference Tournament on Monday when they dropped a 49-47 decision to Miami in Worthen Arena.
The RedHawks (13-19) advanced to the MAC quarterfinals in Cleveland, a position the Cardinals (19-13) hoped to reach but failed to gain.
"We had a good season, and we're pretty confident our resume is going to put us in some type of postseason tournament," Cardinals coach James Whitford said. "I say with confidence, based on how teams in our league have done, we should be in a tournament.
"To go from where we were to where we are now … we won the MAC West for the first time in a long time. I say with great confidence that we've just scratched the surface of where we can go."
While the Cardinals wait until next week for a possible postseason spot, they'll ponder what happened when they lost their final two games in the regular season and the MAC tourney game.
The big culprit against Miami, which Ball State defeated twice in the regular season, was the offense.
The Cardinals hit 37.5 percent of their field-goal attempts, their fifth-lowest performance of the season. And the 3-point shot, one of their most effective weapons on offense much of the season, deserted them.
Ball State made two of its first three 3-pointers, thanks to a 23-footer by Sean Sellers four minutes into the game and a 26-footer by Sellers two minutes after that.
But the Cardinals made only one of 20 shots from the arc after that to finish with their worst production of the season from the 3-point line: 3-of-23 for 13 percent.
"For the most part we got really good looks," said Sellers, who scored nine points off the bench. "Shots just didn't go down."
Those shooting woes were compounded by trouble at the free throw line, where the Cardinals made only 8-of-15 attempts.
"We had a tough shooting night both from free throw line and the arc," Whitford said.
Miami tried to make Ball State's shooters uncomfortable by switching up defenses often. The RedHawks rotated among a 2-3 zone, a 1-3-1 zone and man-to-man.
Whitford said he thought the Cardinals handled the changing looks, but the results were not there even though open shots were available.
"It took us a while to get adjusted and get comfortable with the way they were playing," Whitford said. "Once we did, we played the game the right way."
Miami never trailed. The RedHawks inched ahead 27-22 at halftime and built their largest lead at 37-27 with 15:12 remaining in the game.
The Cardinals finally found an up-tempo opportunity midway through the second half, using an 11-2 scoring spurt to get within 39-38 on Sellers' 12-footer with 7:53 to play.
But Ball State couldn't parlay that streak into a lead.
The score was tied 47-47 after Ball State's Franko House scored inside with 32.5 seconds left. He scored the Cardinals' final six points.
Miami worked the clock down and the Cardinals' Francis Kiapway was called for a controversial foul defending the RedHawks' Eric Washington on a shot near the free-throw line.
Washington made both free throws to put Miami on top 49-47 with 3.2 seconds to play.
House inbounded to Francis Kiapway in the backcourt, and his 30-footer at the buzzer to win the game for Ball State was off target.
Whitford drew up two options for House to inbound the ball on the final play. One was to get it to Kiapway coming from the frontcourt into the backcourt. The other was a long toss to Trey Moses on the Ball State end with the option of dishing the ball to a shooter on the wing, ala Valparaiso's Bryce Drew in the NCAA Tournament nearly 20 years ago, or driving to the basket.
"If I could do it over again, I would have given Franko only one option: to throw it deep," Whitford said.
Ball State executed one of the most dramatic turnarounds in the nation this year, going from seven victories last year to 19 this season. But the Cardinals lost their final two regular-season games to drop into a tie for the MAC West championship, failing to get a bye into Thursday's MAC Tournament quarterfinals.
"We didn't finish the season the way we wanted to, but I felt we left it all on the floor," said House, who was named to the All-MAC Second Team and the MAC All-Defensive Team. "Tonight, we played well defensively. We had a bad shooting night at home, which I don't think would happen again if we played them six games, 10 games."
House had seven rebounds to go with his team-high 15 points. He made all six of his field-goal attempts.
Moses had seven points and a career-high nine rebounds.
