Box Score
Season Stats
KALAMAZOO ? The Western Michigan Broncos held the Kent State Golden Flashes to a season low 57 points in a 79-57 victory in front of 3,093 fans at University Arena, Saturday afternoon.
Western Michigan's (11-13, 6-5 MAC) defense held Kent State (15-9, 8-3 MAC) to 38 percent (20-53) from the field and 18 percent (3-17) from three. Shawntes Gary had a career-high four steals to go along with 15 points, six rebounds, two assists and two blocks.
David Kool hit a three-pointer at the 18:11 mark of the first half to give the Broncos a 3-0 lead that they would never relinquish. WMU hit seven of its first eight shots to build an early eight-point lead, 19-11. Derek Drews scored 12 of his game-high 17 points in the first half by hitting 4-of-6 three pointers, including one with 46 seconds remaining in the first half to put the Broncos up 36-24.
WMU would open up the second half with a 7-2 run to push the score to 43-26, with six of the seven points coming from Gary. Kent State would not get closer than 15 points in the second half and the Broncos' largest lead of the ball game came after a Drews three point basket at 6:52 to push the lead to 29, 70-41.
Joe Reitz had a game high 12 rebounds to go with his 10 points, giving him his seventh double-double of the season and sixteenth of his career. Freshman guard David Kool finished with nine points and four assists, and Michael Redell contributed eight points and seven assists.
Julian Sullinger led the Golden Flashes with 12 points and Rodriquez Sherman led the team with seven rebounds. Kent State had the third best scoring defense in the Mid-American Conference, only giving up 61.7 points per game. The Broncos were able to score 79 on Kent, while holding them 12 points below their season average of 69.5.
The Broncos now head on the road to face in-state rival Central Michigan (9-14, 4-7 MAC) on Feb. 14 at 7 p.m.
QUOTES
WMU head coach Steve Hawkins
(On the game) "Obviously, this was a great win for us to bounce back from a couple of tough losses against a very good basketball team. I thought that we executed well throughout the game. Tonight, we hit a lot of shots. This puts a little smile on our face as we go into practice on Monday."
(On team's strengths) "Our problems have not been on the offensive end of the floor all year long. It's not offense. What's going to determine where we go is what we do defensively. Short of the Akron game, where we had a bad game offensively, it happens. Offense has nothing to do with where we are going to go, if we don't turn it over."
WMU center Joe Reitz
(On coming out strong in the second half) "One, I think we really learned from the Miami game. Coach brought it up at halftime, remember the Miami game, we need to keep our foot on the gas pedal. I thought we really did in the first four minutes. We came out with high intensity. It was a great team win for us."
(On offensive weapons) "It's kind of pick your poison with this team. If you are going to double team inside we have great, great shooters on the outside. I was really happy with the way all our shooters stepped up and hit shots all game."
WMU swingman Derek Drews
(On getting open three-pointers) "I was able to get open off a lot of ball screen stuff. I was able to pop and our guards were able to find me and that's how I had a good start.
WMU guard Shawntes Gary
(On the game) We know we've got to keep playing hard every game no matter what's going on. I think we did a really good job today of defending Kent State and making them take some tough shots. Once they started missing shots we got out on our break and were scoring pretty easy for a while.
