Box Score
Season Stats
MUNCIE, Ind. ? David Kool scored a career-high 27 points and Andre Ricks added 20 points of his own to help Western Michigan come from behind to defeat Ball State, 71-67, in front of 4,541 at Worthen Arena on Sunday afternoon.
With the win, the Broncos (15-15, 9-7 MAC) finish all alone in second place in the Mid-American Conference West Division and will be the No. 6 seed in the upcoming MAC Tournament. This is the fourth straight year that WMU has finished higher in the standings than where it was predicted to finish in the preseason poll. For the fourth year in a row, WMU was picked to finish third in the MAC West in the preseason poll.
Western Michigan trailed by three at halftime, 35-32, but opened the second half on an 18-4 run capped by back-to-back three-pointers from Kool and Ricks to go up 11, 50-39, with 13:18 remaining.
The Cardinals (9-21, 5-11 MAC) still trailed by 11 points with 7:03 to go, 59-48, when they went on a 10-3 run to close within four points, 62-58, with 3:17 to go.
The next four points were scored by Western Michigan and the Cardinals never pulled within one possession the rest of the way.
In the first half, BSU scored the first six points and eventually built its lead to 11 points, 27-16, with 5:46 to go until WMU made its run.
The Broncos scored the next six points to pull within five before Ball State scored. Ricks hit a three-pointer 25 seconds later to get WMU back to within four points, 29-25, with 3:31 to go.
The Cardinals went back up seven on a three-point play, but WMU scored seven in a row to knot the score at 32, but the Cardinals scored the final three points of the half to take the lead into the locker room.
The Broncos shot the ball only 14 times in the second half, but converted on 57.1% (8-14) of those attempts, including a 6-of-8 performance behind the three-point line. WMU also hit 17-of-24 free throws in the second half and 27-of-39 in the game.
Ball State outrebounded WMU, 34-33, to take a 22-9 advantage in second chance points. Ball State also forced 17 WMU turnovers to outscore the Broncos, 14-7, in points off turnovers.
Shawnt?s Gary scored six points for the Broncos despite getting two stitches underneath his left eye. Derek Drews, Joe Reitz and Derek Fracalossi each added five points and Drews pulled down a career-high tying eight rebounds.
Skip Mills led Ball State with 22 points and Anthony Newell had a double-double of 13 points and 12 rebounds.
The Broncos will play at 7 p.m. on Wednesday at Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, Ohio, in the first round of the 2007 FirstEnergy MAC Tournament against the No. 11 seed, which Northern Illinois.
