KENT, Ohio - The Western Michigan men's basketball team maintained a double-digit lead for the duration of the second half, and the Broncos snapped a 10-game losing streak in Kent, Ohio with a 75-59 victory over the Kent State Golden Flashes on Thursday. With the win, the Broncos improve to 10-7 on the season, 3-2 in Mid-American Conference play.
The Broncos put the hammer down quickly and decisively against the Golden Flashes, taking a 10-point lead at halftime and tacking on into the second half. WMU was able to break the Golden Flashes' press for high percentage shots, going 14-of-25 (.560) in the second half with alley-oop dunks and open three-pointers. The Broncos controlled the glass against the Golden Flashes, out-rebounding them 42-32, and limited them to just eight second chance points.
Shayne Whittington scored a game-high 18 points on a sterling 8-of-11 from the floor, while also recording six rebounds, one blocked shot, and one steal. David Brown ran his streak of consecutive double-digit scoring games to 22 straight with 17 points, while also adding six rebounds, and freshman Tucker Haymond set a career-high with 16 points. Connar Tava recorded a game-high 10 rebounds.
The win for the Broncos snapped what was a 10-game losing streak at the M.A.C. Center that dated back to the 1995-96 season. The last win for WMU in Kent came on Feb. 17, 1996, when the Broncos downed the Golden Flashes 84-70. It is also the first time the Broncos have won back-to-back games against the Golden Flashes since winning two in a row from 2004-05.
Kent State led WMU 6-4 with 14:24 remaining in the first half after Kris Brewer made a free throw, but Haymond gave the Broncos the lead for good with a baseline lay-up at the 13:00 mark to make it 8-6. A.J. Avery had a putback slam dunk on the Broncos' next offensive possession to make it 10-6, and from there WMU was rolling. Brown completed an old-fashioned three-point play with a lay-up make and a free throw after drawing contact from Brewer to make it 14-9, and the lead grew to seven points when Haymond finished off a similar play with 6:52 remaining in the half.
Haymond gave the Broncos their largest lead of the half with a lay-up at the 3:24 mark to make it 31-20, and Kellen McCormick held the edge at 10 points by making a three-pointer with under a minute remaining to make it 34-24 at the half.
Not content to sit on that lead, the Broncos came out on fire in the second half with a 16-3 run, taking a 19-point lead with 16:17 remaining in regulation when Austin Richie drained a three-pointer from the wing at the end of a press break. The press break continued to be effective on the next two possessions, with Taylor Perry throwing an alley-oop to Whittington for a dunk to make it 48-27, and Tava throwing one to Whittington on the very next possession to up the Broncos' lead to 50-27 with 15:11 remaining.
The lead hovered around 20 points until the under-8:00 media timeout, with the Golden Flashes putting on a desperate rush to pull closer. The closest they would get was 14 points away on a jumper in the paint from Brewer to cut it to 71-57, but Brown and Richie added free throws down the stretch to push the lead back up. Tava tacked on a lay-up with 11 seconds remaining to set the final deficit at 75-59.
