KALAMAZOO, Mich. – The Western Michigan men's basketball team completed their final tune-up before the start of conference play by notching a double-digit victory at home, as the Broncos downed Rochester College 69-54 at University Arena on Friday. With the win, WMU will enter Mid-American Conference play with a 9-4 record; the team will play its first MAC game on Tuesday, Jan. 6 when they travel to take on the Akron Zips.
The entire team got in on the action against the Warriors, with all 15 roster players participating and most contributing on the score sheet. David Brown recorded the team-high with 12 points Tucker Haymond finished just behind him with 11 points. Drake LaMont notched eight points while also pulling in a game-high nine rebounds, and Kellen McCormick came off the bench to add 12 points as well.
For the second straight game WMU excelled at protecting the basketball, committing just 10 total turnovers, and the Broncos recorded 22 assists on 28 makes, the third-highest single-game assist total in program history and the best since 2010. WMU out-rebounded Rochester College 35-26 and shot 49.1 percent from the floor while forcing 14 turnovers.
The Broncos came out firing early in the first half, opening the game on an 8-3 run to push the Warriors back on their heels. Brown drilled three-pointers on consecutive possessions to start the game, putting WMU ahead 5-3 at the 17:56 mark and then by five points with 17:01 remaining. The sixth-year senior had one more trey in him before the first media timeout, knocking down one more long-range shot to put the Broncos ahead 11-5; Haymond closed out the early rally with lay-up, taking a feed from Austin Richie and slipping it in to make it 13-5 less than five minutes into the half.
The Warriors rallied back over the next six minutes to pull within 13-10, but Kellen McCormick quashed the run with a putback off his own miss at the 9:13 mark. Taylor Perry knocked down a three-pointer from the deep left wing to put the Broncos ahead 20-13, and Haymond made it a 12-point edge with a triple of his own to make it 29-17. The largest lead of the half came courtesy of Khadim Dieng, who made a spinning one-handed jumper in the paint with 22 seconds left to set the halftime deficit at 36-19.
WMU went on a 9-0 run early in the second half to make it 50-33, with Thomas Wilder dropping off a pass in the paint to Kellen McCormick for an easy lay-up at the 11:57 mark of the period and Haymond making one of two free throws to cap the run. McCormick converted another paint feed from Wilder at the 10:20 mark, with the freshman point guard throwing an accurate bounce pass between two Warriors players to give McCormick the easy make. The redshirt sophomore center was getting it done on defense, too, stopping a Warrior fast break at the 7:58 mark by taking a charge under the Bronco hoop.
Von Washington III pumped the lead to 20+ points with three-point makes on consecutive possessions, knocking them down from both the left and right wings to make it 62-40. The Kalamazoo native nailed yet another on the fast break to break his previous career-high of six points, swishing one from the deep left corner to make it 67-44. The Broncos kept the Warriors at arm's length the rest of the way, running down the clock and eventually taking the game by a 69-54 score.
