In a game packed with 63 3-point attempts, 28 of which fell through the hoop, Ball State's first exhibition game of the season against Marathon Basketball was a high scoring one with the Cardinals winning 101-96.
Ball State's Patrick Jackson and Chris Williams lead the Cardinals with five and six 3-pointers respectively while Rob Robbins nailed three trays to give Ball State 14 total 3-pointers as a team Friday night in Worthen Arena.
It can be expected that the Cardinals will post up more than just 28 attempts as they did Friday, according to coach Tim Buckley.
Buckley mentioned he expects to see between 30 and 35 3-pointer attempts per game for the season. He said Jackson and Williams will be the perfect duo to carry out the 3-point shooting duties as he referred to them as "Batman and Robin."
"They play really well together, and they feed off of each other," Buckley said. "I think that they look for each other. Those two guys playing together can give us great spacing because they shoot the ball so well, and they shoot it so deep."
One thing Buckley instituted Friday that kept the 3-point shooting strong was a three guard set, eliminating the center position on the floor.
"Basically we are going to have to use this three-guard lineup for quickness," Jackson said. "We need to beat teams down the court. The three-guard lineup is going to work well for us."
"We really want to play faster because we feel like we really have a good shooting team," Buckley said of the three guard set. "So if we get more possessions it will give us more shots."
Overall, Buckley and his players were glad to get the first game out of the way.
"We definitely needed to get a game under our belt to come out and see where we are at as a team," Jackson said. "We played pretty good, didn't play as well as we wanted to but it felt good to get out there."
"I'm actually very happy with how we played tonight. This group listens, they are very coachable and they play hard."
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