MT. PLEASANT, Mich. - Forty minutes of basketball and 87 points from two players.
In what appeared to be a talent show from a couple of the Mid-American Conference's two best offensive players, Central Michigan's Chris Kaman and Ball State's Chris Williams went head to head on the offensive end in what ended up as a final possession game. Kaman finished with a career-high 43 points while Williams wrapped up with 44.
Williams, however, walked away from Rose Arena saying he couldn't be happy.
"It doesn't matter if you lose," said Williams, as the Cardinals fell 94-92.
Kaman finished the game draining 15 of 19 shots from the field, a performance for which Williams could only say, "We had no answer for him tonight. None whatsoever."
Kaman, who also had 12 rebounds and seven blocks, said driving the ball in the post was something they had emphasized before the game, mostly because of Ball State's lack of experience in the post.
For most of the contest it was freshmen Tom Howland and Kevin Cates who were asked to defend Kaman. In the first half Kaman seemingly had his way with the two freshmen, getting the ball in whatever position he wanted.
"The guys did a good job of getting the ball to me," Kaman said. "The key was getting it close to the rim as much as we could."
In the first half Kaman had six dunks while Cates found himself with three fouls in the first 20 minutes of play.
"We couldn't touch (Kaman)," Buckley said. "He did a nice job of bringing it around and we got into foul trouble. He did a nice job of finishing.
"He's a good player who has the experience," Buckley said. "He knows how to seal people off and he just did a great job."
While the more than 4,000 in attendance Wednesday night were going crazy over Kaman, Williams did his best to not disappoint the dozen Ball State fans in attendance.
Williams finished the game 18 of 28 from the field, hitting a 3-pointer to make it a single possession game in the closing 15 seconds.
After the game Central's J.R. Wallace referred to Williams as "Michael Jordan" in regard to Williams constant menu of fade-away jumpers.
While not going to such extremes, Kaman still seemed impressed with Williams' scoring.
"He's a tough player to defend," he said. "He's hard to guard when he spin dribbles. You just hope he misses it."
According to Ball State coach Tim Buckley, there were two things that hurt Ball State the most: free throw attempts and second half defense.
By the final second Central had 17 more free throw attempts, hitting 14 more freebies than the Cardinals. Leading the Chippewas from the charity stripe was Kama who made 13 of 16 from the line.
Hurting Ball State the most, however, was the lack of second half defense.
Central shot 48 percent from the field in the first half. In the second half, however, the Chippewas hit shot after shot, going for 72 percent in the final 20 minutes.
"Our guys won't defend in the second half," Buckley said. "We've talked about it. We've showed it to them. They won't do it. Until that happens we are going to be in ball games like this. It's been like this every second half that I can remember, the field goal percentage goes up for the other team."
Ball State has not lost a game with four players in double figures all season. Wednesday night, the Cardinals were one player short. In addition to Williams' 44, Robert Owens finished with 18 while Matt McCollom added 12 points. The missing link was Cameron Echols who finished the game with only four points and 13 minutes of playing time.
"We always chart what the best lineup is for us and I thought he gave us some early baskets in the first half," Buckley said of Echols. "We went with somebody else and that lineup just seemed to work better."
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