When the Ball State women's basketball team (12-11 overall; 7-5 Mid-American Conference) faced the Eastern Michigan Eagles (17-6; 10-3) earlier this season, the Cardinals failed to compete in the second half, which led to a 100-83 defeat. On Saturday they will face Eastern for the second time and believe they are in a much better position.
"I know we're going to compete, which we didn't do last time," head coach Tracy Roller said. "When we compete, a lot of good things happen."
The Cards' will need several good things to happen against an Eastern team that is currently on a school-record seven-game winning streak. The Cardinals, on the other hand, are looking to break a two-game losing streak. It might not be the only time the Cardinals face a team that is hot, either; if Miami wins this weekend, they will face a Miami team on Wednesday that will have won 10 straight.
"They just kind of ran at us (the first time), and they got a lot of fast-break points and a lot of offensive rebounds and just kind of took the ball away from us," senior Johna Goff said. "I definitely think that we're way past that now."
After falling to Kent State last weekend, the Cardinals have had the week off to prepare for the Eagles. They went through two hard practices on Tuesday and Wednesday and have treated this week much like their previous week off in the season before they faced Northern Illinois.
"We worked a lot on us just getting better," Roller said. "When we did that against Northern, we did get better and we did play hard and we did compete."
Roller hopes the team can come out and compete early against Eastern, which is something the team failed to do against Kent State, scoring only 14 points in the first half.
"I think we were all surprised by how much we didn't compete (in the first half) against Kent," Roller said. "We've got to (compete) even if we're not hitting or not playing well offensively."
The first time the teams met, the Eagles put six players in double figures, including junior Ryan Coleman's 19 points. Coleman currently leads the team averaging 13 points per game. Roller said after the game there were a lot of matchup problems, but she thinks this time with the improved defense no matchup problems will exist.
One player Roller thinks will do much better is sophomore Dana Collins who has had time since then to completely recover from her injuries and regain her quickness. Other Cards who can make an impact include recently named Verizon Academic All-District V team member Kate Endress, who averages 19 points per game; Goff, who averages 13.3 points; and senior Jessica Reiter, who averages a double-double, with 10 points and 10. 4 rebounds.
"We're focused, we know now that we have to take every game one at a time, and we've got to get wins," Goff said. "It's kind of do-or-die right now."
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