On December 30, 2004 Ball State head coach Tim Buckley told his team there were two types of players: the ones that play to play and the ones that play to win.
On Sunday the Cardinals started the new year playing to win and defeated Kent State 76-67, moving BSU to 6-4 overall and 1-1 in the Mid-American Conference.
"What I told them was years from now when they're old and gray and they come back I want them to look back at January 2, 2005 and say that's when things changed," Buckley said referring to how his team needed to play with a certain demeanor.
Senior Terrance Chapman and Sophomore Peyton Stovall both pitched in 18 points to lead all scorers. Sophomore Skip Mills added 12 points along with his strong defensive play against Kent State's point guard DeAndre Haynes.
Buckley said that during halftime against Indiana Mills came to him and said he liked guarding the point and wanted to do it more often, so Buckley kept that in the back of his mind and gave him the opportunity Sunday. Mills held Haynes to 11 points off of 4-15 shooting.
"Haynes is so quick but Skip is a very good on the ball defender and he has wanted the challenge for some time," Buckley said.
Before taking questions from the media Mills thanked Buckley for giving him the opportunity to guard Haynes.
"I took it as a challenge because I really don't like people scoring on me," Mills said. "I was looking forward to guarding somebody that was supposed to be one of the best players in the MAC."
Kent State head coach Jim Christian said it wasn't Mills defense that hurt his team, it was their own.
"For us this game was lost on the defensive end of the floor," he said. "We couldn't get any big stops I thought they out-hustled us to every lose ball and you can't win on the road when stuff like that happens."
After reaching a 19-19 tie with 7:59 in the first, each team went on a run. Kent State was first, scoring 11 straight to take a 30-19 lead. Ball State, however, went on a 13-2 run to close the half.
That run included a three-pointer from Dennis Trammell that tied the game with five seconds remaining. With one second left on the shot clock and 5.9 on the game clock Mills in-bounded the ball to Trammell who hit the trey.
After the break the Cardinals continued the run by scoring six straight off of two three point plays: one traditional from senior Michael Bennett and one old-fashioned by Chapman.
Ball State never led by more then six until the end, but Kent State only led for a period of 14 seconds when they took the lead from two free throws at the 11:29 mark. This time the Cards used an 8-0 run to get the lead back and never let Kent State have a chance in the final minutes.
Bennett also pitched in for BSU off the bench, scoring nine points and pulling down four rebounds. Junior Tom Howland played what Buckley said was his best game this season, finishing with five points and six rebounds.
With six straight 20-win seasons, the Kent State Golden Flashes have become one of the MAC's premier teams and carry a certain sense of pride because of that. Buckley knew that his team would need a certain demeanor against Kent State on Sunday.
"That's a very resilient, very prideful group of guys," Buckley said about the Flashes.
He went on to say that he wants his team to be similar to that.
"I think those players have passed that (pride) down through the locker room and that's what's going to happen here," he said. "There is going to be a pridefulness that goes through that locker room that they are going to continue to pass down to the guys that keep coming through here and that's what excites me about this group is because they have that potential."
Buckley said that if his team continues to play with the mindset they did on Sunday then they could end up being a special team.
"I think we have a special group and I don't mean that in terms of the talent level or those types of things, I mean the type of people they are," Buckley said. "When they bring that mindset that they had today they could be a special basketball team.
"The beauty of the team is that the team is the star."
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