If the Ball State's recent history against Central Michigan holds up, the Cardinals could be looking at their second straight high-scoring affair. In the past seven games against Central Michigan, the Cardinals have averaged 86.4 points per game, yet have lost three of those games.
The Cardinals (11-6, 6-3 in the Mid-American Conference) will try to earn their third straight win and third road win against the struggling Chippewas (7-11, 2-8 in the MAC) today.
The Chippewas are coming off of an 84-39 loss at Western Michigan and, according to Central Michigan's student paper CMU Life, will again be without junior Kevin Nelson and sophomore Sefton Barrett for violating team rules. Nelson leads the team in scoring (17.5 ppg) and Barrett is third in scoring and second in rebounding. Nelson also leads the MAC in 3-pointers made and is second in the MAC in points per game.
"I don't know much about what's going on with their situation," BSU coach Tim Buckley said. "I'm sure that (CMU coach Jay Smith) is handling it the right way. I think we need to be prepared for a team that's going to come after us, and they're going to play hard and they're going to be well-prepared."
The Cardinals, meanwhile, are coming off of a 96-86 win over Eastern Michigan to tie them for second in the MAC West. Despite the Cardinals' 11-6 record, they only have three wins of more than 10 points.
"The closeness of the games requires that we take some time off of practice just because of the physical pounding we take on the court," Buckley said. "So we've been doing a lot of one-offers."
Central Michigan is among the worst teams in the MAC in nearly every statistical category, and Nelson has been one of the Chippewas' few bright spots this season. Last year, he scored 27 points in Central Michigan's 94-89 overtime win over BSU.
Still, Buckley doesn't expect his team to suffer from "the dog days" of February.
"There are no dog days unless you don't like what you're doing," he said.
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