Ball State was able to escape with a 96-86 victory over Eastern Michigan, despite allowing 42 points in the paint.
Eastern's starting frontline of John Bowler, Markus Austin and James Jackson combined to score 52 points and grab 25 rebounds. The trio combined to shoot 20-35 from the floor, as most of their attempts came from close range.
The Cardinals also proved to have a low post presence as well but with only one man. Terrance Chapman scored a career-best 24 points and tied a career-high by hauling in 16 boards.
Excluding Chapman, Ball State used a smaller and quicker lineup. Peyton Stovall, Dennis Trammel and Skip Mills scored 24, 21 and 13 points respectively.
This smaller BSU lineup and the bigger Eastern squad caused matchup problems for both teams.
"There were a lot of miss-matches throughout the game," Eastern Michigan head coach Jim Boone said. "I thought we did our best to try to take advantage of that. I know they did their best to try to take advantage of that."
Ball State took advantage of the smaller lineup by shooting over 54 percent from the field in the first half. BSU head coach Tim Buckley said good shooting can sometimes cause the Cardinals to relax on defense.
"I think that with our basketball team sometimes, when we score the ball at a 50 percent clip or better, it really hurts our mind set on the defensive end of the floor," he said. "It's almost like we feel like we're just gonna go ahead and outscore you."
Michael Bennett played a key role on both ends of the floor for the Cards. Bennett scored 10 points and pulled in six boards in addition to a solid defensive game against the taller Eagle low post players.
"I thought Michael Bennett was terrific with his post defense," Buckley said. "There's a guy who is undersized, overmatched. I really thought that he made the game tough on Bowler in the second half."
"Bennett picked it up tonight a lot," Chapman said. "That's what we expect out of him."
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