OXFORD, Ohio - The Ball State University men's basketball team expected a bigger, more physical opponent in Miami University going into Wednesday night's Mid-American Conference road matchup against the RedHawks.
What they did not expect was to be outscored 40-10 in the paint, and the difference down low was costly in the Cardinals' 59-41 loss in front of 2,481 fans at Miami's John D. Millett Hall.
"That's just a weak effort on our part," coach Billy Taylor said. "They just did whatever they wanted in the painted area on both ends of the floor. We weren't able to get anything going in the paint, we forced shots and took wild shots - that really hurt us."
Even with the loss, Ball State (10-10, 5-3 MAC) remains in first place in the MAC West Division because of Western Michigan University's 68-61 road loss to Bowling Green State University on Wednesday night.
The Cardinals were led by senior guard Brandon Lampley's 10 points on 4-of-7 shooting with a team-high five rebounds and a game-high five steals. Senior guard Rob Giles added nine points for Ball State.
"I thought Brandon did a lot of good things for us," Taylor said. "He had a high number of turnovers, which is uncharacteristic of him, but he really got us back in it at a stretch of time where we really needed someone to make some shots for us."
For Miami (13-7, 6-2 MAC East), senior guard Michael Bramos had a game-high 14 points on 5-of-11 shooting, including 4-of-4 from the free-throw line. Senior forward/center Tyler Dierkers - this week's MAC East Division Player of the Week - added 12 points and a game-high six rebounds for the RedHawks.
"I give credit to Miami," Taylor said. "I thought their kids played hard, fought us and competed for everything tonight. Unfortunately, we did not rise to that challenge, we did not compete the way that we needed to, and I was very disappointed in our effort in a lot of areas."
Ball State trailed by nine points with 7:21 remaining in the first half at 21-12. Lampley scored eight points in the final 5:55 in the period to cut the Miami lead to 25-22 going into halftime.
"When we get up nine or 10, we always seem to let the team back in," said Bramos, the No. 2 overall scorer in the MAC this season. "It's a credit to [Ball State], it's just something we've got to learn to do better."
The RedHawks would then go into attack mode in the paint, outscoring the Cardinals 24-6 down low in the second half to essentially put the game out of reach.
"All week, we worked on if they got the ball in the paint to really double and help out," Dierkers said. "We really crashed the glass, and we made an emphasis on offense to get it in with little post-ups, and we found it down low and it worked out for us."
Ball State plays Kent State University (11-11, 4-4 MAC East) - the preseason MAC Tournament favorite - next at 2 p.m. Saturday at Worthen Arena.
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