The Ball State University women's basketball team heads back in to division play as the Cardinals travel north to take on Central Michigan University at 2 p.m. Sunday.
Ball State (17-8, 9-2 MAC) has five games remaining in the regular season schedule, all against teams in the Mid-American West Division, which they have played once this year. The Cardinals are 4-1 against MAC West teams, only losing to Northern Illinois University 72-76.
The Chippewas (14-11, 6-5 MAC) lead the MAC in scoring, averaging 80 points a game. Central Michigan also allows the most points in the MAC at 76.6 points per game. Ball State is second to last in scoring defense, allowing 71.5 points per game.
The Cardinals outscored the Chippewas 83-75 on Jan. 14 in a home game when sophomore forward Emily Maggert scored 23 points and grabbed a career-high 17 rebounds, one shy of the Worthen Arena record for rebounds in a game. Coach Kelly Packard said Maggert took advantage of what the Chippewas gave her.
"She was able to pin and seal quickly inside," Packard said. "She was able to make contact with the defense and get a seal fairly quickly, which really lined her up for some easier shots and easier looks at the bucket."
For Maggert's rebounding performance, Packard said that was caused by huge effort by Maggert.
"When you get 17 rebounds, you're not in the right place at the right time, you work for those," Packard said.
All of Ball State's bigs rebounded well against Central Michigan. Ball State out rebounded the Chippewas 47-41 with Maggert's 17, junior forward Danielle Gratton's 12, and freshman forward Jade Barber's five rebounds in eight minutes of action.
The Cardinals also found success at the charity stripe when last facing Central Michigan. Ball State scored 20 points from the free throw line while shooting 90.9 percent. Packard showed more concern about Central Michigan's free throw shooting in their last meeting.
"Looking at Central's stats, if you look at conference games only, Central's averaging 16 and a half free throws a game," Packard said. "The fact that they only made six and only attempted eight, that's well below what they average, which tells me that we better not count on that on somebody else's court to be the difference in the game."
Ball State has time on its side. The Cardinals are coming off an eight-day break since their last game when they defeated Ohio University 80-72 Feb 14. Ball State is 4-0 this season after not playing for a week or longer. Packard said with the extra time between games, the team took Sunday, Wednesday and Thursday off.
"It certainly is a good time to allow the body to have some restoration just from the physical demand of the season, so we did take advantage of some additional time off," Packard said. "Usually, we'll take one day off a week and that's it. We were able to take three days off.
Though Ball State had a good showing in the turnover column in their game against Ohio, they'll have their work cut out with Central Michigan. The Chippewas force 22.5 turnovers a game and average 11.4 steals per game, both tops in the league. Ball State is last in the MAC with steals per game at 6.68 per game and have a negative turnover margin.
Packard said the goal for Ball State has stayed the same - to win the MAC West division title - and with a slim cushion, she said they have work ahead of them.
"We've turned up the intensity of our practices," Packard said. "We had a really good practice on Tuesday. It looked more like a practice that would simulate a championship team and we have to continue that. We can't have one practice like that every three days. We have to practice like that daily."
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