Seeing members of the Ball State men’s basketball program walk off a court with their heads buried in their chest has become the usual sighting for the 4-19 Cardinals.
When Ball State head coach James Whitford exited Worthen Arena’s media room, there was an audible slapping sound against the brick and exasperatedly saying “man”, echoing in the stairwell leading to the Cardinals locker room.
It described the 66-64 loss to Bowling Green Saturday afternoon where Ball State led 64-61 with 1:20 left in the game. The Cardinals now sit at 2-6 in games decided by 10 points and 1-14 in games where they trail at half time.
The Cardinals trailed the Falcons 36-32 going into intermission on Saturday, but Whitford took the majority of the blame for how he handled the pressure. The first-year head coach called a timeout before Bowling Green forward Richaun Holmes stepped to the foul line for a bonus one-and-one free throw attempt.
“I made a mistake calling a timeout when Richaun Holmes had the free throw,” Whitford said. “I did it because I wanted to ice the shooter, but in making that decision, what I did was I had to give our team multiple options.”
Holmes would miss the free throw but Ball State couldn’t capitalize on an ensuing Zavier Turner layup attempt that was blocked by Holmes.
“Knowing that we had a lot of youth out there, if I could do it all over again, I would have let him shoot the free throws.” Whitford said.
Eight games have either been close contests or have gone to the final minutes to determine the winner. The Cardinals are 2-6 in games of that magnitude.
“I think it’s killing our confidence a little bit, and it’s hurting us after every game,” Ball State senior guard Jesse Berry said. “At some point we’re going to have to say, ‘We’re sick of it.’ We have to come out and win.”
The Cardinals are now 1-11 in Mid-American Conference play. Four of those 11 losses have been decided within the final four minutes. Their only win in a close conference game came against Buffalo.
“I evaluate us in two ways,” Whitford said. “I evaluate us in terms of our process, the way we’re going about things and then there’s the external validation of wins — it’s not even wins it’s just your performance, this isn’t coming up high enough for us.”
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