In their first MAC tournament appearance in over half a decade, the seventh-seeded Eastern Michigan men’s basketball team made a valiant effort against Miami (OH) but ultimately fell short, 81-75.
Miami came into the game ranked as the second seed in the bracket, and they showed it out of the gate by beginning the contest on a 9-0 run—a deficit that Eastern Michigan would claw back to erase. They even took the lead briefly before entering the locker room knotted up at 29.
Jalen Terry (Flint, Michigan/Beecher/Oregon/DePaul) was the key catalyst for the Eagles' remaining in contention in the first half. He scored 15 of his 21 points during the opening frame, all of them made three-pointers.
However, the senior guard would go cold coming out of the break, failing to make any of his last eight triple attempts and only scoring six points during the final 20 minutes.
On the other hand, fellow star senior Da’Sean Nelson (Toledo, Ohio/Robert S. Rogers/Kilgore College/DePaul) was 0-for-7 from the field during the opening period with 0 points to his name at halftime—but supplied 17 to the Eagles’ scoring output during the second half along with seven rebounds in a valiant attempt to keep Eastern Michigan in it.
The Eagles remained tight with the Redhawks for most of the second half, but eventually, the second-best team in the conference flexed their pedigree and extended their lead to a game-high 13 with 3:04 remaining, a margin they would not relinquish during the rest of the game.
Christian Henry (Chicago, Illinois/The Skill Factory/Panola College) led the way in scoring for Eastern Michigan with 24 points on 9-of-16 from the floor, five of his field goals coming from behind the arc, with no other player on the squad besides Henry, Nelson, or Terry scoring more than six points.
With the win, Miami advances to 24-8 (14-4 MAC) on the year and will play Kent State in the MAC tournament semifinals, while Eastern Michigan drops to 16-16 (9-9 MAC) and has been eliminated from the bracket.
