CLEVELAND--In March 2007, after Ball State University was eliminated from the Mid-American Conference tournament by Eastern Michigan University, forward Anthony Newell said he still felt his Cardinals were the better team, despite three losses to the Eagles that season.
However, a year later, for the second straight season Eastern Michigan University knocked Ball State University out of the Mid-American Conference tournament. The Cardinals fell to the Eagles 59-55 Wednesday afternoon.
This time around, Newell's opinion stood in stark contrast to his proclamation of the year before.
"I don't know how to answer that," Newell said after being asked about last March. "They won."
The Cardinals' loss was their fifth to Eastern Michigan (14-16) in the past two seasons and their tenth loss of the year by six points or fewer.
Newell led the Cardinals (6-24) with 17 points, scoring 12 of them in the first 7:13 of the game.
"Anthony was able to get into a great rhythm early on," Cardinals' coach Billy Taylor said. "He was pretty much isolated, so he was able to score."
Newell was taken out of the Ball State lineup a minute later. When he returned, he found a much different Eagles' defense than the one he had dissected to begin the game.
"They switched to zone, so I had to pick my spots," Newell said. "When they were in man, we had a mismatch."
Newell was plagued by foul trouble for much of the remainder of the game. The junior picked up his fourth foul with 9:53 remaining in the game.
Freshman forward Malik Perry had already picked up his fourth foul by that point, leaving Ball State with only sophomore walk-on Dexter Hinkley to defend the Eagles' star forward, Justin Dobbins, who led all scorers with 21 points.
"It definitely hurt us," Taylor said. "If guys aren't picking up fouls, you can play more aggressively. That forced us to go a little bit deeper into our bench."
Dobbins scored 13 of his points in the second half. Eagles' coach Charles Ramsey, who said he normally lets his players run the offense, made a tactical switch at halftime to take advantage of his sophomore forward's size advantage.
"I made the determination at halftime that we'd basically call a set every time down the floor," Ramsey said.
For his part, Taylor said he wasn't surprised the Eagles concentrated their offensive efforts on Dobbins.
"They did the same thing the first two times we played them," Taylor said. "It's been a common theme all year. Every team has a size advantage on us so they try to establish a low-post presence."
Ball State made seven 3-pointers while attempting a season-high 24 in Wednesday's game, making seven. The 3-pointers made up exactly half of the Cardinals' total attempts from the field.
"We just ended up taking too many three-point shots," Taylor said. "That's not really been the name of the game for us. We haven't been a great shooting team all year. I felt like if we would have attacked their defense, we would have been better off."
The loss ended the career of Cardinals' senior guard Peyton Stovall. The captain quietly scored 13 points in his final game.Stovall said his mind was on his teammates as he walked off a college basketball court for the final time.
"My thoughts leaving the floor were, 'I'm going to miss these guys,'" Stovall said. "That's all I can think of."
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