As Chris Bond wrestled with Kent State’s Chris Evans for position near the basket on Saturday, Ball State’s junior forward showed why he’s emerging as one of the toughest defenders in the Mid-American Conference.
While Evans had four inches and 25 lbs. on Bond, he was able to not only anchor the Golden Flashes leading scorer outside the paint, but was athletic enough to grab one of his four steals on a lob attempt.
“He’s a solid defender and he really knows his role on defense,” Evans said. “He’s pretty physical and boxed me out and didn’t let me get any offensive rebounds. He really helps that team in a lot of different ways.”
Along with playing 34 minutes of solid defense, Bond added 10 points and nine rebounds in Ball State’s 47-61 loss to Kent State.
It was the Gary, Ind. native’s second consecutive game filling up the stat sheet.
At Eastern Michigan last week, Bond scored 18 points on 8-of-8 shooting with four assists, four steals and the game-winning free throws with .6 seconds left.
“Chris is a tremendous athlete. He never gets tired,” coach Billy Taylor said after Saturday’s game against Kent State. “If we had to play again right now, he would dial it up and play just as hard as he did the first 40 minutes. That’s just the type of player and athlete he is. He’s special in that way.”
Despite his reluctance to shoot much outside the paint, the 6-foot-4-inch swingman is incredibly disruptive on both ends.
Bond is 12th in the MAC in rebounding at 5.4 per game, but is one of only two players under 6-feet 7-inches tall on that list.
His energy and activity is something Kent State coach Rob Senderoff said is extremely hard to game plan for.
“With guys like that, if you’re not guarding him tight on the perimeter and giving help, when a shot goes up there’s nobody to put on him,” Senderoff said. “So he’s got a free run at the rim. He got six offensive boards and he’s just a tough matchup.”
