“These kids need to taste a win.”
Head Coach Brady Sallee said after Ball State Women's Basketball (7-18, 2-11 MAC) suffered its seventh straight loss being defeated by Buffalo (17-7, 9-4 MAC) Wednesday 97-58.
It has been a down season for the Cardinals following one of their best seasons in the Sallee era as Ball State finished last season with a record of 25-7, 13-5 MAC.
This season the Cardinals have struggled to find ways to come out on top of many battles and the last time Ball State was able to secure a victory was on Jan. 23. However, according to Sallee it’s not due to a lack of effort or determination.
“I feel for them, they’re continuing to show up for practice and pay attention to the plan and I think that they are going about that part of it the right way,” Sallee said.
Nonetheless, it was another rough night for the Cardinals as Buffalo dominated Ball State at Worthen Arena. The Bulls lit up the scoreboard finishing the game shooting 62.5 percent as a team from the field and knocked down 8-18 from behind the arc.
The Cardinals struggled offensively turning the ball over too much and having trouble making shots consistently due to the constant pressure the Bulls brought in their full-court defense.
“Hats off to Buffalo they just put it on us,” Sallee said. “They had a sense of urgency and it was just too much for us.”
Giving up early leads has been a problem for the Cardinals as they find themselves attempting to dig out of a hole throughout games. With the low win total, the main focus for Ball State is still to try and get better going forward as they finish up regular season conference play.
“Believe it or not, there are places that we are getting better, but there are plenty of places where we have to keep growing,” Sallee said.
Time is limited for Ball State to turn the season around as they only have five remaining regular season games and then they’ll start conference tournament play. The MAC also hasn’t treated the Cardinals well as they sit at the bottom of their division with only two wins over Bowling Green and Kent State early in conference play.
“Give a lot of credit to how good these teams are in this league are,” Sallee said. “You still have to show up and do your job and I think the kids have done a great job of doing exactly that.”
The Cardinals will look to get back on the right track as they have two more games in their three-game home stretch against Toledo (15-9, 7-6 MAC) and Central Michigan (19-6, 10-3 MAC). Ball State has been most successful on their home court this season with a 6-7 record in Muncie.
Contact Daric Clemens with any comments at diclemens@bsu.edu or on Twitter @DaricClemens
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