Ball State (14-14, 7-8) hosted Akron (22-6, 14-1) on Tuesday evening. The Cardinals fell to the Zips on the road earlier in the season 81-73. While the Cardinals kept things close, they fell 87-82 to the Zips.
Here are three takeaways from the loss.
Interior defensive struggles
Ball State was challenged early on with handling the potent Akron offense, and the defensive struggles from the Cardinals reared its ugly head yet again. The red and white struggled to contain the dribble drives from the Zips and were unable to prevent much scoring inside the arc. Midway through the first half, the navy and gold notched 18 of their 37 points in the paint.
While Ball State's defense struggled, the visitors' offense couldn’t seem to miss either, even if the Cardinals forced them into tough shots. Akron was shooting 71 percent from the field halfway through the first period and didn’t show many signs of slowing down. The Zips had eight different players score in the first half, and, in addition, the Cardinals struggled with defensive rebounding through the first half as well, allowing six offensive rebounds.
Three-point shooting
Shooting from beyond the arc has been all or nothing in games this year for the Cardinals. This evening, Ball State was shooting bombs away from long range without hesitation. The red and white attempted 22 threes in the game, making 10 of them, which was good for 45.5 percent. Graduate student Ethan Brittain-Watts was perfect from distance in the contest, going 3-for-3, while redshirt senior Mickey Pearson Jr. attempted the most three-pointers he’s shot in a game, attempting 10, but only knocking down four of them.
Lack of bench production
The Cardinals' starters have carried a lot of the weight throughout the majority of this season. However, the bench has given them a boost in key moments throughout this season from multiple players such as graduate student Jeremiah Hernandez and redshirt senior Ben Hendriks.
Despite what the red and white have gotten from their reserves this season, this game was drastically different. Midway through the second half, the home team had only registered six bench points, all coming from Hendriks. On the opposing sideline, the Zips got most of their production in the contest from their bench. The navy and gold notched 40 bench points of their 71 total at the 9:28 mark of the second half.
Contact David Moore via email at david.moore@bsu.edu or on X @gingninj63.
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