When Ball State students left campus for spring break, some of us had an eye on our men’s basketball team. After all, they had tied Central Michigan for the best record in the Western Division of the Mid-American Conference with a 19-13 overall record.
Ball State will travel to Tennessee State for the first round of the CollegeInsider.com postseason tournament. The Cardinals and Tigers share a lot of similarities entering the first round of the tournament. Both teams rank in the top 5 most improved teams in the National Collegiate Athletic Association from the previous season.
Ball State women's basketball (21-9, 13-5 Mid-American Conference) will play in its fourth consecutive Women's National Invitation Tournament. The Cardinals will travel to Iowa City, Iowa, to play the University of Iowa Hawkeyes (19-13, 8-10 Big Ten) in the first round on Thursday, March 17.
Ball State (21-9, 13-5 Mid-American Conference) finished the regular season with its first 20-win season since 2008-09. Senior guard Nathalie Fontaine was named MAC Player of the Year and broke the Cardinals’ all-time scoring record.
Ball State accepted a bid to play in the CollegeInsider.com Postseason tournament (CIT) and will play Tennessee State on March 15 at the Gentry Center in Nashville. It will be the Cardinals' first postseason tournament since the 2002 season. Both teams have posted massive turnarounds this season. Ball State improved to 19-13 after posting a 7-23 record last season, the fourth-largest turnaround in the NCAA.
There was no storybook ending, no Mid-American Conference Tournament championship and no NCAA appearance for Ball State women's basketball.
After a record-breaking season for senior Ball State guard Nathalie Fontaine, the Mid-American Conference named her the Player of the Year.
Ball State women's basketball (21-8, 13-5 Mid-American Conference) took an early lead in its regular season finale — 5-4 with 4:41 left in the first quarter -- and didn't look back in its 68-58 victory over Toledo (17-12, 12-6 MAC). The Cardinals also earned the third seed in the MAC Tournament with the win.
Six-seed Ball State swept 11th-seeded Miami during the two regular-season matchups against the Redhawks, but the Cardinals lost March 7's do-or-die game in the Mid-American Conference Men's Basketball Tournament, 49-47.
In the last game of the regular season, Ball State traveled to Northern Illinois University for a matchup with a potential top-four seed in the Mid-American Conference tournament on the line.
A David vs. Goliath matchup; a new coach marching her team into a “sea of orange” to match up with one of women’s college basketball’s most storied programs. It looked even more one-sided than games that are scripted in the movies, the first round of the NCAA Tournament featuring one team that had never been there before against a team that had never lost in the first round of the big dance and was coming off back-to-back national championships.
Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, Ohio, awaits Ball State women’s basketball as the team gears up for the Mid-American Conference tournament March 9-12. The Cardinals (20-8, 12-5 MAC) have already clinched a bye to the quarterfinals due to their overall record.
The Ball State men’s basketball team will finish its season at Northern Illinois, this final game has implications on the upcoming Mid-American Conference West Division title and seeding in the upcoming conference tournament.
Ball State women's basketball managed to erase a 12-point deficit to come back and win 76-68 against visiting Mid-American Conference West Division rival Northern Illinois. While senior guard Nathalie Fontaine took the spotlight with her 40 minutes of play and record-breaking performance, junior center Renee Bennett led the charge to bring the Cardinals back for the victory. Fontaine's last second layup was set up by Bennett, who stepped up to pull away from the Huskies with just a few minutes remaining in the game.
Senior guard Nathalie Fontaine is now the all-time Ball State women's basketball scoring leader with 2,092 points. With four seconds left against Northern Illinois, Fontaine already had 21 points in the game and 2,090 in her career — 1 point shy of Tamara Bowie’s Ball State record of 2,091 career points.
With a win against Central Michigan on March 1, Ball State could have clinched the West Division of the Mid-American Conference outright on Senior Night.
A wide grin spread across senior guard Nathalie Fontaine’s face as she walked off the court after Ball State won on the road at Eastern Michigan, 67-63, last Saturday. The smile wasn’t because of the first-round bye the Cardinals secured with the victory, nor did it result from posting her 16th double-double of the season. Instead, it was the small, bushy head of hair that blocked the words “Ball State” on her jersey that sparked the smile as she carried her nephew toward the locker room. Fontaine, one of Ball State’s 19 international athletes, hails from Stockholm, Sweden, but her mother, sister and nephew made the trip to Muncie to be at her final career home game. “They follow all of the games online, so they’ve seen me play my whole college career,” she said.
Senior night for the Ball State women's basketball team will have two seniors playing their final game at Worthen Arena tonight.
After hitting a season-high 18 points in its last matchup, Ball State men's basketball only made five 3-pointers during its 65-57 loss to Central Michigan. With a victory, the Cardinals could have clinched the Mid-American Conference West outright, but after the loss, the two are tied for the division lead, both sitting at 10-7 in the conference. “I don’t think there was a high expectation,” junior forward Franko House said.
When Ball State (19-10, 10-6 Mid-American Conference) hosts Central Michigan (16-13, 9-7 MAC) March 1, it will be fighting to stay on top of the MAC West Division. A victory would secure the Cardinals' first outright MAC West title since the 2001-02 season, as well as Ball State's first 20-win season since that same season. Ball State has won four out of its last five games, including a record-setting night in its last game against Eastern Michigan. Central Michigan has won two in a row but trails Ball State by one game in the MAC West.
