The Mid-American Conference (MAC) men’s tournament tipped off in Cleveland. The Kent State men’s basketball team comes in as the second seed in the tournament and today the Flashes faced off against the seventh seed, Northern Illinois.
The game started as a low-scoring affair in the tournament’s opening round. With Kent State uncharacteristically struggling from three-point range in the first half, Kent State’s best offensive player for the regular season, Sincere Carry struggled to get his offensive game going today, only finishing with 13 points in the 76-57 win for the Golden Flashes.
With Carry struggling fellow senior, Malique Jacobs performed big for Kent State tonight. Jacobs finished with 19 points. (Picture Here of warm ups)
Last season Jacobs was unable to play in the first half of the MAC championship, Jacobs said after the game that last season is a motivating factor for this year’s MAC tournament run.
Kent State did not need Carry to perform on offense with scoring coming from all around the team. Three other membmers of the team scored in double digits today. Myrne Thomas finished the game with 10 points. Cli’ron Hornbeak finished the game with 16 points, and MAC’s sixth man of the year Jalen Sullienger finished the game with 11 points.
NIU could not get scoring today, their biggest lead of the game was a two, which came in the first basket of the game. At the end of the first half, NIU had 18 points to Kent State’s 31 NIU’s best player of the game on offense was Zaquire Nutter, and Nutter scored 13 points in the loss.
Only two other players on NIU scored in double digits, which came from Anthony Crump and David Colt both ended the game with 10 points.
With an Akron win tonight tomorrow can see the potential third matchup this season with Akron and Kent State, and after the game Kent State head coach, Rob Senderoff said he is happier for his team than he is for himself to be playing in the MAC semifinal for the second year in a row, Senderoff said that he has been in the league a long time and nothing is promised when you come up to Cleveland for the tournament. The experience that this team has from last season helps with the MAC tournament having to play back-to-back nights.
Senderoff said the fact that the team is playing tomorrow night is great, but now they need to focus on tomorrow and see who they are playing whether it is Akron or Buffalo.