Broncos extend winning streak, close in on first place

By Alan Gerould, Senior Writer, BroncoBlitz

KALAMAZOO-- Western Michigan University men's basketball team extended their winning streak to four games, the longest current win streak in the Mid-American Conference this side of Buffalo, with an 88-80 win over cross state rival Eastern Michigan University in front of nearly 2,400 happy fans at University Arena on Saturday.

The Broncos have seemingly found their groove, winning five of its last six games to go from 2-6, last place in the MAC West Division to 7-7, within a game of first-place Ball State University. The Broncos lone defeat during this run came on the road to Central Michigan University in a game where the Broncos jumped out to a 20 to 4 lead before the Chippewas battled back to take their first lead with a little over three minutes left to play.

The Broncos, who have been mostly good offensively all season, except a few shooting slumps here and there, have been doing it with defense starting with a comeback win over Ohio University, 90-85 on the last day of January. This was the same Bobcat team that drilled the Broncos by a 31-point margin in the season opener in Athens. It looked like the Broncos might succumb to the same type outcome as WMU trailed Ohio by 21 points with a little over three minutes remaining in the first period. Junior guard Thomas Wilder and senior swingman Tucker Haymond, who had 29 and 20 points respectively, provided the spark and that seemed to ignite this group going forward.

"I was just sick of losing," Wilder said afterwards. "We know that we are better than our record indicates but it was time for us to go out and prove it on the court."

A Star is Born -- Freshman guard Reggie Jones won't turn 19 years old until the week of the Mid-American Conference Tournament, but he has grown up fast as MAC play enters the home stretch. Jones scored a career high 26 points the game after Ohio, on the road at Miami, on a night when leading scorers Wilder and Haymond struggled offensively. Jones hit 10-of- 18 shots and his offensive outburst helped the Broncos to its first win this season away from the friendly confines of University Arena, 72-55 over the Redhawks.

"Reggie was really feeling it," said Broncos head coach Steve Hawkins. "It's been feast or famine with him, but once he knocks down a couple, you can just see his confidence soar."

"I think my offensive game has always been there," Jones said in an interview the following week. "For me, the biggest thing has been learning all of our various defensive schemes. It's not like anything we did in high school."

The Broncos next returned to University Arena for the beginning of a three game home stand to face Northern Illinois. The Broncos continued to apply the defensive clamps with a hard fought 76-67 win in front of 3,140 fans, the largest home crowd of the season.

"This is the third game in a row that we've played well defensively," head coach Steve Hawkins said according to the wmubroncos.com official athletic website."That's been our biggest problem for awhile, so if we can continue to defend like that. We made just enough plays offensively to get us over the hump. Having five guys in double figures was a really balanced attack."

Next up was the Bowling Green Falcons, in a game where Thomas went Wilder. Number "10" was forced to the bench for nearly half of the first twenty minutes after getting whistled for his second offensive foul for using his forearm to shield the defender from the ball. Wilder went off in the second stanza scoring 31 of his career high 38 points in the second half.

"It was really about my teammates getting me the ball and finding me when I was open," Wilder said on the Bronco radio network after the game. "Coach told me to go the basket whenever I had the chance, so I did."

Wilder's relentless drives to the hoop resulted in him going to the free throw line 15 times and he was successful on every attempt. When I asked him a few days later if he could have done any better than that, Wilder deadpanned "Yeah, I could've gone 16 for 16."

It was Haymond's turn against the Eagles as the team's lone senior knocked down 8-of-11 from the field en route to a game high 26 points.

"We know that we won't get an invite to any of those other (NIT, CBI, etc.) post season tournaments and we want to extend this season as long as we can," Haymond said following the game Saturday. "We know that we are capable of winning these last four games and getting a higher seed in the tournament. We also know that we could lose the next four games if we don't play hard every possession."

"The seeding is still very much up in the air and we control our own destiny," Hawkins said after the Eastern win. " We have Toledo and Northern Illinois on the road and Ball State and Central (Michigan) here at home. Those are the teams we have to beat to win the MAC West. When we looked at the schedule before the season began we felt that if we were healthy (physically) going into the stretch run we would have a shot."

Based on the current standings, Akron (12-2), Ohio and Buffalo (9-5) and Ball State (8-6) are the four teams with better records. Kent State, Toledo and WMU are all 7-7, CMU and NIU (6-8), EMU and BGSU (5-9) and Miami at 3-11 is in the basement. The first four seeds get first round byes with seeds 5-8 hosting seeds 9-12 in the first round of the tournament on Monday, March 6th.

I appeal to all of you to come out next Saturday at 2:00 against Ball State and the following Friday at 7:00 against CMU to see this exciting young group of Bronco ballers. Fortunately we have another year with Wilder and Drake Lamont and more with the rest, but Haymond, who will certainly get probably have a chance to play overseas if he so chooses, will soon be ending his competitive days at University Arena and that alone is reason to come out. Fight on!