#4 Kent State vs. #8 Western Michigan - Live Game Blog
#4 Kent State faces #8 Western Michigan in the first of two Thursday night games in the 2012 MAC Tournament on SportsTime Ohio. VanDelay Sports will provide a live in-game blog while also Tweeting live court side from the MAC Tournament. Visit us online and check out the MAC Tournament scores on VanDelaySports.com and follow us on Twitter @VanDelaySports.
Probable starters for Kent State: Porrini, Holt, Guyton, Manns and Greene. probable starters for WMU: Ward, Douglas, Pokley, Whitfield and Stainbrook.
13-6 Kent State leads at the first media timeout with Greene leading with 4 points. Poring dives into the crowd and comes up lame with the trainers seemingly focused on his right hamstring. As a big piece of the Kent State puzzle he’d be a huge loss if he cannot continue. At the second media time out at 10:46 Kent leads 22-14. After the timeout Porrini is back on the court as we go under the 10 minute mark. With 3 pts and 3 ast in 6 minutes he is showing his value to the team. Just under 9 minutes and Demitrius Ward picks up his second foul.
35-30 is our halftime score. Due to technical difficulties please follow @VanDelaySports on Twitter for updates. Moments after tweeting that WMU’s Matt Stainbrook was getting out hustled on both ends of the court, he gets called for a ridiculous Flagrant 2 leading to his ejection. Objectively speaking this is a terrible call and with under 8 minutes to play and Kent State up 19 this game is over.
WMU makes a ridiculous comeback to cut the lead to as little as 3 and Kent holds on, almost miraculously. Kent tried to give this one away and continued to shoot themselves in the foot as they survive and advance 76-72. Kent faces Akron at 7 on Friday night in the semifinals.
All-MAC Tournament Team Watch: With Kent advancing it seems safe to say none of the WMU players will make the All-MAC Tournament team. Not a single player stood out statistically. From Kent State Justin Greene scored 23 with 9 boards and 4 assists while Michael Porrini returned from in-game injury to score 10 with 8 assists and 6 rebounds.
Tags: 2012 mac tournament, kent state basketball, kent state golden flashes, mac tournament, Western Michigan, wmu basketball