The Eastern Michigan men’s and women’s basketball teams opened up the season with the first annual Crash The Convo event.
Similar to a pep rally, the event was mainly to build hype for the teams heading into the season. Following a full performance from the EMU cheerleading team, each player was introduced starting with the women's team. Once they were introduced, it was the men’s turn. Both head coaches would come out to give a little speech on their teams and their expectations for the following season. For the men’s, sights are set high. Coming into the season the team was predicted to win west division of the Mid American Conference. Head Coach Rob Murphy made it clear in his speech prior to the event that the Eagles were looking to make good on this prediction.
Once the introductions were over, the fun and the games begun. To start, both teams would break off into sets of three for a shooting challenge. Each team would be made up of two players from the men’s team and one from the women’s. Out of the three events that occured during the pre-season pump up, this was the most competitive. Despite the strong desire to win from everyone performing, the teams would still enjoy the friendly competition.
After the shooting demonstration, the men’s team took the floor for a 16 minute, running clock scrimmage. I use the word scrimmage loosely here because it was more of a demonstration of talent than anything. Most of the players were either trying to demonstrate how they can jump when attempting to dunk, or showing how deep they can shoot the three from. Even though the scrimmage was light that doesn’t mean we didn’t get to see some great plays from our Eagles. Junior Elijah Minnie demonstrated his soaring abilities with a plethora of strong dunks during the game. The Eagles hope to bring their skill to attempt to win the MAC title.
To conclude the evening's festivities, the men’s basketball team would compete in a dunk contest with the women’s team being the judges. For most, the hardest part was managing to make a dunk. Many dunker’s turns were concluded with the buzzer going off rather than a successful siren. Junior Tim Bond would manage to take home his third consecutive dunk contest victory in a rather uneventful finale.
The Men’s basketball team kicks off their season with a matchup against the University of Pittsburgh on Friday, November 11th at 7pm while the women get started with a exhibition on Monday, November 7th against Lawrence Tech.