On Jan. 11, the Eastern Michigan men’s basketball team faced their ongoing rival, Central Michigan University. The Eagles dominated over the Chippewas 99-68 at home in the newly named Gervin GameAbove Center.

The Eastern Michigan Eagles dominated both halves of the matchup, outscoring the Chippewas 46-31 in the first half, and 53-37 the second half.

Eastern Michigan displayed great teamwork and chemistry with five players scoring in double figures.

Bryce McBride led the team with 16 points and three assists. Kevin-David Rice came off the bench aggressively, adding a career-high of 15 points. Monty Scott had 13 points. Darion Spottsville added 12 points and five assists, and Nate Scott contributed 10 points to the game.

Kevin-David Rice expressed his gratitude toward his teammates and coaches in a post-game press conference hosted by EMU athletics.

“I’m just grateful for the opportunity, I love the game so I’m just grateful to be out here still playing and I appreciate my teammates and coaches for giving me an opportunity. Everybody on our team gets along, we’re all brothers. Everybody’s happy for each other every time we do something good out there,” Rice said.

The Eagles performance against Central Michigan marks the fifth game this season that Eastern Michigan’s defense has held a team under 70 points. Mo Njie led the team in rebounds, grabbing seven boards, as well as nine points, a block and a steal.

During the post-game press conference, Head Coach Stan Heath praised the Eagles’ efforts executing the game-plan.

“I thought the preparation for this game was really at a high level and it paid off for us. We talked about shot selection, the ball moving, not getting stuck, not over dribbling the ball. We talked about being more active defensively and we saw that.” Head Coach Stan Heath said.

“We want to be one of the top teams in the state of Michigan so we’ve got to knock off our rivals. We’re off to a good start, we still have to play both of them again but we’ve given ourselves the edge in the rivalry match up,” Heath added about rivals Western and Central Michigan,“ Coach Heath continued.

The Eagles next home game will be Jan. 18 against Kent State at 7 p.m. You can watch it on EPSN3 or listen at WEMU 89.1.

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