Despite a standout 28-point performance from Jalen Terry (Flint, Michigan/Beecher/Oregon/DePaul) and an additional 16 added to the scoreboard by Jalin Billingsley (Cleveland, Ohio/Lutheran East/Georgetown), the Eastern Michigan men’s basketball team lost their third straight game — this one to Purdue Fort Wayne, 99-76.
The loss marks the second straight for the Eagles by a margin of over 20 points, and after starting the season 5-2, Eastern Michigan now finds themselves at a crossroads in their campaign - holding a 5-5 record with MAC play looming large at the turn of the new year.
“It starts with our defense, and it finishes with the rebounding,” Eagles head coach Stan Heath said when asked about his team’s three-game skid.
“I thought we had some really good practices, cleaned some things up—we just didn’t see it today,” he added.
In addition to his double-digit points figures, Billingsley led the team in rebounds with nine. At the same time, Da’Sean Nelson (Toledo, Ohio/Robert S. Rogers/Kilgore College/DePaul) added 10 points as the only other player to join Terry and Billingsley in double figures.
Where the Mastodons won the game was their record-setting three-point shooting - draining over half (51.3%) of their attempts from behind the arc and making the most threes (20) not just by an Eastern Michigan opponent since the 2008-09 season but by any team in George Gervin GameAbove Center history.
"That was a really good basketball team—terrific guard play, they shoot the ball extremely well. They got it going," Heath said about the historic performance from Purdue Fort Wayne.
As a team, the Eagles never led at any point during the afternoon - shooting 47.5% on the floor while allowing Purdue Fort Wayne to hit 54.7% of theirs, with both teams shooting the same free throws throughout the game.
Moving forward, Eastern Michigan returns to action for the second straight game at home, their first time playing back-to-back home games all season; this time against Wright State on Saturday, December 21 at 2 p.m. live on ESPN+.
