MUNCIE, Ind. — Ball State men’s basketball has been through several ups and downs through their first eight games of 2025.
The Cardinals kicked off MAC conference play at the top of the month with huge wins over Kent State and Bowling Green. But since then, the Cardinals have fallen in four of their last five match-ups, dropping their conference record to 3-5. The team’s most recent defeat came at the hands of Western Michigan on Tuesday night.
“Our issues are on defense. We can’t contain the ball. We struggle to compete on being able to fight dribbles and keep it in front of us,” said head coach Michael Lewis following the team’s 74-71 loss. “We’re fouling too much, and our ball screen coverage isn’t as good as it needs to be and we don’t have enough bite defensively.”
The defense hasn’t been the only glaring issue for the Cardinals over their last five contests. Despite leading the Mid-American Conference in free-throw attempts, the Cardinals have only shot 68.5% from the free-throw line this season. Ball State was below their season mark at the line on Tuesday night as they only converted on 14 of their 25 attempts or 62.5%.
In addition to their struggles at the charity stripe, the Cardinals turned the ball over 13 times against Western Michigan, yielding 16 points to the Broncos in transition.
“Just too many small little detail things, we just never got over the hump. We just kept shooting ourselves in the foot,” stated Lewis regarding the team’s execution Tuesday evening.
Although the team couldn’t come out on top, Payton Sparks and Jermahri Hill both recorded electric outings on the offensive side of the ball. Both Hill and Sparks tallied 19 points, with Sparks also gathering 17 rebounds in his 31 minutes on the floor.
“We don’t like losing but we’re going to keep fighting. Keep coming into practice, keep fighting, and just keep going into games, and just playing. Things aren’t going our way right now, and we can change that right now–but we just gotta keep fighting,” explained Sparks.
The Cardinals will have yet another fight on their hands when they travel to Buffalo on Saturday.
Contact Jayden Collins with comments at jayden.collins@bsu.edu.
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