Broncos roll over Spring Arbor 81-51

By Adam Debrowski
Western Herald

(Chyn Wey Lee/Western Herald) WMU sophomore guard Mike Douglas goes for a layup in the Broncos’ 81-51 win over Spring Arbor Wednesday.

The Western Michigan men’s basketball team had a couple of close calls in its first exhibition game against Kalamazoo College on Saturday. This time around, their lead was a little more comfortable.

The Broncos defeated the Spring Arbor University Cougars 81-51 Wednesday night in its final exhibition game before the regular season.

“[Spring Arbor] is a great team to play against in an exhibition game. There’s a lot of movement away from the basketball,” head coach Steve Hawkins  said. “Offensively, we caught a rhythm. We had a number of guys start to feel good out there.”

Senior guard David Kool caught fire early in the second half, knocking down three shots in the first two minutes. Kool, who got off to a slow start against Kalamazoo College, had a game-high 18 points on 7-for-12 shooting Wednesday.

“We feel pretty good about ourselves. We got beat on a couple assignments, but we held them to a pretty low shooting percentage and won the war on the glass, which is big for us,” Kool said.

The Broncos nearly doubled up the Cougars in the rebound column, grabbing 19 more than Spring Arbor. Flenard Whitfield and Donald Lawson combined for 15 of the team’s 40 rebounds.

Whitfield was another bright spot for Western Michigan, demonstrating the Broncos’ paint presence throughout the night. Whitfield tallied 14 points and was a first-half staple on both ends of the floor. The Brown and Gold outscored Spring Arbor 32-12 in the paint.

The Broncos pulled away in the second half when the team’s jump shooting heated up.

The Broncos shot nearly 60 percent on the half, with Kool tabbing nine points and Alex Wolf adding eight.

Freshman Nate Hutcheson scored nine points on 4-for-6 shooting, comfortably displaying an array of post moves, as well as cutting and ball handling. He also pulled down five rebounds.

“I got to the glass a lot more tonight,” Hutcheson said. “I decided to go to the rim. That will get anybody’s confidence up: finishing easy shots.”

Demetrius Ward, who played an average of 10 minutes per game last season, was physician-cleared to return after suffering a stress fracture. Ward saw six minutes of action.

The Broncos will kick off the 2009-10 regular season in Detroit Sunday when they face the University of Detroit Mercy at 3:00 p.m.

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Posted by heraldstaff on Nov 12 2009. Filed under Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry

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