Busting Brackets
Fansided

MAC Basketball: In-depth look at Central Michigan-Western Michigan rivalry

By Ryan Kay

LAS VEGAS, NV - MARCH 10: Basketballs are shown in a ball rack before a semifinal game of the Mountain West Conference basketball tournament between the Fresno State Bulldogs and the Nevada Wolf Pack at the Thomas
LAS VEGAS, NV - MARCH 10: Basketballs are shown in a ball rack before a semifinal game of the Mountain West Conference basketball tournament between the Fresno State Bulldogs and the Nevada Wolf Pack at the Thomas /
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BUFFALO, NY – MARCH 20: Jared Klein #4 of the Western Michigan Broncos drives to the basket as Michael Gbinije #0 of the Syracuse Orange defends during the second round of the 2014 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament at the First Niagara Center on March 20, 2014 in Buffalo, New York. (Photo by Jared Wickerham/Getty Images)
BUFFALO, NY – MARCH 20: Jared Klein #4 of the Western Michigan Broncos drives to the basket as Michael Gbinije #0 of the Syracuse Orange defends during the second round of the 2014 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament at the First Niagara Center on March 20, 2014 in Buffalo, New York. (Photo by Jared Wickerham/Getty Images) /

The Head to Head Battles

Out of the last seven games that the Broncos and Chippewas have played each other two of those games have gone to overtime, six out of those seven have been decided by single digits, and five out of those games have been high scoring affairs with each team scoring at least 80 points. Western has a slight edge in the series winning 4 out of the last 7 games between the schools as seen below.

However, sometimes an intense rivalry takes a pause from the trash talking to focus on something more important.

Last season when the two teams were set to play one another in Mt. Pleasant on the campus of Central Michigan on Friday, March 2nd, tragedy struck the Central Michigan campus when that morning there was a double fatal shooting in a dorm room on the Mount Pleasant campus.

The individual responsible for the shooting was still at-large as of late that Friday night so was decided between the two schools athletic directors to move the game away from Mount Pleasant to the city of Midland on the campus of division 2 school Northwood the following morning. Central Michigan would end up winning the game but it showed that in circumstances like this, rivalries come together in times like this and put their differences aside.