It was supposed to be a nice warmup, a confidence booster to wind down the conference schedule, but for the opening 20 minutes of action at McGuirk Arena on Thursday it was everything but as NAIA-upstart Lourdes shot 64-percent from the field to play the heavily-favored Central Michigan Chippewas to a 40-40 stalemate.
A college basketball game isn’t 20 minutes long however, it’s 40 and an uptick in energy the Chippewas combined with a regression to the mean from the visitors ultimately proved the difference as CMU outscored the Gray Wolves by 21 points after the break to claim the 87-66 victory.