DaytonDailyNews.com

OXFORD — The presence of Wally Szczerbiak and Devin Davis, two of the three leading scorers in the history of Miami University men's basketball, apparently did little to inspire the RedHawks in that area of expertise.

No, they still prefer to practice the art of preventing points.

The RedHawks did plenty of preventing Saturday night, Feb. 14, when they pulled away in the second half to beat the Western Michigan Broncos 64-46.

"We were't very good on offense," Miami coach Coles said, "but we were pretty good on defense."

The RedHawks (15-8 overall, 8-3 in the Mid-American Conference) held WMU's David Kool, the MAC's third-leading scorer, to eight points, all from the foul line. The 6-foot-3 junior guard was 0-for-11 from the field, thanks mainly to the diligent attention of Miami senior Eric Pollitz.

"I just made it my focus ... to make him shoot a lot of bad shots, try to frustrate him a little bit," Pollitz said of Kool.

"As the game progresses I get a feel for his tendencies," Pollitz continued, "where he's going to shoot it, when he's going to try to penetrate. I just take it as a challenge."

Miami senior Tyler Dierkers, who led the RedHawks with 13 points and also had four steals, marvelled at Pollitz's persistence.

"I don't know if there is another defender in the MAC who could shut him down," Dierkers said. "He was continually running around screens."

Overall, the Broncos shot just 26.7 percent from the field and the 46 points was their second-lowest total of the year.

Kool and Miami's Michael Bramos, the MAC's second-leading scorer, both had no points in the first half. Bramos did come on in the second half to score 12.

"The first half was a bloodbath," said WMU coach Steve Hawkins, whose team fell to 8-16, 5-6 in the MAC. "Both teams really went after it. Both teams played really good defense."

A crowd of 3,986, the biggest of the season at Millett Hall, cheered enthusiastically when Miami's NCAA Sweet 16 team of 1999 was introduced before the game.

The fans cheered heartily when Szczberbiak and Davis, who had been inducted into the Miami Athletic Hall of Fame earlier that day, were honored at halftime along with fellow inductees Ben Burnau (baseball), Kelly Davis (women's swimming), Gaby Downey (women's basketball), Bill Gunlock (football) and Maartin van den Berg (golf).

And the fans cheered wildly when Miami's offense finally loosened up in the final five minutes and gave them three breakaway slam dunks, two by Adam Fletcher and a reverse slam by Antonio Ballard.

Contact this reporter at (513) 820-2197 or pconrad@coxohio.com.