CLEVELAND — Peter Suder gave the Miami RedHawks a boost Friday night, while Kam Craft came up clutch down the stretch.
Suder had a team-high 23 points and 10 rebounds, and Craft hit a pair of late 3-pointers to help second-seed Miami beat No. 3 Kent State 72-64 in the Mid-American Conference Tournament semifinals at Rocket Arena.
Miami (25-8) reaches its first MAC Tournament championship game since 2007 and will face top-seed Akron at 7:30 p.m. Saturday at Rocket Arena for an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament.
The RedHawks beat the Golden Flashes twice during regular season play. Kent State (17-18) was led by Jalen Sullinger, who scored a game-high 29 points.
Miami, which is the conference’s best 3-point shooting team, started out 1 for 6 from long range and trailed Kent State 6-5 in the first five minutes of action.
Sullinger scored Kent State’s first nine points, and the Golden Flashes owned a 9-7 lead with under 15 minutes remaining in the opening half.
Miami’s Brant Byers knocked down a 3 to tie it up at 13-13 with 12:23 showing before the halftime break. Then a Marquis Barnett layup put Kent State back up 15-13 at the 11:47 mark.
Cain Medley sunk a 3-pointer as the first-half clock expired to send Kent State into the locker room with a 33-32 advantage.
The game saw 19 lead changes, and the margin never exceeded three points either way for more than 14 minutes in the second half.
Craft — who scored all of his points in the second half — drilled a corner trey to give Miami a 63-60 lead with 3:27 left to play. He connected on another one from beyond the arc near the same spot to up Miami’s lead to 68-64 with 1:29 remaining.
The Golden Flashes didn’t get any closer than that the rest of the way.
Eian Elmer had 10 points for the RedHawks, who have won a school-record 25 games this season. Miami won 24 games in 1983-84, 1985-86 and 1998-99.
Battle of the Brothers
Miami coach Travis Steele and Akron coach John Groce are brothers and will face off against one another in the MAC title game Saturday for a chance to reach the NCAA Tournament.
