The East Division of the Mid-American Conference continued to flex its men’s basketball superiority on Saturday.

That was bad news for Eastern Michigan, which was blown out by Akron, 77-47, in a battle of MAC division leaders at Rhodes Arena.

But the East Division’s overall dominance was once again beneficial to the West Division-leading Eagles.

EMU (10-13, 5-4) lost its second straight game, but lost no ground in the West standings.

Just as they did on Wednesday, East Division teams swept all six league crossover games on Saturday.

Western Michigan (10-13, 4-5) and Ball State (12-9, 4-5) remain one game behind the Eagles after Saturday losses.

Akron (16-7, 8-1) used a 14-2 run to lead 31-9 with 7:21 mark left in the first half and would take a 39-16 lead into halftime.

The closest Eastern Michigan got in the second half was 52-37 with 8:53 left to play, but Akron quickly pushed its lead back to 20-points and would lead by as many as 31.

Chauncey Gilliam scored 13 points and Nikola Cvetinovic 12 points to lead Akron.

Matt Balkema scored 15 points on 7-of-10 shooting for EMU. The rest of the Eagles combined to make 10 of 43 (23.2) shots from the floor.