Sorry a little lax in getting this up. Miami fresh off a road kill win at EMU, and a couple relaxing practice days courtesy of Dustin May at Michigan, continue the directional Michigan road kill revue with a nationally televised contest tonight at WMU. Tipoff at 6pm ET on CBS Sports Network. The Red and White enter this Friday’s game as the only remaining undefeated team in the country with a 28-0 (15-0 MAC) record, its best start to a season in program history. Miami holds a new program record for wins in a season, breaking the mark of 25 established last year. The RedHawks hold the program record formost consecutive road wins overall (13) and in a season (12) as well.
Western Michigan is currently 10-18 (4-11 MAC), as the Broncos defeated Bowling Green 88-79 Tuesday night. Western Michigan went 12-20 (9-9 MAC) last year. Head coach
Dwayne Stephens is in his fourth season with the Broncos. Heading into the 2025-26 season, Western Michigan was selected to finish 10th overall in the 2025-26 MAC Preseason Men’s Basketball Poll. Redshirt senior Justice Williams (14.9/game), junior guard Jalen Griffith (12.7/game) and senior guard Jayden Brewer (12.6/game) lead the Broncos offense in points. Griffith also leads the team in assists (3.5/game) and steals (1.0/game), while Brewer averages the most rebounds (6.7/game) and blocks (1.0/game). Griffith has missed the past two games for the Broncos.
I hope he doesn’t mind, but mz343 analysis is always so good, I am copying it from another thread to include here, as everyone should read it.
"mz343
Western is coming off their best performance of the year with their win at BG. Assuredly, they will play with extra intensity because they’re playing us at home with Cleveland on the line. And they had a lead on us early in the 2nd half of the first meeting. We need to show our toughness again, preferably for 40 minutes at both ends, unlike Tuesday night.
Offensively, Western is right in the middle of Division 1 and the MAC. They’re a top 100 3 point shooting team but they don’t shoot a ton of them. They essentially play 5 out with 4 ballhandlers and a big, the big is just there to set screens. When a ballhandler comes off a screen or double screen, they’re looking to drive or pull up in the mid-range. Against BG, they only took threes after passes around the perimeter. Even Williams, who shoots 39% from 3, wants to drive. Since their bigs aren’t a huge threat to score, I think I’d hedge hard and double off the pick and roll some.
At the other end, we turned the ball over too much early. Once we stopped doing that, we scored and scored some more. The first game archive has already been removed from ESPN plus so you can’t go back and watch the first meeting. I’m guessing they’ll put some more ball pressure on us than they did against BG, but no matter how they guard us, the ball has to move more than it did on Tuesday. Attack their big, they don’t block a lot of shots and aren’t the most physical players. Running action with 2 options, Woolfolk on the roll and someone else popping out may shake their defense up a bit. Don’t refuse the mid-range and when we dump in the post, let’s not be afraid to look opposite for the kick out."
Every time they play up at Western, I think about Charlie’s heart attack and him writing on a notepad from his hospital bed, “DID WE WIN?” They did that night, and let’s be able to tell him “YES” again. Go Miami.
Coach Coles 13 year tenure was a time of immense changes in the college basketball landscape. For the most part these changes were not favorable to Miami.
Coach Coles success hid those changes and they only became evident in the 13 years after he left. I am still bitter that most Miami fans did not recognize what an extraordinary job he did as our head coach.
You should be bitter at me then. I think he was an excellent coach. We always had a terrific game plan. He was a tremendous ambassador for Miami and you are right he squeezed a lot out of a small budget.
But he was given the premier MAC program and made it a mid level MAC program. After awhile I felt like he didnt recruit hard enough. And then he stopped playing his bench so we died down the stretch of games.
But of the coaches that I have watched since my association at Miami I would rate him 3rd behind Steele and Sendek. That is a rating of all the aspects of being a head coach. Above Joby Wright and well above Pearson - Owens and Coop
I was at that WMU game in the MAC tournament. Flew Kamikaze Air (iykyk) to Kalamazoo from Blue Ash with a stop in Oxford.
Will always have a soft spot for the ‘Zoo from how everyone treated us, even after Miami kicked their ass in the 2nd half and knocked WMU out of the tournament.
Flight home dodged tornado warnings the entire way.
I have a few long time friends who are WMU grads, and one of them even played on their great 75-76 sweet 16 team. Except for maybe tonight, they have all been pulling for us!
