Truth! I am not one to bash any Mac program. I loved how well teams like EMU, OU Ball State, Kent and Akron have represented the conference. It’s our time now to carry the unsung conferences to new heights. Nothing unites a campus in the Midwest more than hoops.
Congrats to the team and coaching staff on the W BUT this was an ugly lousy BB game. We did not play anywhere close to being a top 20 team. Second half D very poor- little to no clear outs for drives to the rim- spacing bad esp in the 2d half . When the three ball is not working switch it up- Luke had a very poor Pt G night - no offense rhythm ETC. I am sure Steele will address these issues before Friday. If we play like this again will will have multiple losses
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Dude. We played fine. Not great. But fine. We will play better.
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Most hoops pundits I have been reading are pretty unanimous that if we go undefeated and lose in the MAC tourney, we’d be in.
There is less consensus on the outcome if we lost one regular season game and then lose in the MAC tourney to finish w 2 losses. From what I gather, if that loss in the MAC tourney was in the finals to Akron, we’d still have a good shot to get in but there’s no guarantee.
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Yelllow - generally agree except we sucked tonight - we should be getting better- we were outscored and outplayed in the 2d half - our ball movement needs to be much better and our foul shooting remains very questionable- air balling 3’s ? Lets win by 20 Friday night!
That brown stain
Miami is 45-5 over their last 50 contests
#enjoyingtheride
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When Eastern called the timeout down 48-22, I thought I’d be able to enjoy a stress-free win tonight. Then the next 10 minutes of the game took place, though it was really a 3 minute stretch when they scored 11 straight to cut the lead from 17 to 6. But credit to everyone for righting the ship and executing over the last 8 minutes.
Defensively, I thought we were really good. Except for Lawson’s heater, we held them well below their average efficiency level. We rebounded well and when we pressed, we forced some turnovers.
Offensively, wellllllllll. Everytime we’ve played a Stan Heath-coached team in Ypsi, we’ve fallen into the trap of playing isolation basketball where we settle for 3s. I didn’t understand not pushing the ball when token pressure was forcing turnovers. I didn’t understand not attacking their token pressure. And I didn’t understand overloading one side in the 2nd half, essentially playing a triangle offense, which I don’t think is our strong suit. When we made them chase and moved the ball with some urgency, we got quality open looks. Some of the quick hitters we ran got open looks, but I didn’t think those were the right plays to go to, especially since we were cold from 3 and making them work defensively was a better strategy.
But winning on the road isn’t easy. 28-0 is spectacular. Let’s learn from tonight and play even better on Friday.
I assume they’re not bussing back to Oxford and just staying up here somewhere before going to Kalamazoo?
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The team is remaining in Michigan, thankfully
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Really? Would they normally travel on Thursday for the Friday game?
Yeah in one of the many interviews he’s done in the past couple of weeks, Coach Steele says he thought the trip up and back and up and back for the EMU &WMU games wore out the team last year, so they’re staying in Michigan for the week.
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I believe they are going to the womens game in EMU tonight
I’m going to assume this is how they took Kent to OT, almost beat Akron, and beat UC (lol). I could see pretty early on this could be an ugly game (for our lofty offensive standards anyway), and it was.
We had a really bad shooting night. IMO our defense, ball security, and poise won it for us.
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WE WON ON THE ROAD, WE ARE 28-0, IT WASN’T PRETTY BUT IT WAS A WIN. A WIN IS A WIN!
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That’s a good basketball decision and more supportable academically than when we were in school since lots of lectures and course materials are made available online even for residential courses. A multi-day road trip with a couple of games is also a good tournament simulator from that perspective.
During the bit of the Duke game I checked out last night, they mentioned that the Devils traveled from DC to Chicago after the Michigan game and practiced there for a couple of days before last night’s game in South Bend.
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Hopefully we got the ugly one out of the way. Good news is were are still undefeated!!
I blame the basketball. Weird bright orange montrosity they were!
Won . All that matters Admit I don’t get a 26 point lead being 6
Yeah unfortunately in the summary of the game I read last night on ESPN they emphasized us being outscored something like 30-13 during a stretch in the 4th quarter whittling the lead down to 59-52. That is kinda an unbelievable stat.