Was thinking about Saturday’s game vs Akron, with both teams at 6-0 and tied atop the MAC, and legitimately I feel like it might be the biggest Miami basketball game since Miami beat Akron in the MAC Final on the Penno bank shot in March of 2007.
Could that be right?
Because the MAC is a one bid league, I feel like every tournament game is de facto bigger than a regular season game.
But as far as regular season games, this is definitely the biggest since the last time we were competing for the MAC season title in that 2005-2007ish timeframe for sure. We will solidly be in the driver seat to win the MAC crown if we win at Akron.
Unfortunately, we got real bad scheduling luck by having only 1 game vs Akron and it being on the road, but the upside is if we win, that tie breaker is locked down.
Things in this world that make no sense to me:
-The MAC being a one bid league. Maybe UMass helps change that.
-When Mick Jagger sings “I don’t want to be your beast of burden…” Let’s be honest, Mick is 160 pounds soaking yet. Who on Earth would ever use him for manual labor? If I needed to move furniture or clean out a storage unit, he’s the last person I’d call. In fact, I would call Keith Richard’s before I’d call him. (True, Keith is even more spindly) but he looks dangerous AF and probably knows some quality goons who could make fast work of it.
Thus, MAC as a one big league makes no sense. As does calling Mick to help you move. The end.
The UC home game comes to mind.
UMass has had 1 winning season the past decade. But granted, they’re still a massive improvement to the overall MAC basketball standing by replacing Northern Illinois.
Thought about that too. Was a fun atmosphere but I didn’t feel near the optimism for Miami BB then as I do know
Xavier at homee cant rember the year
Dayton at home in 2007. Coming off home win vs Xavier. Won two games at a tournament in Anaheim including beating Mississippi State. Previous season was a NCAA tournament team.
We lost by 1 and I swear to god the program is just now recovering from that loss.
Bramos went Nuclear in the first half in that Dayton game. Outscored Dayton by himself in first half I believe.
Theman, have you relented on calling for Steele to be fired?
That’s right. And then Brian Roberts got the last laugh. I was there, that result still pisses me off
Still miss those classic Charlie Cooper games from the 90s and early aughts… he was one of a kind. Any chance of naming it Cooper Court at Millett Hall or something?
Charlie Coles?
Charlie COLES. Legendary Miami coach, and one GREAT basketball character.
Lots of hype vs UC in Oxford but less at stake.
I miss Charlie Cooper.
I didn’t know Charlie Cooper well, really not at all, but I’m certain if he gets mentioned here he was a heck of a guy. I joke, I joke.
Carm’s unintentionally humorous post got me thinking about the Charlie Coles days, so I went back and looked up his record again, as well as the stats of some of his star players along the way.
I had forgotten that we did have a number of very good teams in the early 2000’s w players like Bramos and others. His last few seasons fell off, particularly his last season when we won less than 10 games.
Cole’s overall record at Miami over 16 seasons was 266-226, or an average of 17-14 per season. Later in his Miami coaching career, he still averaged 18 wins a year from 2003-2008. He did have losing seasons his last two years after that before retirement.
Bramos was a very good player in that era. Tim Pollitz was a machine and if he had been blessed with a few more inches of height, he would have been an all-timer. I’ve never seen a post player like him at that height (he played PF and his twin Eric was a guard!)
Kenny Hayes has to be mentioned up there as well for best players of the late Coles era. He was deadly out there.
Mavunga was also a very good MAC player but will always be such a big what-if for me. Charlie was on the downswing by then and I do think we failed to develop him into the player he could be. I’m not saying he could have been Gordon Hayward or close even with perfect development, but they were HS teammates and Julian was considered the better prospect by many from that team, and I do think he didn’t reach his potential due to Charlie starting to show his age (although he had a pretty long career overseas in Japan).
Now I’m nostalgic of my college years…