This shapes up as a good game. EK is 4-3, Miami is 2-4. At home Miami is 2-1, on the road Eastern is 0-1. EKU played their first 6 games at home, beating App State, Morehead State, Rider, and Midway. They lost home games to Evansville and Marist. They lost at #23 Tennessee 105-71, They seem to like to play up tempo.
Their star is a RS SR transfer portal girl who played 3 years under Megan Duffy at Marquette. 5-11 Antwainette Walker is averaging 20 points and 10.6 rebounds per game. Probably the best individual player we have faced this season. They also have 5-11 Danielle Rainey who averages 11/4.6 and 5-9 rs Soph Alice Fecanati who averages 10.7ppg.
Miami is led by 5-10 soph Maddi Cluse who averages 18.7 ppg which is second in the MAC and 7.2 rpg which is 7th in the MAC. 5-7 soph Ivy Wolf averages 17.7ppg and 4.3 apg which is second in the MAC. Sr Peyton Scott scored 13point is 13 minutes and had 4 assists and no turnovers vs EKU and looked the best she has so far as her rehab continues. That game was Coach Hendrix’s150 career win.
125 of those wins came at High Point. I’m not very good at math but I think that means she has 25 wins at Miami in a little over three years. That’s not even mediocre.
We got a 15 or 16 point lead with about 5 minutes to go, then did everything wrong the rest of the way but held on to win by 4. We could not get the ball inbounds vs pressure as the girls would run an out of bounds play, run through a pick, get to a spot and just stand and watch. MOVE!!! The girls had no clue that they should have been taking 15 or 20 seconds off the clock before shooting, as we wanted to attack. With 6 seconds to go and a 6 point lead, we fouled twice in the next second. We got a charging foul 3 seconds after crossing the midcourt line with an 8 point lead and under 2 minutes to go.
There was a TO and our girls were standing around talking. The ref gave the ball to the inbounder and our girls are suddenly panicking because they don’t know who to guard. They throw it in to a girl standing wide open in the corner and she drains the three. All that and probably a couple more bad things happened at the end of the game.
Sort of the same thing happened at the end of the exhibition game this year, but the staff has corrected nothing. We have smart Miami students on the floor, getting great grades, so the fault of not teaching time and score and strategy lies with the coaching staff. Here is another thing which has happened a couple of times this year. We get the ball with 20 seconds left in the quarter and come down and shoot with 10 seconds to go, the opponent comes down and hits a 3 at the buzzer. Again, no recognition of time and score by anyone.
We played very well at times and again played well in half court situations. We did not press which helps us keep our best players in the game. Peyton Scott got her first start of the season and upped her minutes to around half the game.
Miami might have the two best free throw shooting point guards in the country. Mehki Lairy and Ivy Wolf both shoot well over 90% and the ball seldom touches the rim. Wolf hit a bunch of big free throws to enable us to hold on. Cluse and Scott and Sierra Morrow also all played well. Almost blew the entire night by the way we played the last 5 minutes though.
Appears that there are polar opposites between the Miami men’s and women’s hoop coaches. Steele teaches all the right things and is a superb recruiter…Hendrix: let’s just leave her at the opposite end of the spectrum.
Miami now has 134 turnovers in 7 games, or 19.1 a game.
They have 99 assists. Or 14.1 a game.
Just for comparison, the men have 91 turnovers, or 13.0 a game. And 103 assists or 14.7 a game. And Steele is not happy with these numbers, nor should he be. He would be apoplectic if his men’s team had the women’s team numbers.
24 TO? 35 TO? Avg of 19 TO per game? Who the hell is NOT coaching this team? Don’t we have a coach(es) who gets paid to coach b/c they apparently convinced somebody they knew what the hell they were doing and knew how to teach bball?
Sorry to be brutal, but if I was AD and had to sit through a game with 35 TO, that would be the last game that coach would “lead” our team.
Big fan of both teams, but if you really want to compare who is better so far, I think it is the women. The men have scheduled 5 wins. The women have scheduled 1 win. They have not yet played that game. All 3 of the men’s wins are over teams from the scheduled wins list. The women have 3 wins, all over teams who will probably end up in the 200’s in power rankings, the mens wins are over
2 teams likely to finish in the 300’s and an NAIA team.
Both are hoping to be better later, the men because Williams has not yet played and Stafford and Lewis have missed a lot of games. The Women because Scott, who has averaged 20ppg over the last two seasons, is just now working her way back into playing shape after surgery on an ACL in March.
Looking back at this week, it was a very good one for the ladies, marred by a very bad last 5 minutes of the game Friday night, but at least they hung on and got the W. Coming off 3 straight blowout losses on the road, they adjusted our style, putting the emphasis on playing a solid half court man to man defense, blocking out and controlling the boards. They quit pressing. They overcame their bad habits of reaching in and trying to block so many shots and worked to stay out of foul trouble, thus keeping their best players on the court and limiting the minutes played by the back end of the bench. Footwork and defensive positioning was improved. Offensively, we look good when we have our 3 best players on the court at the same time and we move the ball.
Their are still all kinds of issues to overcome to get to be a good MAC team this year, but it is possible and this week was a nice step in that direction.
Some tough games ahead yet before conference play. We also need to toughen up on the road if we are going to be good.
