Great Opportunity Next 4 Games

Men's Sports Men's Basketball
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Miami begins a four game stretch at home this Saturday vs:

Arkansas Little Rock (ranked 325th in Ken Pomeroy rankings)
Jackson State (ranked 309th in KenPom)
Indiana State (ranked 119th in KenPom)
Calumet College (non D1)

For context, Marshall is ranked 124th, Indiana 8th, and Miami 292nd at the moment. So this stretch offers Miami a chance to compete against two similarly situated programs, one ‘good’ program, and one inferior opponent. I’m hoping to win 3 out of 4, but it’d be great to build confidence with two wins heading into ISU and see if the group can snatch an upset. Splitting the four games would be okay, and anything less disappointing imo.

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We need to win three. Four would be nice.

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Again, “need” with where we’re at probably isn’t the right word. It would be nice. It would show consistent improvement. As the home team, we probably should win. But I don’t think year 1 is the time for any game to be a game we need to win outside of games against non-D1 opponents.

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We need three wins. And we should get them.

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Semantics!

It’d be really really nice for everybody if we got 3 wins. 4 would be amazing.

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We NEED to show a little improvement.

We don’t need to win anything right now

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If we don’t win all four we need to fire the coach

Wharblgarbl

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We don’t need no stickin’ badges.

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Exactly!

Win FIVE or else!

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Asking for them to win all these games is a bit much, and probably unrealistic. But we should expect to see improvement, a decrease in mental and physical mistakes and at least a couple wins. Without even seeing the Kempom numbers, I was going to say of this group Indiana State will be the toughest challenge. They are a solid mid major team and should finish in the upper half of the MVC this year. If we can beat them I would say we should all be happy. (And assuming we don’t lose to Calumet!)

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Jackson State loses by 10 to Michigan.

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Arkansas Little Rock…was within 10 of IU most the game…shooting a bad to similar % as Miami.

Difference was foul line…they ended up losing by 20…

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UALR played an IU team missing Trace Jackson. That is a big difference from the IU team we faced. UALR v Miami should be a very competitive game.

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True…but that is all I’m saying …Little Rock looks like a close matchup.

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Yep, I watched the game. UALR lineup size wise very similar to ours.

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The tallest player UALR has is 6’8". They do have some decent size in the backcourt. This should be a fun and competitive game.

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Got the ever important first win! Guys like Mabrey and Smith saw the ball go through the hoop, which should build confidence. Safford is back without a minutes restriction and impacted the game tremendously. Lairy bounced back from a couple rough games and Mirambeaux played a very nice floor game too.

Miami should be favored Tuesday vs Jackson St. I think the biggest key will be continuing the defensive effort they began Saturday’s game with. Besides the energy and effort I thought their rotations were pretty solid and the contests were great. UALR started breaking them down in the 2H, so we’re still building to the 40 min complete game. Baby steps with this group, but as I mentioned in the game thread, they look bought in and together which is always the prerequisite for any success.

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