We just got embarrassed at home by a hot shooting Chippewa squad. We were 7 points ahead right before halftime when Central went on a 30-3 run. They got really hot on threes and ended up hitting 13 of 24. Freshman guard Kevin Miller almost doubled his season average with 24 points. 6- 7 Ralph Bissainth has 17/7 and Brian Taylor had 15/11. Senior transfer Cam Healey had 32 Saturday in a 2 point loss to Kent.
Central is a game ahead of us in the standings and we are a game ahead of Eastern. Those 3 teams are likely battling for the final 2 spots in the MAC tournament, although BG and NIU still have a possible path to the tournament. All time Miami has the highest winning percentage in the MAC, while Central has the lowest. We lead the series 55-23.
Precious Ayah leads the MAC in FG% at 66.9%. Mekhi Lairy leads the MAC in ft% at 90.7%. Dae Dae Grant leads Miami in both scoring and assists. Dalonte Brown is now first in career games played, first in career starts, 5th in career rebounds, and just 7 points from 6th in career scoring. Winning our last two games gets us in the MAC tournament, winning one of the games probably gets us in ( depends on tiebreakers), and losing both games leaves us out.
It is a combination. Their best 3 point shooter, Healey, we shut down that night. Some of those other guys are not that good, they were hot that night.
On the other hand, to your point, we are poor defensively, and most of those shots were wide open.
I tend to point out the balancing factors. Since everybody else was all over our weak defensive effort, I pointed out that it was partly bad luck. Had everybody else been just talking about how unlucky we were, I would probably have gone the other way and pointed out how poorly we defended. In truth, I think those two things were about equal.
26 -14 Miami at the 8 and under TO. We are fouling and sending them to the line giving them a chance to get back into the game when they are not scoring out of their offense. Lairy has 2 fouls and is out.
Miami up 35-18 at the 4 and under TO. Grant with 10, Williams with 8. Central missed the front end of 2 one and ones and has yet to hit a 3. Certainly not shooting like they did last week. By the way, Cam Healey of Central had 32 against Kent on Saturday.
Not surprised to see us ahead. We need to win this one in order to keep the “Miami gets left out of the tournament behind a team we have a better record than” scenario alive, which is how this season will inevitably end.
We are ahead, more than anything, because we are shooting well and Central is shooting very poorly. Central is 1 for 9 on threes and 4 for 7 on free throws. That is only 7 points. Miami is 6 for 13 on threes and 7 for 7 on free throws. That is 25 points. An 18 point difference. We are up 20. The whole difference is shooting.
Dalonte Brown is still not doing anything much, Mekhi Lairy not playing well. ICL, Beck, and Etzler played well in addition to Grant and Williams scoring 10 each. We have some foul issues, as McNamara, Ayah, Beck, and Lairy all have 2. Since 3 of those guys are centers, I guess we still have 9 fouls to give from that spot before running out of centers. I do not feel overly confident with a 20 point lead because I have watched us play all year and I know we can stop hitting and the Chips can get hot.
Incidentally, you might have noticed the only 2 Miami fans sitting behind the bench. They are the Nolan brothers, good friends of mine. Paul has attended every game home and away this year and I think has missed only 1 game in the last 3 years. Pete and I might be the only 2 non family or university people who attended every regular season football game this season.
We got off to a slow start in the second half but Kamari Williams had a dunk and a three and we back up 20 at 48-28. Just think, all year we played White ahead of Williams and got basically no point or rebounds from him. As soon as Williams has gotten used to being on the floor and gotten comfortable he has become a real asset.
52-39 Miami at the 12 and under TO. Our offense is really sucking this half. Few good shots, lots of forced jumpers. Ayah and Brown cannot play much worse.