This was Elmer’s best all round game of the season when also taking into account the heightened level of competition. This was first team All MAC Elmer.
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For me this was a huge step forward for the program. Akron is a good team and we fought thru not having our PG and got a win against a good team. We still need to keep getting better, our record deserves Top 25, but really I think of us as a Top 40-60 team at this stage.
Our weaknesses are defense, rebounding and now PG play. I project that MAC teams will now press us, so we really need to practice our press brake and turn that into a weapon. Rebounding and in the paint defense needs to get better, this is where CC would have been great to coach them up. He was great at getting average talent to rebound and play great team defense.
On offense we need to a little more penetration to keep the offense flowing, again PG issues. We have the shooters just got to get them good shots and limit turnovers. Then play defense and one shot and done. This team can go far.
I also recommend playing the freshman a lot, maybe limit how many are in there at the same time, but we depth and we need them to score and help us, playing with a short bench will hurt us defensively, so we got too get minutes out of 7-9 guys or more.
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GuardHawk didn’t publish the comment I replied to, it was the guy who loves Pittsburg who said he disagreed about Coles.
Agree. Hopefully/Maybe that breakout game we all have been waiting for.
Since I was a skeptic over the weekend, I should deliver the compliments today. That was a solid win against a strong team that we know will be in the hunt for the MACTION title and has been a pain in our asses for years.
This team got to 15-0 on a soft schedule. They’ll have to learn on the fly how to finish close games in conference play, which isn’t ideal, but yesterday’s game was an encouraging sign that they can make that adjustment. Every week from here is about getting tougher mentally to stay in the chase for a regular season title (which is still important) and be at maximum strength for those three days in Cleveland in March.
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Bash, that’s an interesting hypothetical. I think with Ipsaro Akron doesn’t go on that little run in the middle of the 1st half that put them up by as much as 8 points. Their mini-run was largely the result of sloppy ball handling and passing by Miami and (giving credit to the Zips) intense defense Akron. With Ipsaro, I don’t think that happens and the 1st half is back and forth with a lot of lead changes instead of a lengthy Akron lead throughout the 1st half.
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I am contemplating a trip to the Q for the MAC tourney (work schedule permitting). It’s too bad the MAC does not do the first round on campus, like they did back in the day.
Great win and a very nice crowd with Students gone. Congrats to TEAM
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A week ago at this time, I was thinking the team had to go at least 1-1 this week. We certainly didn’t need to be 1-2 in conference play and potentially multiple games behind numerous teams. Well, never mind about going 1-1.
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Not sure where this narrative that we are a bad rebounding team came from, but we are top 40 in the country in defensive rebounding rate and if you just want to look at yesterday the rebounding stats were dead even.
In terms of our interior defense, I would agree, although I think it’s has less to do with rim protection and more to do with us having trouble stopping straight line drives at times.
As far as PG play, I mean yeah, our starting point guard is done for the year, and before he got hurt Evan had probably been our best player. That being said we just beat the two best teams in our league according to every metric who both have outstanding pg play and guard play overall. If we can handle Johnson, Scott on Akron and Cambell on BG, we can handle the rest of the league.
I think Luke has more than held his own since Evan went down. I don’t really have any complaints there. Pete has had a weird season. The stats are immaculate, but he kind of took a back seat to Ipsaro from a usage standpoint. He’s going to have to shoulder a lot more ball handling responsibilities now. Yesterday was a really choppy game for him. Some great shot creation, but also some really puzzling turnovers.
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When Evan was a freshman people said he made dumb plays at times. But he kept grinding and improving. Our freshman will do the same if we get them minutes. Both guards have huge upside. If we can get 10 or more really good minutes from them come March, we will be even better. Our bench can improve a lot between now and then.
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From sitting in the stands behind the basket yesterday, I can tell everyone that Akron is a damn good team. They’re always moving and attacking the basket. Miami got some breaks and it’s about time the team got some breaks.
But you can’t rely on those breaks every game. The guys need to figure out what went right and wrong and make things better.
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Probably from being below 300 in offensive rebounding rates?
Right but we’re shooting 54% from the field and 43% from three as a team so there aren’t many offensive rebounds to be had. Yesterday, when we didn’t shoot the ball as well we had 11 offensive rebounds, some of which were massive, game changing type rebounds.
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Our rebounding stats are a product of our weak ass schedule. The eye test tells me we need to be better hitting the boards, we essentially play 4 guards(perimeter players), so that is part of it. I remember when we used to get pissed about Hedric playing 3 guards. Miami always lacks a lot of big guys, so I’m used to it and it can work in the MAC. Wish we had a Newble or Horace type guy at 4, but we don’t have that right now. Elmer does a good job rebounding for a perimeter guy, would like to see Byers get more defensive boards. Suder is an instinctive rebounder.
In the post season, it can be tough if we don’t get stronger on the boards, a good example was sweet sixteen against UK, we just got hammered by their big guys, even though Wally was the best player on the floor. Frierson played forward and wasn’t tall enough against those guys.
Not getting ahead of ourselves, but this team can make a run if they can get ready for bigger tougher teams while taking care of business in the MAC. One game at a time, don’t get full of yourself on our stats, those are BS IMO because of our competition. Doesn’t mean we aren’t a good team, just means we might be overrated in terms of stats.
We aren’t good at defending the interior because at the moment we have 1 interior defender. Maybe Robbins becomes a guy that can give us 15 minutes a game and help Woolfolk but otherwise that’s probably going to remain a weakness. A weakness that’s able to be overcome but a weakness none the less.
Given the lineups we play we don’t get a lot of clean rebounds, it is what it is. Our defense isn’t perfect, but as we saw yesterday Steele threw in some great adjustments down the stretch.
Woolfolk is our best defender, he’d have higher defensive rating if he averaged a few more rebounds. But he can be a menace on the perimeter off screens or doubling. Per Evanmiya.com Woolfolk is the leading defender in the MAC and Elmer is 6th. If we keep both out of foul trouble, they can cause havoc down the stretch of games.
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We also have an exceptional counter to any team that is going to try to go big and exploit our interior defense:
An offense that plays fast and is among the best in the country in shooting and shooting the 3, including Atlason and even a threat in Woolfolk. So other teams have to deal with perimeter defense from their bigs.
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Not guy…..”gentleman”….
Because your knowledge of coach Coles is so lax, it’s clear to this reader you missed basketball finishing school. I’ll ask you study up on him, redact your disbelief, and only then will I graduate you.
Edit: here’s a link. Look at some of the wins he had per year. Insane. Even in down years he had good ones.
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