No matter what the MAC tourney is just a bunch of rabid weasels trying to claw their way out of a sack. You can’t control the seeds, just how the team is playing as March arrives. And our guys look pretty good too.
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That went about as well as one could have expected.
Toledo would 100% be preferred.
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Not quite - if we ended tied with OU, they will have the tie breaker.
The next tie breaker after head to head is % record against common opponents starting top down. Since OU beat Akron & we lost to Akron, OU would get the 2 seed.
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There is an easy way to avoid this.
Ohio University must be destroyed.
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Who cares about any of this. If you want to get to the show you have to beat all these teams. Give us Akron round 1 for all I care. Time to win it and not worry about any of the other stuff. All the teams that make it are solid. You gotta win 3.
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We left at the U8 of the 2nd, and Miami won by 29. I love it when a plan comes together.
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I guess the tiebreaker list I found online was out of date
We couldn’t have scripted this one any better. Big, easy win. Everyone played. Almost everyone saw the ball go in. We jumped on a clearly overmatched team and didn’t let them back in the game. We better be ready for an angry Convo and OU team.
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Craft and Suder “combine” for 6 points. Why I love this team.
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Bench outscored the starters. Happened multiple times this year. Where’s our guy? Where’s Cbus? Need to hear from him. Need the trolling.
In all seriousness nice win. Byers is special. Game just comes easy to him. Northern also lost him multiple times. Not sure how that happens. Has to be the first line of the scouting report. “Can’t leave Byers.”
Elmer is playing with a ton of confidence right now.
Craft man. I’ve never seen another player like him in my life. He was on a next level heater to start conference pay. Then quiet. Then the forty burger. Then crickets again. The gravity/spacing he creates on the floor is real, but Jesus he disappears at times. Steele benched him against Kent and I couldn’t really argue with it. It’s a testament to the team that we can win without him scoring, but we’re going to need him again at some point soon I suspect.
Not related to the game, but boy I hope we miss Kent in Cleveland. They’re a buzzsaw right now. Seeing what they did to Toledo tonight makes me feel better about our last game against them. We beat a team that’s playing really well.
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No sugar coating it. NIU is a bad team, who is literally short, and short handed. That being said, except for the first 2 minutes or so of the game, Miami was pretty much perfect. Ball movement, defense, rebounding, execution, and most importantly a bench that outscored the starters. We lose nothing when Byers, Ipsaro, Potter and Skaljac are on the floor. We need to keep this up going to OU and then UB and finishing at home against BSU.
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@YellowNumber5 I’m curious about your continued reference to Craft’s “injury” to explain his recent performances. I can’t find any other mention of him having an injury. What injury and when did it occur?
I was thinking during last night’s game that if he weren’t there it really wouldn’t make a difference.
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He was injured early in his career at X. Missed a bunch of time and then ended up here. I have no more knowledge than that other than his injury was no joke so maybe the x staff bailed on him. I wouldn’t be surprised knowing how sports works. But… I don’t know any more in that regard as I’m a degenerate not a damn TMZ reporter. Anyhow, I’m glad he’s here. Ps, Google search his same and knee injury and a bunch of stuff appears.
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Never take a picture of a Miami football or basketball game during warmups and offer it up as representative of the actual crowd. 10 minutes into the game would work well for basketball, end of the first quarter for football. We have very late arriving crowds for both sports.
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That was actually right after player intros, but I get what you mean. It did fill up a little more. Box said we had about 2,200.
2,200 for a Tuesday game against the last place team in the conference is pretty good compared to recent history. That seems about what it was for a well-attended weekend game during the Owens, Cooper, and last years of Coles eras. Still plenty of room for improvement though
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Yeah, I was honestly expecting only about half that.
The starting lineup still seems to be a hang up for some on this board. Picking your 5 starters based on the summer and fall is often done. Going with them all year if the team is successful is not really unusual. Goes under the heading if it’s not broken, don’t change it. It is working.
Now although we start the same 5 every game, players performances do effect their playing time. All 9 players always get double figure minutes and depending on fouls and performance quite often players who are not starters end up with more minutes than the starters. Who Coach thinks gives us the best chance to win that particular game will be on the court down the stretch if the game is close.
It is possible that our best lineup does include one, two, or even 3 guys who start on the bench. Most of the MAC season Ipsaro has played better than Cooper, but last night Cooper was outstanding. 6 steals is a huge number. Most often I think Byers has outperformed Craft. Last night was perhaps his best game not against D3. Lately I think Potter is as good or better than Woolfolk has been. Reese has shown me some things in the last 2 games that I have not seen him do before. He looks faster and he is going to the boards harder and playing better defense. Having to wait until sometime in December to start playing the last two seasons has slowed his development but he is looking really good right now, maybe the perfect time for us. Last night his minutes were down a bit, but that was strictly foul trouble.
If Coach was not playing the best players the most minutes, that would be an issue. But he does alter the minutes because of performance, matchups, and foul or injury issues. IMO who starts and who comes off the bench is a non issue, team chemistry seems great, every one is focused on team success and what they can do it to help us achieve more. That is kind of the Sweet Spot that coaches are always trying to work towards.
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