Yeah, my mind immediately turned to Tuesday, another potential trap game. Can’t afford a slip up there. Also, after not shooting well against BG and today, would be good to get back on track before the OU game.
All about the response. Eager to see Tuesday and then Saturday. We’ll learn a lot about this group, I think.
Yup, there’s been several “measuring stick” stretches this season.
The first were the games up to Akron. They told us we are an above average MAC team.
The second measuring stick was today. It told us we are probably not the best MAC team.
The third will be the OU and Toledo games. That will tell us if we are 2nd, 3rd, or somewhere more like 4th or 5th. We have both at home (and then Ohio again in Athens at the end). With both of those first ones at home, would love to win both
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Stole little bro’s lunch money
One thing I’m also reflecting on… the JAR is a simultaneously a sh!thole and a great place to watch a game. I thought there would be more of a student presence.
Seeing Romeo Travis’s number in the rafters reminded me of ‘07.
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We weren’t ready to play today and got what we deserved. Loved Travis doing the full line change. Starters and Reece were not good enough to compete.
Got to be careful on Tuesday. EMU isn’t just playing to win. They are playing to stay out of federal prison. Now those are some stakes! They are 3-0 since it was announced that they are under investigation for point shaving.
HH (@Hoosierhawk not Hulk Hogan), OU is not a threat anymore. Injuries and Fentanyl have ravaged that roster.
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Bad game. We beat them last year with a worse team. We can win the MAC if we use this as a level set to get to the next level. What happened to Woolfork? I had a kids hoops game to go to so I couldn’t watch. His box score was scant…
I vote for Sh!thole. JAR reminded me a lot of Xavier’s old Schmidt Fieldhouse. A big crowd can make any place good. I also expected more students. I guess they were smarter than us.
Woolfork had a terrible game. All season he’s been guilty of soft passes and weak handoffs, and it caught up to him against their physical defense.
I went back and watched the 1st half, up to 36-13. We actually started pretty well, 7-7 after the first 4 minutes. Craft got a great look to start the game and buried it. Suder had a nice steal. But then it got away from us and it snowballed.
We got good looks, looks we need to make in games like this. Woolfolk on the block, Potter on the block, Craft in the lane, Ipsaro mid-range jumper off a good screen. Those shots need to go down.
Bad turnovers. Getting the ball ripped out of your hands. Lazy passes in the lane. Not cutting hard to get open, leaving the passer out to dry.
Our defense was worse. I know we have the ability to switch 1-5 against some teams. Akron isn’t one of them. Against good guards, we need to be in the right matchup. We can’t switch. Some of the offensive rebounds they got was because of our switching, leaving tough box outs for guards.
Related to that, we can’t press them, we can’t zone them, and we can’t double them in the post. With all of that, and the fact we overhelped and left shooters open, we were caught ball watching too much.
Our guards need to fight through screens harder. Johnson (5) owned whoever guarded him.
Transition defense was awful. We have guys jogging back, allowing Akron to move the ball and find open shooters. And when they missed, they were quicker to the ball, earning additional opportunities.
Let’s be ready to play Tuesday. Eastern has some bad losses, but they have some good wins: Oakland, Wright St., Ohio, teams we’ve had trouble beating.
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Eastern was losing at half. 
But came back and beat Buffalo 90-77 today.
I like the description of the JAR from above. It has a wonderful scoreboard (although it did not work for awhile) - huge clear video board
But the sight lines are terrible and there are only about 1500 good seats in the arena
I hope we do way better with whatever we are building
The game was already lost probably, but some of the zone possessions in the first half, particularly the diamond 1 press that led to two wide open Akron 3s from the corner, were mind boggling.
I get that there are some mismatches if we stay in man, but those zone 3s we gave up were just too easy.
Thank you much for the insight. I think he can improve. Hopefully quickly as the season goes on.
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Well written as usual.
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Two other interesting facts from yesterday
My tickets were $45 each. They were the third highest row of the lower section. That is a big number for MAC basketball. Kent was $20 (no chairback)
There were only 2,834 yesterday. That was a smaller number than I expected
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Wow, $45 is well over what I’d expect, even for a 1st place showdown. Guessing they price by game, so other games are much lower?
Lame to have less than 3k attendance, but I can understand at the $45 price point. Wonder if students have to pay for tickets?
I attended the women’s game Saturday and turned on the radio on the way home and we were down 36. So I finally watched the replay this afternoon. Obviously we were bad.
As a team, this was the second game in a row where our double tams burned us badly. Both BG and Akron passed out of the double teams and quick ball movement got them open threes. Akron also burned us on switches and helping out. When we play them in the MAC we need to have a whole different way of playing them.
Who was good? Suder, Ipsaro, and Byers. Who was bad? Woolfolk, Cooper, and Potter. Seriously Woolfolk played like he had 103 degree temperature. He has been pretty good all year, I could not believe it was the same guy. So totally weak.
No team in Division 1 went undefeated in conference play last year. When you go on the road, games like this can and do happen to pretty much everybody. Team will show us how mentally and physically tough they are Tuesday night against a hot Eastern Michigan team.
Dick - very solid analysis- our double team D against a good passing team will not work.I am all in re Steele but as I have said on this site for years until we recruit some true post layers with size and rebounding ability we will not be successful- we were out rebounded badly on Sat by a smaller team. Potter despite some improvement is not a physical rebounder and his defense is lacking. Woolfolk yesterday was on a different planet and never in the game.
Suder scored 10 in last 6 minutes down by 30. He did not play well either. The starters were really bad on both ends.