Interviews with Coach Box and Enjulina Gonzalez on MuRedHawks.com Once again, they seem supremely confident. I feel like they think that the coaches picking them for 8th place is a joke. Personally, I think it is a slap in the face, but the other coaches may not know the talent level we have added. We are for sure far better than the team that finished the season last year and there is every reason to think we will keep getting better all year with all the new players gradually coming together.
In my mind I am thinking of the possibility of the type of turnaround season we had in Coach Duffy’s first season.
Dick you would have a better handle on this than I would… do you think it’s easier to take a bottom feeder women’s MAC team to the top tier of MAC teams, than it would a men’s team?
It is something that is rarely done in either. Last year Central Michigan made a big jump in the first half of the MAC men’s season but had some injuries and faded late in the year. Historically for Miami the only huge jump was in Duffy’s first season. We were coming off 4 straight losing seasons with no trips to Cleveland for the MAC tourney. Duffy got hired late, this was pre portal and every girl stayed and Duffy did not bring in a single new player and they ended up with a power ranking in the 60’s with plus 20 wins and made it to the MAC semifinals where we had a one point lead in the last minute over a great CMU team but lost when we missed 3 possible game tieing shots in the last ten seconds. Central won the MAC tourney over Buffalo, then both went to the sweet 16. A week after the Chips edged us out, they went to Big Ten champion Ohio State and beat them by 20. Off hand that is the only time I can remember our women making that kind of jump.
As for the men, back in the 80’s. We were still playing a great non league schedule and we went like 4 straight seasons where we were just below .500, then in one giant leap we opened the year with a win at Indiana and won the MAC. Of course we had a sophomore who just exploded that year named Ron Harper.
One reason I think this team is capable of making a huge jump is that I have a lot of confidence in this coaching staff. They did an amazing job last year after taking over our program very late, a program which had basically nothing left and they just kept working with them and they kept improving all year, and finished 9th, which was exactly where a very talented roster had finished the year before. This year the 6 returning girls all look better and the 6 new players we recruited have added a lot of talent. Just how far they have come from a year ago to now is truly impressive.
I think this team will be better than 8th in the MAC, but I won’t call the vote “a joke”. This team has many new faces. In many respects, it is a new team. I can understand those voting giving a “wait and see” attitude. But what they will see, is a Miami team that finishes in the top 4 of the MAC. I know the projected Miami starting lineup. It is on paper a very good one.