Greggie calls and raises you a Fire Steele.
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Steele probably should be fired for promising a Vegas game and then rug-pulling.
Alex and The Man collab???
- 2025-26 32-2
- 2024-25 25-9
2 YEAR RECORD: 57-11
Pretty Impressive
32-4 in the MAC too.
By total wins, itās the best two year stretch in school history. By winning percentage, itās the best two year stretch in 60 years (1964-66).
Rug pulling a Vegas game is worth 46 losses, at a minimum.
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Losing a Vegas trip isnāt great, but at least weāre not NIU playing Grambling at the same time Patrick eats his Krabby Patty:
https://x.com/ryanhammer09/status/2087167954760720819?s=46&t=oallIeFEhKH9sCOJPSKdyw
A 3am game in South Carolina would be AWESOME. What are you talking about?
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Any reevaluation of our schedule chances now that Woolfolk is back? That has to move the needle at least a little bit in our favor in some of these games!
If Houston was out before they certainly arenāt playing us now lolā¦
I think it definitely moves the needle in MAC season. I donāt think it moves the favorite/underdog needle in any of the non-conf, as weāll still be favorites in all games except High Point. I still think we are probably a neutral dog against them, but it has to be much closer now. If UIC is a game and on the road, he probably pushes that game more into one we can/should win. We may even be road favorites, depending on how good UIC looks to be.
As far as MAC, the worry I think we all had was with Copeland/TRobb having to shoulder all the minutes at the 5, and Almar likely not providing much on defense at the 4. We would definitely struggle with any teams weāre better than on paper but have any interior scoring talent. That should be much less a concern with a 5th year Antwone and a backup like Copeland who can sub for him instead of Almar having to try and do that (we saw he couldnāt last year). In fact, teams now probably worry about how they go inside on us more so than the other way around. He really could be the best big man in the MAC on defense. He was totally snubbed last year from the all-defense team.
Historically, outside Akron the last two years and us last year, so few teams have gone 1 loss (or undefeated in our case) through the MAC regular season. I think a 2 loss MAC season with Antwone back isnāt a reach at all now if we play to our potential.
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I move the HP game to toss up.
Probably correct @Hoosierhawk . With 22 game MAC schedule, its likely the regular season champion will be around 18-4 (most every conference champion last year was 15-3, 16-4, 17-3, etc). If Miami can be 8-2 in OOC and 18-4 regular season thatās a 26-6 season and likely regular season champion or co-champion. (I donāt think there is any team on paper in the MAC that is anywhere near what Akron and Miami have been the past two seasons to go better than 19-3 this season.) Iād sign up for that right now!
HP is definitely loaded and will be very difficult game. Figure we lose one other OOC game since early in season we wonāt have full strength Ipsaro and a number of new guys to break in.
Winning on road in conference is always difficult and chances are we will not win every home game again. Iāll predict 26-6, 18-4 MAC, repeat conference champions. Whoās with me??!!
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A full-strength Ipsaro is important, of course, but Iām surprised there isnāt more being made of the need for a full-strength Skaljac.
There was a pretty obvious turning point last season when Skaljac got hurt. Before that, we were on an incredibly dominant stretch beginning with the MAC/SBC Challenge game at Marshall.
From the moment Skaljac sat against Western, we were in a life-and-death battle in nearly every game before finally losing to UMass. Oddly, the most comfortable game in that stretch was SMU, but that felt like an outlier among the WMU, Toledo, OU, UMass, and Tennessee games that closed out the season. By virtue of losing to UMass, we also got a much-needed six days off before the First Four.
Our closest call before the loss to UMass was, probably not coincidentally, the home game against UMass when Skaljac also sat.
Wrists can be a tricky thing to heal. And, if memory serves, Skaljac had both of them wrapped at one point near the end of last season. Hopefully heās had the opportunity to fully heal in the off-season. If Ipsaro isnāt ready to go out of the gate, Skaljac probably becomes the most important guy on the court for us (until I bribe a SDNY judge to give Suder another year of eligibility).
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Great observation. I get the impression that Lukeās injury was very much downplayed last year. Travisā constant āheās fine, donāt worryā responses in the media obviously were not being forthright.
I think most athletes would have shut it down last year from that injury where Luke felt like he had to push through to try and protect the special season (and successful did protect it).
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Travis confirmed the Illinois-Chicago neutral site game today.
Are High Point and UIC part of the same tournament or separate? Any idea of where these neutral sites will actually be?
Steele also confirmed on the First Word Cincy show that we havenāt gotten a power conference game yet, have one more game to schedule.
Travisā segment starts at about 3:04 hours:minutes in, although they do spend a few minutes earlier in the show discussing Miami and the MAC Tournament changes.
Come for the updates on how the roster is coming together, stay for the texting while driving metaphor story.
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Iāve attempted to use my Saturday for some good, figuring out where we might be playing High Point and UIC neutral court games, assuming that these are both part of the same event.
- Per D1 Docket, we have the following gaps in our OOC schedule, that would seem to accommodate an MTE trip:
- 11/9 - 11/12
(We play Bellarmine on the 7th and Evansville on the 14th so I have eliminated the 8th and 13th; the remaining windows are calculated the same way). - 11/16 - 11/23
- 11/27 - 11/30
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Within the windows above, High Point has games on 11/12, 11/15 (precluding 11/16), 11/19, 11/24 (precluding 11/23), and 11/28. UIC has games on 11/9, 11/13 (precluding 11/12), 11/18, and 11/29.
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When factoring in the schedules of High Point and UIC, the only window for a 2-game MTE would be 11/21 - 11/22. Again, this assumes the accuracy of D1 Docketās reporting.
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Here are two sources currently: 2026-27 Menās College Basketball Early Season Tournaments | Blogging the Bracket
2026-27 Menās College Basketball Early Season Tournaments - Yahoo Sports -
Unfortunately, there are no tournaments listed that are (i) listed by either source, (ii) taking place on those dates, and (iii) still missing teams.
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Interestingly, the Resorts World Classic in Las Vegas has not announced teams yet, but is taking place 11/26-11/28. That would work for both UIC and High Point, but would preclude conflict with our home game on 11/25 vs. EKU.
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As a last ditch attempt, I looked through High Point MBBās āfollowingā list on Instagram for any MTEs. There wasnāt much to choose from, but two did stand out.
First, the No Room For Racism Classic. The only problem: this event hasnāt taken place since 2021 (when High Point was a participant) and they donāt even have a functioning website anymore.
Second, Coconut Hoops. An MTE in Fort Myers on the campus of FGCU, not to be confused with the other Fort Myers MTE that we played in 2 seasons ago. A few interesting things stuck out about this, including that the 2026 edition has yet to be announced and that the tournament also follows Miami MBBās Instagram.
However, Iām not particularly optimistic that this is it. Miami was a participant in a previous iteration of the same tournament in 2019 (I have no recollection of this by the way), as was High Point in 2023. Which would explain the Instagram mutuals. Plus, with further digging I realized that Miami MBB doesnāt actually follow them back and that they donāt follow/are not followed by UIC. Also, while the format of these always changes, its never been 2 pre-determined games.
- I took a look through Miami MBBās following list but, with an albeit quick glance, I donāt see that we follow any MTEs.
Anyway, Iāve now wasted about an hour of my life and Iām feeling more defeated about figuring this out than I was before I started.
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