Fresh off of a blowout win at Toledo last night, the Catamounts will vist Oxford with the unusual holiday starting time of 1:00. You can also watch on ESPN+. Vermont has had a very successful program for several years. They were 23 - 11 last year and are 9-4 so far this season. Their best wins were at Toledo and a home win over St. Louis. Their losses were at Bradley, at Virginia Tech, Liberty on a neutral site and Colgate at home.They are somewhat like Wright State in that they get good shots and make them, shooting 48% from the floor for the season. In their route of the Rockets last night they shot over 50% and held a good shooing Toledo team to 31%. Vermont has 3 guys averaging low double digits: 6-4 Jr 13 ppg, 6-8 GS Matt Veretto 11ppg, and Shamir Bogues 11ppg. Much like Miami, their scoring is distributed throughout the roster. Guys are averaging 13 11 11 9 8 8 5 4 4 4 3.
Our offense was pretty good at Wright State, but defensively we looked bad as the Raiders got lots of dunks, layups, and easy jumpers. Vermont is quite capable of doing the same thing to us. Hopefully. we play a lot better on the defensive end Friday.
It’s a kids day game. Kids are out of school and it’s the day before Christmas weekend starts. $11 admission for one adult and two kids. That means it’s probably intended to get the old men and the kids out of the house al over Butler County so moms can get ready for Santa.
I doubt the kids promotion is the logistical reason for the game time.
It is a marketing response to the game time.
I would imagine the logistical reason is that Vermont wants to get home on Friday night rather than spend another might in a hotel and then have to fly on Saturday with the Christmas rush. They have already been in Ohio since the night before the Toledo game. This game time allows them to get home and let players and staff have a little more time for a short Christmas break. Their next game is not until after New Year’s.
Our team has been very unimpressive in close games so far. We let potential big wins get away at both Wright State and Evansville and almost blew an 18 point lead with 5 minutes to go at Marshall. Our girls team, which was just completely thrown together this summer and starts 4 freshman and is way over scheduled has only been good enough to be close late in two games and yet they gutted out wins both times. We are good enough to win, about time we show we are tough enough. We are all tired of the losing.
Dick, I think we should be very honest. This is a middle-of-the-pack MAC team this year. Your statement is apples to oranges. The take from Wright State is Miami hung with a team 90 spots higher than them. Frankly, they had no business being in that between Calvin and Holden. They were 12.5 underdogs. But somehow it took a slip and a bad pass by two underclassmen for WSU to secure the win.
Go back and read the thread before this 5 game stretch. The consensus was one win would be above expectations.
As for women’s basketball, I really want them to be successful. But don’t act like closing out against a 1-9 Xavier team is the same as a 5 game stretch against the top half of D1 basketball. We’ll be there soon enough, but this team is not a top half team today.
This is the other side of the coin. Glass half empty, glass half full. I prefer to push a little harder. I think we could be winning more, being a little tougher.
