Conference opener on ESPN+. Miami is 6-6, 5-1 at home. Western is 3 -9, 0-5 in true away games. J- term will be with us the next 4 weeks, so great seats are available and any and all support would be helpful. Western finished at the bottom last year and is picked down there again, but most of their losses are close and competitive and they have enough talent to win any MAC game. In their last game they actually scored more points than we did vs Wilburforce, beating Acquinas 127 to 71, setting school records for points 127, threes 18, and assists 34. They are 0-5 on the road, but have challenged themselves. They lost at Northwestern by 4, at OhioState by 17, at Notre Dame by 21, at UIC by 21, and at Cleveland State by 13.
Here is their starting lineup:
6-4 soph Seth Hubbard. 16.3ppg
5-10 rs jr B Artis White 7.5 ppg
6-4 soph Monegro De La Cruz 9 ppg and 3 app
6-9 jr Owen Lobsinger 9.3 ppg and 6.2 rpg
6-8 sr Titus Wright. 6.9ppg and 5.0 rpg
Since they start two big men, this might be a game where we play 2 bigs more often.
thanks, Dick! I don’t claim to be objective about this Miami team, but I have to think the amount of minutes each scholarship player has played will be a big benefit. Balance is always a strength, so unless they’re playing tight in their first MAC game, I see some good things happening.
They have a 7 footer named Javonte Brown, who just became eligible. He transferred from Texas A&M. He is a load at 255 pounds. In three games, he is averaging 18.7 points and 6.7 rebounds. While not starting he is an impact player for sure.
Brown was a 4-star recruit who originally signed with UConn. From the A&M site:
Texas A&M center Javonte Brown has entered the transfer portal, GigEm247 has learned.
As a sophomore this past season, Brown saw action in seven games while averaging 1.7 points and 1.6 rebounds per game this past season.
The former four-star’s best performance of the season actually came early on in the season when he pulled down six rebounds in seven minutes of action against ULM. While he flashed in some moments here and there, Brown struggled to find a consistent role as A&M largely relied on Ethan Henderson and Henry Coleman during his first year on campus. As a sophomore, the Aggies mostly rolled with Julius Marble and Coleman, though Brown was one of the more popular guys on the team because of the way he stayed engaged on the bench despite not seeing a ton of minutes.
Brown is the second player to enter the transfer portal along with Erik Pratt, who did so on Tuesday.
Prior to Aggieland, Brown also spent one year at UConn before transferring to Texas A&M. The 7-foot, 255-pound center was ranked as the No. 181 prospect and No. 31 center in the 2020 class.
Some stats on WMU. They rebound very well but are pretty bad on offense and defense. They also draw fouls at an impressive rate. Javonte Brown is drawing 5 fouls per game and has improved their rebounding even more.
One thing I did not think about in writing the preview is that I should have mentioned that Game 2 of the MAC season Miami at Toledo, has been moved to Friday night And will be nationally televised on CBSSN and will not be available on ESPN+.
I’ll be curious to see if this is the case. Lobsinger is a stretch 4 who takes 55% of his shots from 3. When Brown comes in, it’s to replace Titus, who is their starting center. If we play “big,” my guess is it’ll be Kotecki who comes in. Predicting that because:
With how Titus and Brown draw fouls, Mirambeaux, Morris, and Potter will need to rotate to stay out of foul trouble. If two of them get into trouble, WMU could do work inside with Titus and Brown.
Using any of them at the 4 would put us at a disadvantage on both sides. None of them should be wasted guarding Lobsinger on the perimeter.
Morris and Mirambeaux have only been on the court together for 2 minutes this season and it was pretty awful. When there was an opportunity to try it out in the Wilberforce game, Steele went with Kotecki at the 4.
Here’s the lineup flow from the Wilberforce game where you can see Morris/Potter at the 5, Kotecki at the 4, and Elmer/Bultman at the 3. Disclaimer, the flow diagram doesn’t accurately put players at the position they were actually playing, it guesses based on position and height, which is why it shows Kotecki at the 5 and Morris at the 4 since Kotecki is taller and they’re both listed as forwards.
Can someone in the know pass word along to fix the sound mix? You have to crank the volume way up to hear the broadcast and then the commercials are like twice as loud.
Hopefully Dean is back soon. As bad as he started the season, he’s been really good the last half of the schedule. Minimal turnovers. Absolute sharp shooter. Leading the team in steal percentage. And PG depth really is minimal. Cooper is turning it over at too high of a rate to be put there.
Really starting to appreciate Bryce Bultman more. He doesn’t always make the best decisions but he busts his ass and is always moving.
As far as the broadcast issues, this never happened when my beloved redhead whose name I can’t remember SMDH (Patrick something?) was giving detailed sideline reports.
Trying to track this, but I think we’ve had a lead every time Mirambeaux has come in and lost it. His decision making has been pretty bad and he looks like he’s forcing things. Nothing bad with passing the ball out and getting better position, even if he’s not being doubled.
The live stats are showing Morris with only one foul. Bit weird that he hasn’t played since the opening stretch given how Potter is being outmuscled in the post and Mirambeaux is way behind in defensive transition.
We are getting out rebounded 20 to 12 and Crump has 8. Mirambeaux and Potter not boarding, get Morris back in there, he has only played 3 minutes. Cooper was poor, Bradley Dean gave us 5 great minutes and never got back in the game. I am not happy with the subbing, play the guys who are getting it done tonight.
