Anyone want to revise their predicted MAC conference record for MBB?

As I posted elsewhere, this team could, I think, win anywhere from 5 to 11 MAC games this season.

As we've discussed before the brutal OOC made it tough for this team to become confident. Someone described the team as 'mentally broken' and that probably was an accurate description. A few bad, tough losses plus a lot of blowouts will shake even a veteran team.

I suspect it will take a while for this team to re-gain its confident before starting a nice win streak.

(01-09-2019 08:36 AM)emu steve Wrote:  Anyone want to revise their predicted MAC conference record for MBB?

As I posted elsewhere, this team could, I think, win anywhere from 5 to 11 MAC games this season.

As we've discussed before the brutal OOC made it tough for this team to become confident. Someone described the team as 'mentally broken' and that probably was an accurate description. A few bad, tough losses plus a lot of blowouts will shake even a veteran team.

I suspect it will take a while for this team to re-gain its confident before starting a nice win streak.

Murphy gave what I thought was an extended after game interview last night. He went into lots of detail and some whining about the OOC opponents and poor scheduling. I didn't think it was necessary for him to vocalize EMU's need to schedule those opponents for financial reasons, but he did. He seems optimistic for the MAC season.

I'd be more optimistic and predict a better record if I knew Murphy would roll with what is very clearly his best lineup (PJ, McAdoo, Groce, Minnie, Thompson) for the majority of games. Until Toure is a permanent 10-15 minutes a night player, with as few of those as possible coming with Thompson on the court with him, I will remain with a 7-win prediction.

Worth noting that Toure fouled out last night with 3:23 left in the 2nd half, and we had 56 points. Which means we scored 28 over the next 13+ minutes of game action. A large portion came at the FT line (kudos to Thompson for getting over the yips), but we had actual scoring lanes for Jackson, McAdoo, and Groce. That line up should close every game, unless Toure is playing effectively. I wonder how differently the finish would've been had he not fouled out...

I agree with Sam. I'm very happy we got a great win last night, but that alone doesn't change the trajectory of our season.

If we beat Kent at home on Saturday, THEN maybe we can talk about "better than expected" MAC season.

(01-09-2019 09:52 AM)alum93 Wrote:  

(01-09-2019 08:36 AM)emu steve Wrote:  Anyone want to revise their predicted MAC conference record for MBB?

As I posted elsewhere, this team could, I think, win anywhere from 5 to 11 MAC games this season.

As we've discussed before the brutal OOC made it tough for this team to become confident. Someone described the team as 'mentally broken' and that probably was an accurate description. A few bad, tough losses plus a lot of blowouts will shake even a veteran team.

I suspect it will take a while for this team to re-gain its confident before starting a nice win streak.

Murphy gave what I thought was an extended after game interview last night. He went into lots of detail and some whining about the OOC opponents and poor scheduling. I didn't think it was necessary for him to vocalize EMU's need to schedule those opponents for financial reasons, but he did. He seems optimistic for the MAC season.

Wish I would have listened. I turned the game off shortly after the final buzzer.

Getting a win on the road against a good BSU team is nice. However, we cannot let it mask over the past two months. We still showed many of the same weaknesses as mentioned above; Toure/JT on the court at the same time, way too much 1 on 1 hero ball, and at times poor defensive rotations. We also shot the crap out of the ball from 3 (61.5% as a team), which is an outlier game. We will not shoot that well going forward.

Not to be Debbie Downer, but we need to be realistic and pump the breaks. They played 1 game much better than they have played all year. If we can string these types of effort games together then we may have something to talk about.

To be mr indecisive, I think there are two tracks of though...

On the one hand, I think this win on the road was bigger than some realize. Given the computer rankings, it was way bigger than had we beat Rutgers on their court.

On the other hand, I am still disappointed/frustrated. Either it is just a teasing freak outlier (Minnie on fire, Ball St horrendous from the fee throw line, etc) OR if something sustainable has changed why has it taken so long to figure out. Either way, Pooh Pooh.

(01-09-2019 11:27 AM)EAGLE KING Wrote:  Getting a win on the road against a good BSU team is nice. However, we cannot let it mask over the past two months. We still showed many of the same weaknesses as mentioned above; Toure/JT on the court at the same time, way too much 1 on 1 hero ball, and at times poor defensive rotations. We also shot the crap out of the ball from 3 (61.5% as a team), which is an outlier game. We will not shoot that well going forward.

Very true. I will say, that I'm fine with the 1-on-1 play at the end of games, when defenses tighten up, so long as Jackson has the space to operate. Like last night with the double high screens, he can either make a layup, get fouled, or miss with the best offensive rebounder in the league crashing down to get the ball. Kind of like what the Pistons do (or used to do) with Reggie Jackson and Andre Drummond; high screen and roll, and multiple options for our PG, and as Ramy mentioned, Minnie can pop out for a 3 as another threat. It's probably the best chance we have at running an effective half court offense.

My favorite part of the 3-point stats is that only Minnie, McAdoo, and Groce attempted them. Nothing forced from Jackson or Ellison. You're right that it was an outlier, but we are also way better than 26% as a team...assuming the right guys are shooting.

(01-09-2019 11:27 AM)EAGLE KING Wrote:  Not to be Debbie Downer, but we need to be realistic and pump the breaks. They played 1 game much better than they have played all year. If we can string these types of effort games together then we may have something to talk about.

Fully agree. I will need to see some consistency before I change my tune on this team, but yesterday was a little encouraging. If we can knock off Kent, and get our lineup figured out, then who knows...

(01-09-2019 10:15 AM)EagleSam Wrote:  I'd be more optimistic and predict a better record if I knew Murphy would roll with what is very clearly his best lineup (PJ, McAdoo, Groce, Minnie, Thompson) for the majority of games. Until Toure is a permanent 10-15 minutes a night player, with as few of those as possible coming with Thompson on the court with him, I will remain with a 7-win prediction.

Worth noting that Toure fouled out last night with 3:23 left in the 2nd half, and we had 56 points. Which means we scored 28 over the next 13+ minutes of game action. A large portion came at the FT line (kudos to Thompson for getting over the yips), but we had actual scoring lanes for Jackson, McAdoo, and Groce. That line up should close every game, unless Toure is playing effectively. I wonder how differently the finish would've been had he not fouled out...

Another bullseye for Sam! Toure is a good backup center and next year's starter for sure, but his foul trouble last night was a blessing. Playing two centers on the low block allow Toure's defender to help on JT4 without leaving Toure alone. JT4 is not quick enough to play the wing on defense, if he goes out to contest the three, he does not have the quicks to recover and stop the high post to low post game. It was mentioned last night that Minnie is not getting to the free throw line like last year. Fouls are drawn when driving to the basket and because you have two bigs playing around the basket, Minnie and Jackson have little opportunity to do so. I am certain that we had a double digit point advantage over BSU when we played only one of our centers and if Murphy does not realize it, he deserves to go.

Nevertheless, last night was a very big win. BSU got some very favorable officiating as expected in Muncie and after they thumped Toledo on the road, I would not have put a penny on us to beat them. We still have issues for sure but last night provided a reasonable level of hope.

(01-09-2019 12:57 PM)EagleSam Wrote:  

(01-09-2019 11:27 AM)EAGLE KING Wrote:  Getting a win on the road against a good BSU team is nice. However, we cannot let it mask over the past two months. We still showed many of the same weaknesses as mentioned above; Toure/JT on the court at the same time, way too much 1 on 1 hero ball, and at times poor defensive rotations. We also shot the crap out of the ball from 3 (61.5% as a team), which is an outlier game. We will not shoot that well going forward.

Very true. I will say, that I'm fine with the 1-on-1 play at the end of games, when defenses tighten up, so long as Jackson has the space to operate. Like last night with the double high screens, he can either make a layup, get fouled, or miss with the best offensive rebounder in the league crashing down to get the ball. Kind of like what the Pistons do (or used to do) with Reggie Jackson and Andre Drummond; high screen and roll, and multiple options for our PG, and as Ramy mentioned, Minnie can pop out for a 3 as another threat. It's probably the best chance we have at running an effective half court offense.

My favorite part of the 3-point stats is that only Minnie, McAdoo, and Groce attempted them. Nothing forced from Jackson or Ellison. You're right that it was an outlier, but we are also way better than 26% as a team...assuming the right guys are shooting.

(01-09-2019 11:27 AM)EAGLE KING Wrote:  Not to be Debbie Downer, but we need to be realistic and pump the breaks. They played 1 game much better than they have played all year. If we can string these types of effort games together then we may have something to talk about.

Fully agree. I will need to see some consistency before I change my tune on this team, but yesterday was a little encouraging. If we can knock off Kent, and get our lineup figured out, then who knows...

Sam, I did like the double high screens as it has been one of the only signs of something resembling offense sets, however what I saw most of the time when we ran this was poor fundamentals. The screens were not set with a purpose, PJ did not rub off the shoulder of the screeners (JT/Minnie), and the screeners did not roll to the hoop with purpose looking/calling for the ball. I think the only really good screen I saw was from King late in the game and even that could have been called as he was moving his feet. I see a lot of room for improvement off this play, that could and should lead to even more space in the lane and easy buckets in the form of alley-oop dunks and layups.

Had us winning the U of D, Northeastern and UC Irvine games, these games are games Murphy should be winning, but didn't. I'm at 9-9 in conference play. Need to do better than that to have a winning season.

(01-09-2019 08:36 AM)emu steve Wrote:  Anyone want to revise their predicted MAC conference record for MBB?

As I posted elsewhere, this team could, I think, win anywhere from 5 to 11 MAC games this season.

As we've discussed before the brutal OOC made it tough for this team to become confident. Someone described the team as 'mentally broken' and that probably was an accurate description. A few bad, tough losses plus a lot of blowouts will shake even a veteran team.

I suspect it will take a while for this team to re-gain its confident before starting a nice win streak.

Bump.

So do we peak in January and bomb out in February the reverse of last year? Or is it really us in the West and Buffalo in the east? Or is it that our tough non conference did what was intended make us bucks and get ready for conference play?

(01-09-2019 09:52 AM)alum93 Wrote:  

(01-09-2019 08:36 AM)emu steve Wrote:  Anyone want to revise their predicted MAC conference record for MBB?

As I posted elsewhere, this team could, I think, win anywhere from 5 to 11 MAC games this season.

As we've discussed before the brutal OOC made it tough for this team to become confident. Someone described the team as 'mentally broken' and that probably was an accurate description. A few bad, tough losses plus a lot of blowouts will shake even a veteran team.

I suspect it will take a while for this team to re-gain its confident before starting a nice win streak.

Murphy gave what I thought was an extended after game interview last night. He went into lots of detail and some whining about the OOC opponents and poor scheduling. I didn't think it was necessary for him to vocalize EMU's need to schedule those opponents for financial reasons, but he did. He seems optimistic for the MAC season.

I missed this but caught the reference to it on the webcast of yesterday's game.

Absolutely no reason to have this kind of schedule: 6th most difficult out of over 350 D-I teams.

10 MAC(west) = 73.81 73.90 ( 10) TEAMS= 6 73.88 ( 10)
College Basketball 2018-2019 Div I games only through games of 2019 January 11 Friday
RATING W L SCHEDL(RANK) VS top 25 | VS top 50 | PREDICTOR | GOLDEN_MEAN | RECENT
HOME ADVANTAGE=[ 3.10] [ 3.10] [ 3.10] [ 3.10]
80 Ball State = 78.69 9 5 73.83( 93) 0 2 | 0 2 | 78.77 81 | 77.60 92 | 80.37 64 MAC(west)
89 Toledo = 78.29 11 3 70.29( 243) 0 0 | 0 1 | 78.42 85 | 77.36 98 | 78.38 85 MAC(west)
137 Northern Illinois = 73.99 7 6 71.35( 194) 0 1 | 0 2 | 73.92 134 | 73.13 153 | 77.04 104 MAC(west)
153 Central Michigan = 72.75 10 2 66.76( 345) 0 1 | 0 1 | 72.09 160 | 73.99 139 | 77.88 91 MAC(west)
183 Eastern Michigan = 70.50 3 8 79.21( 6) 0 3 | 0 4 | 70.21 186 | 71.15 177 | 71.27 180 MAC(west)
205 Western Michigan = 69.19 5 9 71.12( 203) 0 2 | 0 3 | 69.26 205 | 69.14 203 | 66.44 249 MAC(west)

However, it seems to have prepared you for MAC season.

(01-13-2019 08:00 AM)NIU007 Wrote:  However, it seems to have prepared you for MAC season.

My thinking: It is like being in a sauna and then returning to 72 degrees.

I did hear a player parent tell me the team was 'mentally broken' after the OOC schedule.

Despite the 2 - 1 start, I just don't think our schedule was a good idea. I think it did more harm than good. Scoring 4 points in a half is not the way I'd want a team to prepare.

The team seemed broken. Fans seemed broken. Thank heaven for BSU, Kent, etc. Hopefully we are back on track.

I'll stick with 9-9 or 10-8 in the MAC. History tells us there will be a 3-5 game losing skid at some point. IF (big IF) EMU can continue the improved ball movement and stay on a roll then 13 or 14 wins is possible. Really hoping that 4 of those wins come over WMU and CMU.

(01-13-2019 08:06 AM)emu steve Wrote:  

(01-13-2019 08:00 AM)NIU007 Wrote:  However, it seems to have prepared you for MAC season.

My thinking: It is like being in a sauna and then returning to 72 degrees.

I did hear a player parent tell me the team was 'mentally broken' after the OOC schedule.

Despite the 2 - 1 start, I just don't think our schedule was a good idea. I think it did more harm than good. Scoring 4 points in a half is not the way I'd want a team to prepare.

The team seemed broken. Fans seemed broken. Thank heaven for BSU, Kent, etc. Hopefully we are back on track.

Rutgers is a MAC level opponent. So to keep bringing up the 4 point half as if it came to a dominant opponent is illegitimate. Plus it came right after an 18 point win against BU, so the team was not exactly reeling from lack of confidence.

Were there early injuries? Lack of coaching preparedness? Normal adjustment period for playing out of natural positions? I don’t know. But I don’t think the strength of schedule was the reason EMU performed as poorly as they did.

(01-13-2019 11:33 AM)RamyEMU Wrote:  

(01-13-2019 08:06 AM)emu steve Wrote:  

(01-13-2019 08:00 AM)NIU007 Wrote:  However, it seems to have prepared you for MAC season.

My thinking: It is like being in a sauna and then returning to 72 degrees.

I did hear a player parent tell me the team was 'mentally broken' after the OOC schedule.

Despite the 2 - 1 start, I just don't think our schedule was a good idea. I think it did more harm than good. Scoring 4 points in a half is not the way I'd want a team to prepare.

The team seemed broken. Fans seemed broken. Thank heaven for BSU, Kent, etc. Hopefully we are back on track.

Rutgers is a MAC level opponent. So to keep bringing up the 4 point half as if it came to a dominant opponent is illegitimate. Plus it came right after an 18 point win against BU, so the team was not exactly reeling from lack of confidence.

Were there early injuries? Lack of coaching preparedness? Normal adjustment period for playing out of natural positions? I don’t know. But I don’t think the strength of schedule was the reason EMU performed as poorly as they did.

I think there were travel problems or something but the team was not physically prepared for the game.

(01-13-2019 11:33 AM)RamyEMU Wrote:  

(01-13-2019 08:06 AM)emu steve Wrote:  

(01-13-2019 08:00 AM)NIU007 Wrote:  However, it seems to have prepared you for MAC season.

My thinking: It is like being in a sauna and then returning to 72 degrees.

I did hear a player parent tell me the team was 'mentally broken' after the OOC schedule.

Despite the 2 - 1 start, I just don't think our schedule was a good idea. I think it did more harm than good. Scoring 4 points in a half is not the way I'd want a team to prepare.

The team seemed broken. Fans seemed broken. Thank heaven for BSU, Kent, etc. Hopefully we are back on track.

Rutgers is a MAC level opponent. So to keep bringing up the 4 point half as if it came to a dominant opponent is illegitimate. Plus it came right after an 18 point win against BU, so the team was not exactly reeling from lack of confidence.

Were there early injuries? Lack of coaching preparedness? Normal adjustment period for playing out of natural positions? I don’t know. But I don’t think the strength of schedule was the reason EMU performed as poorly as they did.

I think there were travel problems or something but the team was not physically prepared for the game.