Maybe the hardest part of basketball, and life, is to bounce back from adversity; a mostly mental thing. A game which should have been a 'W' ended up a painful loss.

The biggest problem was injured psyche. No one got hurt yesterday. I'm sure many players have dealt with the real hard knocks of life; this wasn't one of them. It was a basketball game.

EMU was better than both BSU and MIA, but lost, and sometimes the best teams don't win.

I was very pleased by the team's 'bounce back' effort during the first half but... then the team got caught by the ghosts of Millett.

Anyway, playing on the road vs. Kent will test the players' ability to bounce back, not look in the rear view mirror, etc. etc. [It seems that the 'other team' in Washtenaw County is now bouncing back after a streak of games which tested the psyches of players and fans.]

It might be that our players bounce back faster than our posters. :)

Too many losses to start the season could become a problem. OTOH, a couple nice wins erase the pain of a couple losses.

We just need a win streak.

The Sagarin rankings have Kent and EMU tied (Kent is ranked #118 and EMU #119).

Based on that, Kent should be a 3 or 4 point favorite based on the home court advantage.

HOWEVER, bettors have different mind sets than computers (computers weight the last game and a game a month ago equally, i.e., no recency effect, that is, a game last week means more than a game a month ago), so maybe Kent will be a 7 or 8 point favorite.

Vegas made a big, big mistake last week by ignoring the computers and going by 'human intuition' on the CMU/Toledo game. CMU was favored by the computers; Toledo by humans with their 'intuition.'

Yes Steve, but all that talk about being a mid major top 25 program and making the NIT or even the top 4 MAC seeds seems to ring a bit hollow right now. This week isn't going to get much easier. We can't claim to be one of the top MAC teams when you lose games you should win.

(01-11-2015 09:43 AM)emu79 Wrote:  Yes Steve, but all that talk about being a mid major top 25 program and making the NIT or even the top 4 MAC seeds seems to ring a bit hollow right now. This week isn't going to get much easier. We can't claim to be one of the top MAC teams when you lose games you should win.

You are basing it on 11% of the conference games. There is 89% left to be played.

We lost two games we should have and we'll win a few games we should have lost (e.g., a road game vs. a good team).

Steve no ghosts of Millet during second half, just better coaching by Miami's staff. Miami made halftime adjustments, EMU did not. We could be in for a disappointing season since the MAC has seen this zone for three seasons. Is it the players or Murphy's system? All of us on here know this is the most talent since 98 at EMU. Murphy needs to make changes to his system. These are two must win games if we want a top four seed.

(01-11-2015 09:54 AM)Luckeyone Wrote:  Steve no ghosts of Millet during second half, just better coaching by Miami's staff. Miami made halftime adjustments, EMU did not. We could be in for a disappointing season since the MAC has seen this zone for three seasons. Is it the players or Murphy's system? All of us on here know this is the most talent since 98 at EMU. Murphy needs to make changes to his system. These are two must win games if we want a top four seed.

Couple of points:

1). YES, the MAC has seen the zone for three years and does do better against it then OOC opponents.

2). I watched the game and the Miami full court pressure, trapping caused tons of problems. We do not break presses well and make the opponents pay. MIA never paid for their full court pressure. Pressing should be like blitzing in football - sometimes it works; sometimes Calvin Johnson or Dez Bryant, covered one on one, makes the other team pay. Big time.

We will be fortunate to split the two games. Very fortunate.

8 teams in the conference are at 1-1. Take that for what it's worth.

(01-12-2015 11:52 AM)FrankAnderson Wrote:  8 teams in the conference are at 1-1. Take that for what it's worth.

And one undefeated team named Ball State Cardinals, who ain't going to last on that lofty perch too much longer. (and BG, too???).

What I find amazing is the parity ONE to TWELVE. I thought there was a clear bottom third, e.g., BSU, Miami, etc. but BSU beating what folks thought were two of the top four teams in the MAC (CMU and EMU) is hard to fathom.

Much different MAC after one week then I thought...

(01-11-2015 08:46 PM)holybovine Wrote:  We will be fortunate to split the two games. Very fortunate.

If you guys can keep NIU from getting the ball to our big guys, we'll have no chance because we still can't shoot from the outside. We can drive the lane some and maybe finish the play occasionally, but not enough to win a game that way. Gonna be an ugly game I bet.

(01-12-2015 03:59 PM)NIU007 Wrote:  

(01-11-2015 08:46 PM)holybovine Wrote:  We will be fortunate to split the two games. Very fortunate.

If you guys can keep NIU from getting the ball to our big guys, we'll have no chance because we still can't shoot from the outside. We can drive the lane some and maybe finish the play occasionally, but not enough to win a game that way. Gonna be an ugly game I bet.

If we only play our best offensive player for 16 minutes again, that very well could be the case. Not that our games with NIU have been anything BUT ugly since Murphy and Monty took over.