EMU is riding high with a 2 - 1 record with the sole loss to UB (which means we took our loss before most of the other teams have).

If anyone hasn't figured out the reason for our conference success I suggest they look at Minnie's CONFERENCE stats:

https://getsomemaction.com/stats.aspx?pa...&conf=true

He is shooting .552 behind the arc in CONFERENCE.

Look at his SEASON stats where he had a number of games where he had ZERO treys.

https://emueagles.com/cumestats.aspx?pat...&year=2018

Quite obvious that when Minnie is hitting from the outside that the inside is open for the big guys.

Teams live and die by the trey. We are the same this year.

Is it me or does the conference schedule look rather front-loaded? I had actually predicted a losing streak at the front end of the conference season because I saw Buffalo twice, bookending Akron, Kent State, and Ball State.

Huh, Akron lost to Central and to NIU last week. Weird.

(01-14-2019 07:38 AM)Block_E Wrote:  Is it me or does the conference schedule look rather front-loaded? I had actually predicted a losing streak at the front end of the conference season because I saw Buffalo twice, bookending Akron, Kent State, and Ball State.

Huh, Akron lost to Central and to NIU last week. Weird.

Maybe that is why we rally during the 2nd half of the conference season. We've had some tough front half schedules.

(01-14-2019 07:38 AM)Block_E Wrote:  Is it me or does the conference schedule look rather front-loaded? I had actually predicted a losing streak at the front end of the conference season because I saw Buffalo twice, bookending Akron, Kent State, and Ball State.

Huh, Akron lost to Central and to NIU last week. Weird.

That is not a good thing, as I think they will come out with a little more hustle against EMU.

(01-14-2019 12:37 PM)RamyEMU Wrote:  

(01-14-2019 07:38 AM)Block_E Wrote:  Is it me or does the conference schedule look rather front-loaded? I had actually predicted a losing streak at the front end of the conference season because I saw Buffalo twice, bookending Akron, Kent State, and Ball State.

Huh, Akron lost to Central and to NIU last week. Weird.

That is not a good thing, as I think they will come out with a little more hustle against EMU.

Agreed. We are going to get Akron's best shot, especially on the road in their tiny arena, aptly abbreviated "the JAR". We haven't won there in a very long time.

However, I think we matchup well with them. They aren't very big (only two rotation players taller than 6'8), and they jack up a ton of threes at a poor clip (32%). If we keep up the ball movement and defensive intensity that we've seen in the last two games, I think we will win comfortably. Hopefully our bad habits don't creep back in.

This is another important one (not that every game isn't). We need to be 3-1 going into the Buffalo game.

https://twitter.com/Bushleague22/status/...9831107584

Tough loss @Akron. On to Buffalo. This is the tough part of our schedule with UB twice and a lot of road games.

We have our confidence back and last night's game was a 50 - 50 game; if the Groce shot falls we probably could have won. Otherwise, it was what it was...

Here is the schedule. Lot of road games during the first half of the season and a good home stand starting the 2nd half of February.

https://emueagles.com/schedule.aspx?path=mbball

Interesting Sagarins for the MAC. One excellent team, UB, the rest good or decent. No real weak sister.

https://www.usatoday.com/sports/ncaab/sa...onference/

We play BG next. They are virtually identical to us in the Sagarins yet their record is... much, much better...

I bet it is the schedule. Yep, EMU #14th most difficult. BG #283 most difficult.

12 MAC(east) = 73.52 74.38 ( 9) TEAMS= 6 73.98 ( 10)
College Basketball 2018-2019 Div I games only through games of 2019 January 18 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]
31 Buffalo = 84.96 16 1 73.24( 104) 0 1 | 2 1 | 84.72 33 | 85.02 33 | 87.46 19 MAC(east)
130 Akron = 74.81 8 7 69.93( 252) 0 1 | 0 2 | 75.35 121 | 72.77 155 | 72.54 161 MAC(east)
153 Bowling Green = 72.76 10 5 69.14( 283) 0 0 | 0 1 | 72.48 152 | 71.74 169 | 81.22 54 MAC(east)
161 Kent State = 72.27 11 4 69.81( 255) 0 1 | 0 1 | 71.78 163 | 73.22 151 | 75.07 127 MAC(east)
175 Miami-Ohio = 71.11 6 9 73.68( 93) 0 0 | 0 2 | 71.17 173 | 70.94 178 | 69.04 210 MAC(east)
182 Ohio = 70.35 8 8 73.22( 105) 0 1 | 0 1 | 69.81 192 | 71.80 168 | 71.95 169 MAC(east)
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

9 MAC(west) = 73.99 74.10 ( 10) TEAMS= 6 74.09 ( 9)
College Basketball 2018-2019 Div I games only through games of 2019 January 18 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]
78 Toledo = 79.00 14 3 70.03( 247) 0 0 | 0 1 | 79.08 79 | 78.08 90 | 79.87 68 MAC(west)
101 Ball State = 76.90 9 7 73.61( 94) 0 2 | 0 2 | 77.25 99 | 75.80 122 | 74.12 141 MAC(west)
137 Northern Illinois = 73.99 8 7 71.27( 196) 0 1 | 0 2 | 74.04 137 | 73.14 152 | 74.86 129 MAC(west)
150 Central Michigan = 72.95 11 3 68.11( 323) 0 1 | 0 1 | 72.31 156 | 73.95 139 | 78.56 88 MAC(west)
155 Eastern Michigan = 72.50 4 10 78.72( 14) 0 3 | 0 5 | 72.35 154 | 72.47 158 | 73.36 154 MAC(west)
201 Western Michigan = 69.28 5 11 72.64( 133) 0 2 | 0 4 | 69.43 197 | 68.99 208 | 65.94 262 MAC(west)