This is not a team the rockets should lose to at home. Eastern is middle of the league team playing tonight without one of their only two offensive players. But tonight Eastern shot 53% field goals and had 42 points in the paint … with only one big who doesn't score much. Toledo with 21 turnovers and 8 minutes in the 4th quarter without a basket! Lot of tougher teams ahead.

Today was in keeping with the Rockets' season. Eastern Michigan is a pretty good team. The Rockets had a nice upset against Buffalo and did a good job in beating three of the league's worst teams, but we are still a team that will almost certainly finish in the bottom half of the conference. If we finish top 8 and get to Cleveland, that will be success this year, I think.

Wiard needs to be a lot more assertive offensively, especially when the shot clock is winding down. I wish Santucci would be more aggressive as well. We got no scoring from our point guards other than Wiard's technical foul free throws and a bunch of free throws from Santucci, almost all of them in the last two minutes when the game had been decided. Bad finishing today by everyone on drives to the basket.

(01-29-2020 09:32 PM)Dwight Wrote:  Today was in keeping with the Rockets' season. Eastern Michigan is a pretty good team. The Rockets had a nice upset against Buffalo and did a good job in beating three of the league's worst teams, but we are still a team that will almost certainly finish in the bottom half of the conference. If we finish top 8 and get to Cleveland, that will be success this year, I think.

Wiard needs to be a lot more assertive offensively, especially when the shot clock is winding down. I wish Santucci would be more aggressive as well. We got no scoring from our point guards other than Wiard's technical foul free throws and a bunch of free throws from Santucci, almost all of them in the last two minutes when the game had been decided. Bad finishing today by everyone on drives to the basket.

Not sure I would consider Eastern a pretty good team. They are a pretty good defensive team but offensively challenged. They do have one big time scorer and she hurt us with her scoring but she also took two stupid fouls in the fourth quarter which put her on the bench when the game was on the line. And Eastern shoots something like 60% free throws. IMO the are a team with serious limitation which found a way to win tonight with their second leading scorer (12 pts/game) injured. Good for them but bad game for the rockets.

(01-29-2020 09:24 PM)kazoorocket43 Wrote:  This is not a team the rockets should lose to at home. Eastern is middle of the league team playing tonight without one of their only two offensive players. But tonight Eastern shot 53% field goals and had 42 points in the paint … with only one big who doesn't score much. Toledo with 21 turnovers and 8 minutes in the 4th quarter without a basket! Lot of tougher teams ahead.

EMU is a much better team than you give them credit for. They beat Kent at Kent, Took BSU and UB to the wire, both on the road, and were leading CMU in the 4th. They force 20 turnovers per game. They are a tough match up for UT because they are a strong rebounding team and very quick and aggressive on D.

That being said, a better performance by UT should have won the game. This was definitely one of their poorer MAC performances. UT was shooting about 50% at the half, and ended up well under 40, which shows how bad they shot in the 2nd half. Way too many turnovers, and poor rebounding late.

(01-29-2020 09:46 PM)northcoastRocket Wrote:  

(01-29-2020 09:24 PM)kazoorocket43 Wrote:  This is not a team the rockets should lose to at home. Eastern is middle of the league team playing tonight without one of their only two offensive players. But tonight Eastern shot 53% field goals and had 42 points in the paint … with only one big who doesn't score much. Toledo with 21 turnovers and 8 minutes in the 4th quarter without a basket! Lot of tougher teams ahead.

EMU is a much better team than you give them credit for. They beat Kent at Kent, Took BSU and UB to the wire, both on the road, and were leading CMU in the 4th. They force 20 turnovers per game. They are a tough match up for UT because they are a strong rebounding team and very quick and aggressive on D.

That being said, a better performance by UT should have won the game. This was definitely one of their poorer MAC performances. UT was shooting about 50% at the half, and ended up well under 40, which shows how bad they shot in the 2nd half. Way too many turnovers, and poor rebounding late.

Stanley, who is their second leading scorer, had 17 points against Buffalo and 13 points against Central. With her on the bench I don't think they are the same team and should have been vulnerable. And for me they played like it. Their leading scorer fouls out defending a drive by Santucci when they are ahead by 10 points with a couple of minutes left. Why doesn't she give Santucci the 2 points and stay in the game? Their only other double figure scorer in this game, Cardwell, gets 3 fouls called on her in 45 seconds in the 4th quarter and also fouls out before the end of game. Their center swats a ball away after fouling Beacham, gets a technical foul on top of her personal foul and gifts UT a five point play in the second quarter. And they are fouling Toledo every time down the floor at the end of the game instead of letting the clock run. They also didn't handle the press confidently and missed a bunch of free throws. They also had 19 turnovers. It seemed to me Eastern was doing everything they could to lose the game but we wouldn't let them. My guess is Eastern will battle us for the 6-8 seed and both teams will be somewhere around 50-50 win lose season record. Two average basketball teams?

True, Eastern tends to underachieve, but they have a lot of talent. They are doing pretty well in the conference and will finish ahead of us. Sure, it would have been nice to get a win at home with one of Eastern's better players injured, but we lost to a better team tonight.

(01-29-2020 09:32 PM)Dwight Wrote:  Today was in keeping with the Rockets' season. Eastern Michigan is a pretty good team. The Rockets had a nice upset against Buffalo and did a good job in beating three of the league's worst teams, but we are still a team that will almost certainly finish in the bottom half of the conference. If we finish top 8 and get to Cleveland, that will be success this year, I think.

Wiard needs to be a lot more assertive offensively, especially when the shot clock is winding down. I wish Santucci would be more aggressive as well. We got no scoring from our point guards other than Wiard's technical foul free throws and a bunch of free throws from Santucci, almost all of them in the last two minutes when the game had been decided. Bad finishing today by everyone on drives to the basket.

My thoughts exactly. The men have two guys who can take over a game for stretches. The women have one player (Davis)who doesn’t seem reluctant to shoot. We passed up so many open looks. Wiard is the chief offender but she has lots of company. Lockett and Black have moments but neither can carry a team. Our side of the board seems to always show 8 players with between 5 and 12 points while the opponents have one or two with 18 or 20. We don’t shoot well but passing up open looks isn’t the answer.

The last few years it seemed the MAC was getting stronger top to bottom and there is no denying the top teams were very good. I am not sure that is the case this year. Ohio and Central are good but IMO probably not quite up to the level of last year and Buffalo has certainly been hurt by the injury to Summer Hemphill. The bottom of the league looks weak. Miami, Bowling Green, and Northern Illinois are 1-6 on conference play and Akron is 2-6. And there collective record in league play of 4-24 includes only one win against anyone other than themselves (BGSU beating Western). So unless something drastically changes these four teams have locked up the bottom 4 seeds for the conference tournament.