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I see UCLA in Travis' future. Win big this year and leave his brothers shadow. No next endeavor for John with lack of big game wins.

Yes, recently. Compared to earlier this year. He seemed far more engaged and aggressive offensively before. He was almost matching Tavari’s production. Defensively he is still quite active, but increasingly late to his perimeter cover. I don’t know what it is, but it seems to have started with the lineup change. I could be completely wrong.

Personally, I just don't see it happening. Having 2 bigs really isn't what this team is built to play. I'm not even sure if Lyles and Barre have played a minute on the floor together. Maybe we could see it for small stretches situationally against bigger teams, but it makes more sense to utilize our guards and wings more heavily as that's where our talent and depth is more heavily located.

My bad, Tribble was 2 years ago. Still was a great defender and miss his toughness at the guard position.

https://x.com/i/status/2007527930637807730

Where do you think Scott has regressed? His overall numbers show a slight improvement over last season. Or do you mean recently? I do think starting is important to some players. Maybe it shouldn't be and you're right about the minutes mattering most, but the reality is it can definitely play a role mentally. I think Young actually fits better off the bench right now, anyhow. I love his energy and he can serve as a bit of a change of pace. I don't think Halligan is long for the starting lineup, nor do I expect him to play more than 8-10 minutes a game once Barre is back. Speaking of Chabi, I would like to see him get a shot at starting once he is ready again. Lyles Ev. Mahaffey Barre Scott Johnson That's a pretty good mix of scoring and defense.

Halligan played all of 10 minutes. That's pretty much just the first media timeout in each half. Eric and Scott both eclipsed 30 minutes so played the same amount of minutes they would had they started. Some seem caught up too much on starting lineup. What actually matters is the amount of minutes played and who is in during crunch time.

I have some mixed feelings about that, but I’m going to respectfully disagree. On one hand, Shammah seems to have taken a step back. I wonder how he is with the whole coming off the bench again decision. I think Groce would say it’s less about the starters production (8 pts) and all about the team production (73 pts). It’s true we are still adjusting to the rotation shake up offensively, but we have been a whole lot better on defense lately. I’m so proud of how our guys started the game especially. They defended the perimeter hard and brought a physical edge to them and they appeared to be playing under control to me. At least at the start. I didn’t see much of Halligan (a starter) down the stretch. The intense/physical nature of the game seemed to be too much for him at this point in his development. Yeah, 73 points is 20 points off of our average, but I have to go back to what I said earlier. Getting beat up wears you down and the fatigue affects everything from shots to passes to decision making. Notice Miami was well below their point average also and they benefited from all of those extra free throws. The last game we played that was this physical and slanted was the James Madison road game. I just wonder how coaches keep their players from snapping under those conditions. I remember Nate Johnson would just openly laugh during those games because it can be so ridiculous. And you won’t convince me it’s incompetence.

They were on the floor together a lot today, especially in crunch time.

Let's go back to the original starting lineup. We had 3 starters combine for 8 points today.

We’ll always have Le Moyne.

Obviously by BYU.

There was a lot of good MACtion today. Ohio came back from a 20 point 2nd half deficit. Kent State barely survived at home against a not so good NIU. Bowling Green beat UMass 101-100 in OT.

CMU had a 16 point lead against Toledo at home and lost by 3.

The 4-11 Central Michigan Chippewas come to Akron Tuesday night to face the Zips. They are coming off of a three point lost to Toledo. The Chipps wins have come against Adrian, Coppin State, Olivet and Appalachian State. 7-foot senior center and Ferris State transfer Nathan Claerbaut leads the team in scoring and rebounding at 12.8 ppg and 6.5 rpg. They average 72 ppg while shooting .453 from the field and .281 from three point range.

We will be fine, I am just more annoyed than anything else because that's a good team, but nobody we shouldn't have handled, and we don't get another shot at them at The JAR. They are probably a few easy MAC wins away from Top 25 discussion now.

I agree. I will say Miami ratcheted up the defense in the final 5 minutes or so. The first 35 minutes of the game of the game I don't feel the looks we were getting were all that much worse than we've witnessed most of the year. They just weren't finding the net. Miami did do a good job of not turning it over in the open court so we did have fewer run outs than typical.

No shame in this loss. I pray the MAC doesn’t do that to us in March. They don’t like teams going undefeated and they don’t want the same team dominating the MAC Tournament every year either. I almost think it would be easier to play against 6 players than getting bumped and hacked all game long.

Shammah's 3-pointer that didn't fall was really good look too. They made the plays down the stretch. The Zips didn't. On to CMU.

I'm not necessarily concerned about the loss either. We were never going to go 18-0 in MAC play and this was the most likely game we'd drop. Shots aren't going to always fall so you have to find ways of winning on those nights. Outside of a few breakdowns I felt we played much better perimeter defense. I think we even blocked 2, maybe 3 of their 3 pointers. Had we played defense like we did against Yale or Murray State we would have lost this game by 15-20. We had a chance at the end, which is encouraging given how badly we shot.

15 TO each 25% 3P Akron vs 31% 3P Miami. Lost by 3.

Disappointing loss, but pretty tough with all the things that were going against them. At Miami, huge foul and foul shot disparity, uncharacteristic poor three-point shooting, to lose by three sucks but it doesn't make me that concerned for the future. See you at the MAC tournament. As our friends in Athens say Muck Fiami.

Miami made an adjustment in the final minutes and basically took Tavari away, doubling him and forcing someone else to beat them. I would imagine our future opponents may take notice of that, too.

Another year of not breaking through and beating top opponents. Maybe in March.

Yep, moved to 0-4 against top 150 teams on the season. This IMO was the best we played in those losses, but just not enough shots fell.