Buffalo @ North Texas

[TML1000]

We toughed out a road win against a very solid mid-major in which we trailed by double digits in the 2nd half...is anyone happy? Sheesh.

[Dabulls]

1 minute ago, Erie County said:

What was that Maceo? They had three looks at it too. You need your seniors to to better than 1-3 from FTs in the closing minutes.

Good on the team for coming back, I'll take that, from a troll.

We’ve been great from the line this season as well, maybe it was pressure? However these guys are D1 athletes and have probably faced situations like this before. Just need to work out the kinks and we will be fine

[MuchMany]

Ha nice inbounds from a coach's son there. Maybe call a TO there Jim?

Fantastic comeback in scrappy weird game against a true peer program. Best part about basketball is the last 1/4 of a game counts just the same as the first three 1/4. Fun plane home for the boys, great bonding win. Plenty to fix. We're not at all a clear favorite in the MAC right now, but I think we can get there.

[Tee4three]

Also on that last in bound, we have time outs and they played good defense

Use the time out

[DooleyBull06]

When a lose is a win but feels like a loss lol. What a frenetic comeback that we almost choked away. We showed blueprint for winning…defense, rebounding and hitting enough outside shots. Big road win just for confidence sake.

[clodney]

Look, I'm happy we won the game but for christ sake why is our senior-laden team the one making all of the mistakes in the first 2 games of the year against freshman teams? That team lost 60% of its offense and had absolutely no problem playing right through us. Granted the reffing was atrocious but there was nothing impressive about that performance and I'm not nearly as hopeful as I was a week ago about winning the MAC this year.

[MDBullsfan89]

Far from perfect but we got one in the win column. 

Hope we take every opportunity to develop some semblance of a bench in the rest of our non-conference. Though no real gimme games outside of the D-2 matchups.

[MKBullsfan]

Those refs easily gave North Texas another 10-15 points. It was just obvious how biased they were. Buffalo should have won easily. 

[DooleyBull06]

Definitely happy with the win. There was a lot of good in spurts in that second half. Still a lot to work on on both ends and mentally. But that’s what the non conference is…work out the issues that need to be addressed by conference season. Anyone notice that we got better when Hardnett came in?

[DocCas86]

Well that was a slog.

Positives: Showing resilience to come back from 11 down on road; good night scoring from Mballa, Segu and Jack.  Credit to Williams for playing better down stretch on a tough night for him.

Negatives: no bench; defense was a bit porous.

I will take the win.

Also, so far we have played about where we are ranked ~80; Ohio has been the better team so far.  Still early and hope the pieces start coming together.

One last things - I don't know if I am the only one, but seems like the refs were in love with blowing the whistle and disrupted flow of game.

[RecoveringHillbilly]

Quarles just said in the post game that Hardnett chipped a tooth playing so hard, more than the box score 18 minutes 3 blocks and good on the screens. He and Skogman played 18 mins and the 4 starters all played 34+, so coach said they are just trying to build up the bench. I am not hopeful, with how glacial Brew and Jones are coming along in dependability.

[Dabulls]

This win will definitely light a spark for the guys. Still early in the season so I expect some errors but nothing that can’t be fixed. Great comeback win and comeback game for Jack, showed what we brought him here to do

[squire17]

1 minute ago, DooleyBull06 said:

Definitely happy with the win. There was a lot of good in spurts in that second half. Still a lot to work on on both ends and mentally. But that’s what the non conference is…work out the issues that need to be addressed by conference season. Anyone notice that we got better when Hardnett came in?

Yes. Definitely defense got better with Hardnett

[Dabulls]

4 minutes ago, RecoveringHillbilly said:

Quarles just said in the post game that Hardnett chipped a tooth playing so hard, more than the box score 18 minutes 3 blocks and good on the screens. He and Skogman played 18 mins and the 4 starters all played 34+, so coach said they are just trying to build up the bench. I am not hopeful, with how glacial Brew and Jones are coming along in dependability.

Jones is still a freshman and is not really out there to add a bunch of points. I’d let him develop his game a bit, he seems like he’s going to be a decent player. Brewton on the other hand to put it mildly is awful, just chucks up threes and is terrible defensively. He really needs to have a good game soon or I’m going to chant for Perry or Blocker to get some minutes

Edited November 16, 2021 by Dabulls

[DooleyBull06]

Just looking at the schedule…our toughest game before the Bona game will be SFA (and so far their two wins are against high school teams). This could be a nice time to get on a run before the rivalry game. First home game on Saturday afternoon. Fans better show up.

Edited November 16, 2021 by DooleyBull06

[TML1000]

So all of a sudden this board thinks we are no longer MAC favorites? What did you expect, for us to beat Michigan and blow out N Texas? The game closed with NT as 1.5 pt favorites. If they scrape by Rider, then ok, but what did you honestly expect through two games? A good showing in game 1 and a close win tonight should be what was expected.

[Dabulls]

2 minutes ago, DooleyBull06 said:

Just looking at the schedule…our toughest game before the Bona game will be SFA (and so far their two wins are against high school teams). This could be a nice time to get on a run before the rivalry game. First home game on Saturday afternoon. Fans better show up.

I saw espn has us heavily favored in that game. I thought it would be closer, isn’t SFA pretty strong or am I wrong?

[clodney]

Some stats:

Segu turned the ball over 5x with only 4 assists. Yikes, he's a senior and he still forces plays.

Starting 5 scored 66 points, bench scored 3 points.

We turned the ball over 15x and got really lucky at the end to make 10 straight shots (5 threes, 4 layups, and a free throw).

[DooleyBull06]

2 minutes ago, TML1000 said:

So all of a sudden this board thinks we are no longer MAC favorites? What did you expect, for us to beat Michigan and blow out N Texas? The game closed with NT as 1.5 pt favorites. If they scrape by Rider, then ok, but what did you honestly expect through two games? A good showing in game 1 and a close win tonight should be what was expected.

I think we are all expecting crisper basketball. But as you said it’s game 2. To goal is to continue to progress. Define roles and develop depth. All while winning. No one wants to peak in November. So you’re absolutely right. 

[DocCas86]

2 minutes ago, TML1000 said:

So all of a sudden this board thinks we are no longer MAC favorites? What did you expect, for us to beat Michigan and blow out N Texas? The game closed with NT as 1.5 pt favorites. If they scrape by Rider, then ok, but what did you honestly expect through two games? A good showing in game 1 and a close win tonight should be what was expected.

For me - we are playing about where preseason polls had us.  Personally I expected a bit more.  Also in my opinion, Ohio is performing better than preseason polls were projecting.  So Ohio has been the better team through 2 games.  I am not saying we are not the favorites, would be silly to do after two games, but in my opinion we can and should play better from here on out.

[DooleyBull06]

Just now, clodney said:

Some stats:

Segu turned the ball over 5x with only 4 assists. Yikes, he's a senior and he still forces plays.

Starting 5 scored 66 points, bench scored 3 points.

We turned the ball over 15x and got really lucky at the end to make 10 straight shots (5 threes, 4 layups, and a free throw).

Between the free throws disparity and turnovers we had no business winning this game. But the seniors made clutch plays. And we stole one. Good fortitude building win. Great for the mental psyche of this team.

[MuchMany]

3 minutes ago, TML1000 said:

So all of a sudden this board thinks we are no longer MAC favorites? What did you expect, for us to beat Michigan and blow out N Texas? The game closed with NT as 1.5 pt favorites. If they scrape by Rider, then ok, but what did you honestly expect through two games? A good showing in game 1 and a close win tonight should be what was expected.

Bingo. We were Monday night road dogs in an dingy arena called the Super Pit against a team that granted lost a bunch but kind of slammed Purdue in the tournament 7 months ago.

Little wake up calls that end up in the W column are great.

[DocCas86]

2 minutes ago, Dabulls said:

I saw espn has us heavily favored in that game. I thought it would be closer, isn’t SFA pretty strong or am I wrong?

The composite rank for SFA is 172, so not surprising we would be heavily favored.

[TML1000]

2 minutes ago, DocCas86 said:

For me - we are playing about where preseason polls had us.  Personally I expected a bit more.  Also in my opinion, Ohio is performing better than preseason polls were projecting.  So Ohio has been the better team through 2 games.  I am not saying we are not the favorites, would be silly to do after two games, but in my opinion we can and should play better from here on out.

Ohio's opening win over Belmont was good...next 2 wins as expected over Cleve St and Rob Morris. Should learn alot more about Ohio against Kentucky. Us and them clearly the top 2 teams IMO.

[clodney]

You really think we're still obvious MAC favorites? Ohio is 3-0 with double digit wins over a top-75 Belmont team and a Cleveland State team that's pretty similar to North Texas. Miami is 2-0 with a win over an ACC team. Akron took Ohio State to the wire. Hell, even EMU had a better showing against Indiana than we've had in our first 2.

It looks to me like the MAC is just a wide open race with 3-4 teams that could all easily win the tourney. I think we all expected a bit more at this point given that this team is easily the oldest and most experienced in the conference.