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I watched the Ball State/BG game tonight on the MAC Internet feed. This was the first time have watched this team in action. I came away with some thoughts...

* I know Ball State has had some injuries but they are flat out bad. What has happened to Peyton Stovall's game? Injuries taking a toll?

* We should have won this game by 20 points. We go through stretches in a game where we have no idea what we are doing offensively. This will always keep us from being a consistent team.

* Nate Miller and Martin Samarco were horrible from the free throw line. If we would have been playing a quality team, their misses down the stretch would have gotten us beat.

* We chase way too much on defense. Guys leave their man to help way too often leaving guys wide open for jumpers. Good teams exploit this on us.

* Our helter-skelter, chasing defense leads to most of our foul trouble. Just play good defense and keep your man in front of you and help only when your teammate gets beat going to the basket.

* I like what I saw from Polk. He has the chance to be very good by the time he is done. Its too bad he can't seem to get more minutes without getting into foul trouble.

* Can't help but wonder who is going to play Smarco's role next year? When things bogg down on the offense, he's the only one who seems to keep attacking the basket. Lets hope Chris Knight is that player.

Chris Knight is going to be a PLAYER! pending he gets his grades in order

We broke a 6 game losing streak. Samarco played amazing. BG played great defense, forcing alot of turnovers that turned into fast break points. We won, let's just leave it at that.

Ask Ohio U how bad Ball State is after getting it handed to them by the Cardinals on Sunday. We shouldn't have won by 20 we were favored by 2. Come on..we got it done and now it's on to gangsta' ball in Toledo. Hope we get a police escort to the highway after that game.

Agreed. A win is a win and after not having one in weeks, especially in conference play, let's just enjoy the victory and get ready for UT. GO BG!!!

From what I can tell, the team is playing much more competitive, and they finally got a win they needed. We haven't been blown out the last few games. I'm not saying that we beat a quality team, but we won a game that we should have. And this is a team that beat OU as already mentioned. I am happy that they got the win, and I just want to see how they play against UT. I think that this team is starting to be competitive, and with a young team, that is what you want to see. I don't know, I'm not there to see what is going on and how good other teams are in the league this year, but from where I sit, it looks like the kids are getting better, and the team has been playing better as of late, wins or not.

Hey, I am all for wins, believe me. I don't want to take anything away from the victory. I was just expressing some thnigs I saw watching this team for the first time last night after following it closely through the media an on this site.

We beat a team we should have beat. They were a team that is struggling coming into our house. Just like we were when we went to Central Michigan last week. Saturday will be a different challenge as will the last thre weeks of the season when we play some of the better East divsion teams.

Okay, I have to jump in to add my comments on the game. I know it'll sound overly negative, yadda yadda. But, I just cannot keep myself from commenting when I read stuff about Samarco playing "amazing" or that we're "Turning it around". In general, I mostly agree with what Rollow said.

* Ball State was flat out TERRIBLE. I have not seen them play this year prior to last night, so maybe it was a bad night. I don't know but they were brutal. In fact, they looked like us! They had no direction on offense, they don't have a player on their team who can make a jump shot. Dan even said in the postgame that they wanted to avoid turnovers because they know BSU cannot score so we didn't want to give them easy stuff. A win is a win and it beats the hell out of a loss, but I don't know how OU lost to that team, because they were BAD.

* My biggest "What did I miss" moment of this thread is where did I miss Samarco playing amazing? In fact, the more I watch of his game the more I wish Dan would bench him more often. Yes, he leads the league in scoring. Yes, he's one of the few guys on our team who can make contested shots. Yes, he's one of our better players. But at the same time I cannot help but see a lot of Stephon Marbury/Jerry Stackhouse in his game. He scores a ton of points, but he shoots so much he's detrimental to the team. How is a performance of 6-15 from the field (21 pts), 0 boards, 1 assist, 2 turnovers an "amazing" performance? Have we gotten that far away from good basketball that we applaud that? I can think of one time last night he shot from about 8 feet beyond the arc w/ 10 seconds on the shot clock. I remember a break away where he dished for an easy assist, and then at least 2 other opportunities where he refused to pass to the wide open teammate on the break. Rollo says he attacks the basket, and that may be true, but he then forces up bad shots when he gets inside, when he could easily dish it back outside to open teammates. Martin is a good ballplayer. He is a prolific scorer, to be sure. But, he's also the exact type of player I despise...puts up big stats, but doesn't make his teammates better players.

* Agree with Rollo on the free throws. We really need our best players to start making free throws in key situations. Miller especially. Late in the game we were actually saying that maybe they should bring Dusan in for Nate...at least Dusan can make free throws to cement a lead.

* Moten played an outstanding game. Looking at his stats on the season I keep thinking to myself, "his stats are good, but I don't remember him playing that well at home." Well, he finally had a big night at home. This is a guy who has a pretty decent shooting percentage on the year...I'd like to see him get some more shots.

* Still no signs of Polk in the entire second half, despite a pretty good performance in the first half. No signs of Polk & Marschall on the court at the same time either. Polk is a pretty solid post defender; Marschall is not. Marschall is an offensive threat; thus far Polk is not. They play 2 different positions. Can anyone please explain the logic of never having our 2 best frontcourt players on the court at the same time!?


All in all I was happy to get a win. This team needed a win, and they got one; and they finally held a lead late against a team that kept cutting it to 5 or 6. This was a good step in the right direction for the team. Still, I cannot help but say that we did not play nearly well enough last night to beat any of the decent teams in the MAC. Learning how to win is a good thing, but I hope the team looks at last night's game and still sees a lot of room for improvement, because if they rest on their laurels based on last night's play that win will have meant nothing. We must continue to get better.

What I saw last night was DD actually coaching. He left Bland, Sims, and Larson on the bench and let the better players play. Moten was a beast. Now can he put two games together? I hope so. Clements did not look good. A lot of our big men’s fouls are because of his “matador” defense. He seems to get beat a lot to where our big men need to step over to cover and get called for the fouls.
Guerin needs to get more minutes. He seems to be not only our spark but our stabilizing force. I would also like to see him shoot more
Dusan….I know this has been discussed before but why is he even in a game. The only time he should see the floor is if the other team needs to foul. He is shooting well from the foul line but that’s it. He is shooting 22% from the floor and 18% from 3 point, 3 assists with 3 TO.

I know people will instantly disagree, but I think the player of the game last night was Lefeld. We played good defense last night (even though Ball State is just God awful) and Lefeld was a big part of that. The only shots they got was dishing to the outside, but even then, we were doing a great job of getting out (and they were really tentative at shooting the long ball which your not gonna find in the top tier teams). I thought Lefeld was a force in the middle last night and it was great to see. He shut down their inside game. This team has a long way to go but this is a step in the right direction. I too don't think Samarco had that great of a game. Moten and Lefeld were the reason we won last night. Now the forum is open for you to disagree.

Given that this team finally won a game, I don't understand why people feel the need to post negative comments, even if those observation are 100% dead-on accurate, especially when there will be plenty of opportunities to make these same statements given the games we have left.

San Diego Falcon wrote:Given that this team finally won a game, I don't understand why people feel the need to post negative comments, even if those observation are 100% dead-on accurate, especially when there will be plenty of opportunities to make these same statements given the games we have left.

It's just a discussion. Just because we won, things were not perfect. When we were losing we were still doing some things right, just the same.

kollege stewdent wrote:He left Bland, Sims, and Larson on the bench and let the better players play.

It was only the third time all year that as many as 3 players did not get any minutes.

kollege stewdent wrote:Moten was a beast. Now can he put two games together? I hope so.

Over the previous six games (which were all losses), Moten averaged 6 minutes a game. Last night he got 31. This tell me he will probably start at UT, play 5 minutes, not see the floor again.

kollege stewdent wrote:Dusan….I know this has been discussed before but why is he even in a game.

In case any one missed it, Dusan started last night (our 19th differenent starting line-up ), but he got only 7 minutes. That the second fewest minutes he has played all year.

hammb wrote:


* Still no signs of Polk in the entire second half, despite a pretty good performance in the first half. No signs of Polk & Marschall on the court at the same time either. Polk is a pretty solid post defender; Marschall is not. Marschall is an offensive threat; thus far Polk is not. They play 2 different positions. Can anyone please explain the logic of never having our 2 best frontcourt players on the court at the same time!?


.

I don't get it either Hammb. A lineup of Hamblet, Samarco, Miller, Marschall and then Polk just makes sense. I was surprised to see Lefeld get as many minutes this game as he has been virtual "ghost" as far as his impact on any games this year. I don't get DD's infatuation with Dusan either. He's B- game with 2 3's a game or two ago but thats it, he's slow and shoots slow , he's just a liability in so many ways.

falconboy wrote:I was surprised to see Lefeld get as many minutes this game as he has been virtual "ghost" as far as his impact on any games this year.

When he scored last night, Todd pointed out that that was Matt's first field goal in a MAC game this year.