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Inside of 2 minutes, I told my sister that we'd win by 25. It wasn't size or talent, so much as team chemistry. EIU's lack of offensive cohesiveness was immediately visible. Eastern Ill. actually presented a very decent collection of players (lacking height and depth in the post positions). They hustled, played disciplined basketball, were reasonably athletic, and looked to be well coached. They're in the process of learning to play together and establishing floor leadership. I suspect that this team will improve steadily as the season progresses and compete to win the OVC conf tourney. This was a quality win for BG.

BG continues to play excellent, smart man-to-man defense. We use our bench, so we continually rotate in fresh players at every position. As Larson and Polk accumulated fouls, we were able to pull them off of the floor and keep them available. In the process, we replaced them with guys who were not defensive liabilities. It's been a damned long time since this BG basketball team has been able to do that. Depth on the front line! It still getting used to it.

Chris Knight is officially "back on track". With Knight back in the fold, we present a formidable array of players who can defend, make plays, and score in various ways. Six guys; Jak, Mot, Clem, Marcshall, Miller, and Knight, can score in double figures on any given day. Polk and Larson are effective spot scorers. Brown and Thomas can be effective as freshmen.

Orr did something with Darnell Brown that I really appreciated. Brown was absolutely sucking in the second half. He made stupid turnovers, bad three point attempts, no ball penetration. Instead of immediately yanking and benching him 'til February, Orr actually left him in the game. The coaches barked at him from the sidelines. They made Brown bootstrap himself on the floor and play through a little adversity. That, friends, is EXCELLENT coaching. That is how you grow a young player.

I'll say it again. I expect BG to be the MAC's strongest team going into the MAC tournament.

Any word on Madlock?

Easy big fellow. We just beat a 3-7 Eastern Illinois team. Remember, we're 6-5 with losses to powerhouses like Savannah State and Central Arkansas. Two of our wins are over non-D 1 opponents Wayne State (MI) and Concordia-Minnesota.

Not saying you can't get excited but "strongest team going into the MAC tournament?" I know the MAC's down this year but Kent, Akron and Miami will all be there at the end of the season.

This team promises to break our hearts again unless it can figure out a way to be more consistent on offense. The meltdowns in the second half of games has to stop and we need to start playing well on the road...five of our six wins have come at home.

I am encouraged by Knight's progress the last couple of games, but watching the game tracker today it seems a lot of his points came during garbage time during the last five minutes of the game. I hope he can step it up during league play and give us some quality minutes during crunch time. Otis still has more fouls than points most games. Joe Jack needs to take better care of the ball.

I think we'll be at least five hundred in league play, but not sure we'll be the "best" team heading into the tournament.

BleedOrange wrote:Any word on Madlock?

Madlock is gone. I think we've been near sure of that for a couple weeks now. It's just my opinion, but I don't think the coaching staff had high hopes for Madlock anyway. I think if they did they would've redshirted him last year instead of playing him in garbage time.

We also haven't seen A'uston Calhoun on the sideline the last two games. Does anyone know anything? I know he was sitting this past semester to get his grades in order. I hope he didn't fail out

Rollo83 wrote:Easy big fellow. We just beat a 3-7 Eastern Illinois team. Remember, we're 6-5 with losses to powerhouses like Savannah State and Central Arkansas. Two of our wins are over non-D 1 opponents Wayne State (MI) and Concordia-Minnesota.

Not saying you can't get excited but "strongest team going into the MAC tournament?" I know the MAC's down this year but Kent, Akron and Miami will all be there at the end of the season.

This team promises to break our hearts again unless it can figure out a way to be more consistent on offense. The meltdowns in the second half of games has to stop and we need to start playing well on the road...five of our six wins have come at home.

I am encouraged by Knight's progress the last couple of games, but watching the game tracker today it seems a lot of his points came during garbage time during the last five minutes of the game. I hope he can step it up during league play and give us some quality minutes during crunch time. Otis still has more fouls than points most games. Joe Jack needs to take better care of the ball.

I think we'll be at least five hundred in league play, but not sure we'll be the "best" team heading into the tournament.

No real disagreement, actually. Akron, Kent, and Miami all have the potential to be the best team going into the tourn. as well. We should consider BG among this group. I think that with our depth, we can expect to be better than all of them.

In many MAC seasons, we'd be an "emerging competitor". The overall weakness of the league contributes to my "optimism" that we can finally get a monkey off our back.

Rollo83 wrote:Easy big fellow. We just beat a 3-7 Eastern Illinois team. Remember, we're 6-5 with losses to powerhouses like Savannah State and Central Arkansas. Two of our wins are over non-D 1 opponents Wayne State (MI) and Concordia-Minnesota.

Not saying you can't get excited but "strongest team going into the MAC tournament?" I know the MAC's down this year but Kent, Akron and Miami will all be there at the end of the season.

This team promises to break our hearts again unless it can figure out a way to be more consistent on offense. The meltdowns in the second half of games has to stop and we need to start playing well on the road...five of our six wins have come at home.

I am encouraged by Knight's progress the last couple of games, but watching the game tracker today it seems a lot of his points came during garbage time during the last five minutes of the game. I hope he can step it up during league play and give us some quality minutes during crunch time. Otis still has more fouls than points most games. Joe Jack needs to take better care of the ball.

I think we'll be at least five hundred in league play, but not sure we'll be the "best" team heading into the tournament.

Knight's points came in garbage time? The whole game was garbage time then because we led by a large margin for awhile. Just be excited for the guy he found his groove.