Final score: Murray 79 State Bradley 72

[BUBraves2006]

Florida Atlantic lost to Bryant earlier in the season. Was this concerning or did they get back at it and win their next few games?

The reason I call out the freak out, worries, concerns or however people want to frame them is that too many people want to wear their fantasy GM/coach hats and think that this is some kind of video game where these players are robots and can just be expected to do the same thing every game. (Except for Mal, who seems to have 12 / 6 every single night, amazingly)

Even good teams have bad games and that can even happen against bad teams. Maybe I'll be wrong, but Murray State definitely did not look like a "bad" team. Perry and Wood are both good bets to make the all conference team. They present matchup problems to our team that some others in the MVC do not. I was even talking with and overhearing some of their fans and they seemed to really feel like they have been close and could easily be 5-1 but they just didn't close out two of their games well.

It's amazing how with so few data points how people's expectations are so different. What if they don't fold down the stretch and we do in our close games? We might be 3-4 and they could be 5-1 and we'd be saying, whew, they are really a contender in the league and "it's just hard to win on the road". This is why a single game is just that, especially with a bunch of young college kids who were getting their first real exposure to a tough road game. Yes, UAB was challenging but the first conference road game is another level of intensity.

If we get smacked by InSU on Saturday, then we can start having the discussions about what is glaringly wrong. Throw out all the little things and just point to the fact that they made 13 more free throws than we did. If that ratio is closer, we likely win and all these other ?s are sort of irrelevant.

[BUfan14]

Florida Atlantic lost to Bryant earlier in the season. Was this concerning or did they get back at it and win their next few games?

The reason I call out the freak out, worries, concerns or however people want to frame them is that too many people want to wear their fantasy GM/coach hats and think that this is some kind of video game where these players are robots and can just be expected to do the same thing every game. (Except for Mal, who seems to have 12 / 6 every single night, amazingly)

Even good teams have bad games and that can even happen against bad teams. Maybe I'll be wrong, but Murray State definitely did not look like a "bad" team. Perry and Wood are both good bets to make the all conference team. They present matchup problems to our team that some others in the MVC do not. I was even talking with and overhearing some of their fans and they seemed to really feel like they have been close and could easily be 5-1 but they just didn't close out two of their games well.

It's amazing how with so few data points how people's expectations are so different. What if they don't fold down the stretch and we do in our close games? We might be 3-4 and they could be 5-1 and we'd be saying, whew, they are really a contender in the league and "it's just hard to win on the road". This is why a single game is just that, especially with a bunch of young college kids who were getting their first real exposure to a tough road game. Yes, UAB was challenging but the first conference road game is another level of intensity.

If we get smacked by InSU on Saturday, then we can start having the discussions about what is glaringly wrong. Throw out all the little things and just point to the fact that they made 13 more free throws than we did. If that ratio is closer, we likely win and all these other ?s are sort of irrelevant.

Things can be concerning and still be turned around or turn out to be nothing. It doesn’t have to be one or the other. I’m sure for their coach and fan base that loss was concerning at the time. A skin spot can be concerning and turn out to be nothing, but ignoring it as though it’s doesn’t exist isn’t a good idea.

And I agree, the difference between most teams, players, and outcomes comes down to a few little things. But at the end of the day sports are judged on wins and losses. We got some national attention because we were 6-0 and beat some perceived decent teams. 4-2 wouldn’t have got us anything and it’s a razor thin difference. Coaches get paid big money to win games. Fans pay big money to support teams, see games, etc. Players now earn decent money and attention doing these things. Unfortunately for mid-majors, one extra loss here or there can be a big deal because there’s not a lot of margin for error to get in the big dance, which I think we’d all like to do on a fairly regular basis.

I haven’t read every post on here, but I guess maybe I’m not sure what is being defined as freaking out here? Expressing our free throws are bad and frustrating? Expressing our defense was poor in this game? Discussing if having certain players in the game at certain times was the right call? Discussing the root cause of why certain things happened the way they did? These seem like factually true statements or fair discussions to me. I’m sure Brian would say these things are true. I’m sure the players would too.

Of course fans are going to discuss what they think and would do and how we might fix problems. That’s a big part of the draw to major sports is the discourse over our favorite teams. If we can’t talk about or discuss anything but good things without it being deemed freaking out then that’s no fun to me. I want to express what I’m seeing and see what other people think as well.

Of course too much emotion can happen at times when we care about a team and we overreact. I don’t ever boo at games and I think personal attacks at players are not a good thing to do in person or online. But discussing areas of a player’s game and a team’s game are part of being a fandom of a major sport and I don’t think is unfair or an overreaction.

Bradley’s loss was concerning and not great looking right now. They may win a ton of games from here. Murray State may win a ton of games from here. I’m still optimistic Bradley can be very good this year. I see some areas that concern me too that might interrupt that good year. All of these can be true and I think it’s fair to discuss while keeping a fairly civil discourse. I enjoy that.

And as I said previously, the fact that this loss hurts so much shows the bar has been raised for Bradley. Kudos to Brian, staff, and players for that. That’s a good thing I think.

[NashvilleBU]

I was in-person at the game last night…a couple things I noticed on the game.
1. Our FT’s killed us…misses too many front end of 1 and 1’s..if we could have made more FT’s we would have got over the 4-5 point hump and won the game.
2. We got a goose egg from the Freshman today - Demarion and Almar. First tough road game so we know there will be growing pains.
3. Ellis’ shot is broke and can only drive limiting our offense when he’s on the floor. Solid on Defense.
4. Didn’t get enough stops on D. Perry and Wood were a walking bucket. Perry was killing Leon’s with his smooth jumper.

We have never done well at Murray State so I’m not nervous. I think this lose could be a good restart for the conference season.

[bujeff23]

I am very concerned about Duke Deen and have been for a while. He has made 8 of his last 34 shots, he gets blocked if he tries to drive to the hoop, he's a defensive liability with the height difference, and he still is kind of sloppy with the ball (he will make a few nice passes per game). Besides the second half of the Tulane game, he's been brutal. If he's not going to be shooting in the low to mid 40% from the field, I don't see what value he is adding. He's shooting 30% for the season.


Other than that, I think every other returning player has grown. Hannah and Meta look much improved, Hickman needs to trust himself more and I think he should be the main scorer and take more shots. Leons is just so good defensively and solid enough on offense.

If we run the non-conf table I'm not sure what it would take to get an at large bid (15-5, 14-6) etc in the MVC but I'm just trying to enjoy the team this year and we need to be peaking at the conf tourney. It's just so hard as a mid-major that every loss to a lower ranked team is a killer.