Any idea how we are going to be? If feel like we have been stuck in "bad to mediocre play" for 10+ years.

Really needs a lot of work on offense. Same thing we've talked about the entire year.

Starting well and having a good season is always nice...

But it is always, always, always about how you finish.

I want to see this team in the NCAA tournament again, winning a conference championship again.....It's been too long.

Definitely exceeded. Very happy they are doing so well. What a thumping they gave Western!

Shayne_Pickering said:

You expected them to go 25-6? For that to happen they have to finish 12-1…

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25 total wins this season including postseason.

ewglenn said:

I would say slightly exceeding my expectations. We all knew this was a must win season for Nick. He went all in on just this year and it is paying off. I still think he needs to win the league tournament and get a bid to the NCAAs for me to be good with him. So far so good but I’m not overly shocked. I said early on I was expecting 25 wins this year.

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You expected them to go 25-6? For that to happen they have to finish 12-1…

They have absolutely exceeded my expectations as I had zero going into this season.

This is from the wku board, I enjoy reading the poster's breakdown:


PACE 70. As noted many times, "normal pace" won't serve us well. We aren't built for it...and injuries are forcing us into it.

EFFICIENCY

WKU 81

MTSU 101

Sigh. I feel like injuries are robbing our guys, team, and fans this season. Lost Moore. We adapted and climbed the rankings anyway with early play. Then, we lost Faye. We became a team that REALLY needed to make shots to win. Now, Thedford as well? At some point you cannot continue to absorb and hold it together physically, mentally, emotionally. Thedford's injury looked awful. Recent news gives some hope it was not as bad as it first looked, but we cannot pretend this won't take some time. Painful, on several levels.

But, while I don't have millions of words to spill, we STILL played good D on balance (particularly until Thedford went down). MTSU puts up 108 EFF on the season and we held them to 101 on their home court even with their post-Thedford-injury offensive explosion. While MT shot well, they didn't dominate the glass (a 28%-21% O-reb advantage for them), WKU won turnovers with a +2 margin win, and free throws were pretty close on the road (only +2 makes for MT). That's not a bad mix on the road.

The reason this got out of hand from a stat POV is we REALLY struggle with the Ol' Ball in Hoop. The Tops managed just 42% on 2s and shot 5-25 from deep (20%). That's not going to beat anyone no matter how good our D is. Honestly, our 1H D was as good a half we've had all season statistically: MT managed just 82 EFF in the 1H on their home court and they have one of the better offenses in CUSA (#4).

Bright spots? If we cannot push Plona Pace, we'll need something from the Bigs. Odiahi/Keita combined for 42 mins, 6 pts, 12 rebs, only 1 TO. Not bad. The game was getting out of hand, but Don rolled up 16 in the 2H. Before going down, Thedford stacked up 10 pts in 9 mins.

IDENTITY STATS

1. PACE. Loss. And it's becoming about number and types of bodies we have to put on the floor now. It'll be harder to fix this.

2. THREES. Loss. Pretty disastrous one.

3. FREE THROWS. Loss. -8 takes is bad, but only -2 makes. That's close enough on the road so a pretty narrow loss.

I haven't the time nor the energy to dissect this team's soul when they are in a battle with The Whims of Serious Injury. Faye and Thedford were seriously injured on what looked like pretty normal basketball plays. There's nothing to blame, really. "Every team deals with injuries." True. Every team does not lose one starter preseason, another 1/3 of the through (Faye was probably our MVP), and a key cog/most dynamic FR in years 1/2 way through. So, whatever people think about Plona or this team, if anyone rolls out the "every team deals with injuries" as a pretext for criticizing this team, you should ignore them. At this point, they are either ignorant, lazy, or aren't making an honest argument. Hopefully no one will, but some people... This injury string is cruel and unusual. It does happen to a handful of 363 teams every season, but we're on the extreme end of The Breaks of Injury here in 2025. It sucks, but that's what we're experiencing.

So, contextualize critiques and rally behind this team. Expectations have to be adjusted. Hate it--it's reality. But, it's a beautiful, satisfying thing to free yourself from performance expectations and root for the sheer will to keep playing hard and bonding through adversity by going through some crap life deals you. Here's to healing.

https://247sports.com/college/western-kentucky/board/104580/contents/wku-at-mtsu-efficiency-breakdown-244397174/?page=1

I would say slightly exceeding my expectations. We all knew this was a must win season for Nick. He went all in on just this year and it is paying off. I still think he needs to win the league tournament and get a bid to the NCAAs for me to be good with him. So far so good but I’m not overly shocked. I said early on I was expecting 25 wins this year.

MTOleBlue said:

A fair amount of students were there not even in the seats for a portion of the game. I think that helped the numbers too which was nice to see. The fact that they sold General Admission tickets but didn't even open the bleachers goes to show it was definitely a "let's buy some extra tickets and boost that number" situation. But hey, every school does it.

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Too be fair, there were lines for the parking, box office, bathrooms, and concessions. I’ve never seen it like that. By far the most people I’ve seen there. 6500 is a bit high but it was a lot.

The team, so far has exceeded my expectations. I'm stil not sure if Mcdevitt is the answer long term though. We will see how the rest of the season goes.

Good win last night. The team kept grinding through their first half offensive woes and turned it on the second half. I never felt like we were in trouble of losing the game. It was just gonna be a matter of time before our shots started falling. Wish it would have started a little earlier to get the crowd into the game a bit sooner, but it what it is. Also, officiating was really poor last night. A few horrendous calls made.

Agreed. Definitely exceeded expectations. Believe there's a unique quality that's brought this team together. Appears that all of the new players outside of Mustafa came from losing programs, but each of these new players were also some of if not the best players from their respective teams.
So just about everyone had good skills, but it just never worked out for them. We can also say that's a similar situation for the remaining MT players who decided to come back this year.
Basically these are all fairly skilled players who have decided as a new team they're sick & tired of losing. Putting all those factors together is making for a pretty dangerous team.

SpaceRaider said:

They have exceeded my expectations, they are fun to watch, they have over performed in most cases and where they haven't, they've improved. Counter and Mustafa have been great additions, and they seem to be great teammates. This team may be one of my favorites to watch in the last two or three decades, I think they can be really special. They have pretty good depth, and the guys coming off the bench seem to complement the starters, which could be of importance in a conference tourney. Kudos to Nick and his staff for keeping enough of the players from last year and adding the new guys.

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I don't think you will find any REAL fan that will honestly say they are below expectations. I think the team has the makeup to make some noise in March

They have exceeded my expectations, they are fun to watch, they have over performed in most cases and where they haven't, they've improved. Counter and Mustafa have been great additions, and they seem to be great teammates. This team may be one of my favorites to watch in the last two or three decades, I think they can be really special. They have pretty good depth, and the guys coming off the bench seem to complement the starters, which could be of importance in a conference tourney. Kudos to Nick and his staff for keeping enough of the players from last year and adding the new guys.

I'm not a basketball guy, and I live hundreds of miles away - so my only knowledge of how were doing is hopping on here.

But, considering the prevailing sentiment was to punt McDevitt to the moon last year, we seem to be doing well.

And no matter what sport it is, whether I pay attention or not, a win over WKU will never not be enjoyable

MTFAN61 said:

Side note: Maybe my vision is going bad, but I just checked the latest ESPN BRACKETOLOGY dated from 01/17. I reviewed it 5 times, & I didn't see a single team from CUSA listed in the brackets. Appreciate if someone would verify behind me.

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New Mexico St 14 seed.

MTFAN61 said:

Side note: Maybe my vision is going bad, but I just checked the latest ESPN BRACKETOLOGY dated from 01/17. I reviewed it 5 times, & I didn't see a single team from CUSA listed in the brackets. Appreciate if someone would verify behind me.

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New Mexico State is listed as #14 seed in first region. They’re the auto from CUSA listed