If you're a fan of good basketball, I invite you to watch North Texas' first half against Evansville last Monday. Ross Hodge was a great promotion within to follow McCasland and run a similar system. UNT is going through an annexation of their roster for last year, and looks like a well oiled machine in that film session.

I bring that up because Hodge continues that snail pace offense and put up 80 points against Evansville because of their unselfish style and players hitting their open shots. If last Saturday was any indication of the skill of MTSU's offense, I think they have the ability to put up big numbers tonight. Evansville played man defense the entire time and guarded the ball all the way out to the half-court line. Not sure how much they will do that tonight because the game got out of hand early against UNT. Consistent off-ball movement, "scoring without the basketball" made finding an open man easy when their defense rotates off guard penetration.

Freshman Gabriel Pozzato (#0, 6'7") is an impressive player that could very well be in the MVC Freshman of the Year conversation. Averaging 23 points through his first two games in college, he is a Guard in a Forward's body. A three-level scorer that runs the floor well can be a matchup problem because of his versatility. Evansville plays most of their minutes to their starting 5. EKU Junior transfer Tayshawn Comer (#12, 6'1") is a career 36% 3 point shooter and averaged nearly 8 points per game at EKU has been their biggest scoring threat outside of Pazzato. Junior Guard Cam Haffner (#3, 6'2") is their third leading scorer (10 ppg) with 14 points against Brescia, a career 38% 3 points shooter.

I think this game is pretty straight forward. When Evansville was at their best against UNT, they were knocking down the 3 and 4 of their starting 5 are capable of doing that. MTSU is currently the best team in the country in steal % and Evansville is bottom 100 in the country in turnovers. I don't see a matchup Evansville could exploit (just stop Pazzato), make them find other scoring options. I also like our bench depth in this game. Defend the three and continue being active on defense and this should be an easy Wednesday night at the Murph.

Great to see Gregory getting back in form. One thing that could have helped immensely last night would have been better production from the #4 spot. Almost nightly Whitson was a consistent 10-12 point scorer, & was always a fighter on the boards. Was definitely expecting similar if not better offensive production from Arike, but not only has it not been similar production it's gotten worse. It's been most noticeable against higher quality competition recently. Against GCU she had only 4 points, but she did have a decent rebounding evening. However against Tennessee she didn't score a single point, & only had 3 rebounds all game.
If someone of Whitson's persistence had been in the game against UT we would be looking at a much closer game at the end. Arike is a good role player, & has excellent size. I'm not saying she should be totally benched, but it's time to give Monson more of a shot.
I know coach says if you want time on the court you have to show it in practice. But the few times I've seen Monson on the court she may not be perfect, but she appears to show fine effort. Would really like to see us start swapping her more with Arike. At least give her 10-15 minutes to prove her value. After all, if her production isn't great it still couldn't be any worse than 2 points per game. Which is what we're getting now.
Against Purdue, Iowa St, K-State, & Princeton we have to get more from the 4 spot, & if we don't we can be experiencing similar losses. And this team is too good for that to continue.

Many folks predicted a 25-30 point blowout. It was far from that. This was a competitive game on the road against a tough SEC team. It may hurt our pride some, but as Blue pointed out this gives us a lot to learn from going forward. We still have much to gain this non conference season, & some of our upcoming games will be on all important neutral courts.
Keep your heads up Lady Raiders. You gave great effort, & we as fans are always proud of that!

SpaceRaider said:

Officiating defintely sucks, even utk fans were complaining on twitter about some bad calls on Raiders.

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Officiating was horrible. But we had way too many turnovers and so many open 3s given up. I thought it was a good learning experience and will pay dividends when we face teams like Iowa State and Kansas State.

Also this game should show the WBB community that Anastasiia Boldyreva is a serious, first round caliber WNBA prospect.

UTK with 23 points off 17 Lady Raider TOs, has made all the difference. Especially giving them 6 points right out of halftime on 3 quick turnovers.

Officiating defintely sucks, even utk fans were complaining on twitter about some bad calls on Raiders.

Turnovers and lack of a 3 point shooter. If this keeps up they will blow us out.

Team Comparison

SpaceRaider said:

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8 made three pointers and 6 made 2s. UT is currently living by the 3.

Legs are tired on the defensive end. Losing the rebounding battle currently 23-19. 10 of UT's 23 boards are offensive.

I think we will miss Wheelers scoring when up against good competition.

scjohnny said:

Big recruiting weekend coming up during the bye.

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Will have a handful of official visitors

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FranklinRaider315 said:

Stockstill to Kennesaw?? 😂😂

Norvell is cleaning house.

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That's a win for Middle Tennessee all the way around

AustinLewis said:

I'd tell Willie to RUN.

This is seems like a situation where the school jumped too fast without the resources or leadership to navigate the jump. And then threw HC under the bus. Why waste a what COULD be your only shot to be a FBS HC on program that is underfunded & lacks the resources to compete?

Bohannon's salary was 50% less than MT. They'll need to almost double salary to attract people

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I said that from the beginning that they weren't ready.

MidTennMtneer said:

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Very proud of my fraternity brother!!!!

AustinLewis said:

I'd tell Willie to RUN.

This is seems like a situation where the school jumped too fast without the resources or leadership to navigate the jump. And then threw HC under the bus. Why waste a what COULD be your only shot to be a FBS HC on program that is underfunded & lacks the resources to compete?

Bohannon's salary was 50% less than MT. They'll need to almost double salary to attract people

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They do have a large budget and have a ton of students. I expect they will pay their new coach a lot more. Look for a retread FBS coach to fill this role. Chad Morris is a name I’m watching.

mtfblue said:

I would expect Willie Simmons to be lead dog in the search for a new coach. The AD was the one that hired him at FAMU.

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I'd tell Willie to RUN.

This is seems like a situation where the school jumped too fast without the resources or leadership to navigate the jump. And then threw HC under the bus. Why waste a what COULD be your only shot to be a FBS HC on program that is underfunded & lacks the resources to compete?

Bohannon's salary was 50% less than MT. They'll need to almost double salary to attract people

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One of last year's keys to victory was our 3 point shooting. Especially helpful was Gregory coming out of her slump. Will be a similar situation this year. We're shooting only 24% from beyond the arc right now & I believe Gregory is 0-12 after our 1st two games.
When playing UT last year we hit 12 3-pointers. We don't necessarily need that many tonight, but shooting an improved 35% from 3 & hitting 7 or more from deep will play a big time role tonight.
If we can do that while also boxing out on the boards better, MT should be able to frustrate them. Tennessee is a newly put together team that has yet to feel frustration on the court. I've seen from interviews where players have practically admitted their occasional frustration with Caldwell & vice versa. Hopefully we should be more sound when it comes to maturity level. If we can get Caldwell upset it will bleed over to the team, & that can produce even more turnovers & bad shot selection for Tennessee. All keys to getting a road victory in Knoxville.