Definitely something to work on. Wouldn't have salvaged the game for us given all our TOs and open 3s given up, but would've made it a lot closer...

Solid! Hope they keep winning.

Grand Canyon just picked up the 70-59 W over Arizona St. They had a nice 15-5 4th quarter to secure the win. I think this will prove to be a solid win for the Lady Raiders as the season goes on. Their next games are @ #25 Oregon 11/18 and vs Liberty (11/27); should be some ones to keep an eye on.

MTFAN61 said:

I agree. In fact CRI has won on average close to 25 games annually for close to the last 20 years. Which brings up a question I have trouble answering.
I just turned over to watch a Grand Canyon women's game live on ESPN+. They have tremendous student body support, very enthusiastic. Which is fantastic for a fellow G5.
MT has excellent fan support, but if it wasn't for our band I doubt we have 25 student fans in the stands. Wish our school could tap into what's going on with the students at GCU. If we did we would average over 6,000/game.

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Definitely seems to be more common for teams on the west coast bc there are a bunch of G5's that get alot of student support

MidTennFootball said:

Big reason for that is MT resides in a state that produces WBB talent by the truckload. Insell could win 20-25 games every year just by recruiting Tennessee and pretty much did early on. That's a big advantage to have

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I agree. In fact CRI has won on average close to 25 games annually for close to the last 20 years. Which brings up a question I have trouble answering.
I just turned over to watch a Grand Canyon women's game live on ESPN+. They have tremendous student body support, very enthusiastic. Which is fantastic for a fellow G5.
MT has excellent fan support, but if it wasn't for our band I doubt we have 25 student fans in the stands. Wish our school could tap into what's going on with the students at GCU. If we did we would average over 6,000/game.

Looking at box score. 4-13 from free throw line for Blakely & Boldyreva combined?? 15-28 from the charity stripe for the whole team?? Good grief.
Weren't we close to a 75% free throw shooting team recently?
We have very correctable things that are hurting us, & have to be addressed.
BTW- The men just went 20-23 from the line yesterday. Maybe there's some folks around here who should take a hint.

I thought we played well offensively. Defense left a lot to be desired. Not much pressure on the Evansville shots. Thankfully they simply stopped falling in the second half. Transition defense was pathetic and you better believe future opponents will be looking to exploit it. We will have to shore up our defense big time, especially when we go on the road. We really won this game because of rebounding (47 vs 29) and just crushing them in the paint. Evansville had no answers but we won't be able to do that against the better teams we face.

I really like Mustafa. It's been so long since we had a guy with size who could play like that. Makes me think all the way back to JaCorey Williams, though he's obviously not THAT good. I know we had Dishman, but he was so undersized. Mustafa has the moves and the size which will give us favorable match-up's at the 5 in the majority of the games we play. He's really making Loofe like a bust. Hate to say it because I love his size but he just doesn't have those quick twitch fibers and athletic instincts around the rim. Too stiff and predictable.

We don't seem to be chronically turning the ball over like we had been in recent years but it's still bad. 16 turnovers to 9 assists is still objectively speaking pretty bad. That needs to be closer to a 1:1 ratio. Definitely something to try and improve on.

For this year it looks like we have another athletic team that. This team reminds me quite a bit of our 21-22 team that won 26 games and lost in the CIT finals. And if we are being honest, when you throw a team together in this fashion (Essentially a bunch of seniors/transfer seniors) they better be in the running for a championship run/tournament appearance.

We will learn a lot about this team heading into the rest of our OOC schedule. Every single game is winnable outside of the UTK one and I expect this team to be highly competitive and win most of these games.

They also shot it very well in the first half.

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MT01 said:

So I decided to tune in tonight. Is Evansville a bad basketball team? I don’t know anything about them but I saw the same things I’ve been seeing for six years so I can only surmise that EU is not that good of a team.

Just really sloppy with the ball. Lots of turnovers. But also lots of plays breaking down because of being careless with the ball. Weston still plays nothing but hero ball after all this time. Hell on one shot (I think porter tried to shoot it from directly behind the basket and hit the back side of the glass). Lazy passes. A lot of dribbling and fumbling. Difficulty catching the ball. I thought the big guy was really effective however and something different I haven’t seen from Nicks previous teams. That was the one bright spot I saw even if he did get away with traveling several times.

On defense just a lot of uncontested shots (most of them missed by Evansville) on the perimeter, terrible transition defense, and a lot of free runners unabated to the basket. This is why I thought perhaps this is a terrible team we played because a decent shooting team would have clobbered this MT team tonight.

Same issues just as I expected. Now the real season begins. Expect us to be 3-3 after the next few games after what I watched tonight.

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They were preseason picked 9th in the Missouri Valley. The MVC is usually about as good if not a little better than CUSA in MBB. For reference, incoming Missouri St is predicted to finish 11th in the MVC. We were clearly the better team but they should be an average to slightly below average mid major team by the end of the season.

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At least it’s been more use of the bench earlier as compared to previous years. Or so it seems. And that needs to continue to build as this season goes along.

I'm only miserable when I have to think about Middle Tennessee's athletics.

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MTFAN61 said:

Big take away is not that it's 6 new players, that seems like 2 out of every 3 teams these days. What's different from other schools is there was no portal involved, these are all high caliber freshmen. The Insell's are building for the next 2-3 years down the road. Hopefully we can keep them all. As mentioned before combining these ladies with Davis, Harrison, Monson, & Scott has a good chance to make a pretty darn good team next year as well.

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Big reason for that is MT resides in a state that produces WBB talent by the truckload. Insell could win 20-25 games every year just by recruiting Tennessee and pretty much did early on. That's a big advantage to have

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Big take away is not that it's 6 new players, that seems like 2 out of every 3 teams these days. What's different from other schools is there was no portal involved, these are all high caliber freshmen. The Insell's are building for the next 2-3 years down the road. Hopefully we can keep them all. As mentioned before combining these ladies with Davis, Harrison, Monson, & Scott has a good chance to make a pretty darn good team next year as well.

MTOleBlue said:

Agreed. I think this class has the highest upside we’ve ever seen, overall. Really impressive job by the staff. And the big thing (no pun intended)? The size and quickness. P5 roster being built here.

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No doubt. Not many years you can recruit a entire starting lineup. The more tape I see of McClendon, the more I think she'll probably contribute before Dominguez

With only 2 juniors at this point, '26 class is gonna seem dull by comparison

MidTennFootball said:

Easy to get excited, but even for a staff that recruits as well as MT, it's still a guessing game. That said, I'm really excited about Baugus and Blair. I was convinced a better offer would come along for them but surprisingly never did

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Agreed. I think this class has the highest upside we’ve ever seen, overall. Really impressive job by the staff. And the big thing (no pun intended)? The size and quickness. P5 roster being built here.

Blair Baugus, 6’1” G

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