BASKETBALL Middle Tennessee (12-17, 6-8) vs Liberty (17-12, 6-8), 6PM, Tuesday, March 5, 2024

[SpaceRaider]

LIBERTY UNIVERSITY

Location: Lynchburg, VA
Enrollment: 15,000
Arena: Liberty Arena (4,000)
Website: libertyflames.com Twitter: @LibertyMBB
Colors: Red & Navy Blue Nickname: Flames
Head Coach: Ritchie McKay
Record at School: 226-113 (11th Season) Career Record: 367-242 (22nd Season)
2022-23 Record: 27-9, 15-3 22-23 Finish: 2nd ASUN 22-23 Postseason: NIT Second Round
Starters R/L: 3/2
Letterwinners R/L: 10/5
Roster: Flames

ESPN+
Classic Hits 93.3 - 95.1 - WGNS 101.9 FM/1450 AM/100.5FM

• LIVE STATS
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• MT GAME NOTES
• LIBERTY GAME NOTES

 

[SpaceRaider]

17.6%

 

[SpaceRaider]

Blue Raiders host Liberty in final home game of 2023-24 - Middle Tennessee State University Athletics

Tuesday, March 5 | 6:00 p.m. | Murphy Center | Murfreesboro, TN MIDDLE TENNESSEE BLUE RAIDERS 12-17, 6-8 CUSA vs. LIBERTY FLAMES 17-12,

goblueraiders.com

 

[SpaceRaider]

MBB Game Day: Middle Tennessee - Liberty University

Game Day Coverage Liberty at Middle Tennessee (Murphy Center in Murfreesboro, Tenn.) Tipoff: Tuesday at 7 p.m. ET/6 p.m. CT TV: ESPN+ ...

libertyflames.com

Liberty vs. Middle Tennessee (Mar 5, 2024) Pregame - ESPN

Pregame analysis and predictions of the Liberty Flames vs. Middle Tennessee Blue Raiders NCAAM game to be played on March 5, 2024 on ESPN.

www.espn.com

 

[SpaceRaider]

17.6%

Line: LIB -5.5
Over/Under: 136.5

 

[SpaceRaider]

 

[SpaceRaider]

Halftime

MT 33
LU 30


Team Comparison

STATISTIC	LU	MT
FG%	60%	33%
FGs	12-20	10-30
3FG%	40%	46%
3FGs	4-10	6-13
FT%	50%	88%
FTs	2-4	7-8
TOs	13	5
PtsOffTO	4	14
TotReb	16	14
DefReb	15	8
Off Reb	1	6
2ndChPts	0	7
BenchPts	4	3
PtsPaint	16	6
FstBkPt	0	9
Blocks	3	0
Steals	2	6
Assts	4	7
Times Tied:	5
Lead Chg:	4
LeadTime	10:13	5:54

 

[SpaceRaider]

FINAL MT Wins

69-61

 

[SpaceRaider]

only conference game tonight, who had MT in fourth place in early March?

2023-24 Conference USA Standings​

TEAM	CONF	GB	OVR
Louisiana Tech	11-3	-	21-8
Sam Houston	11-3	-	18-11
Western Kentucky	8-7	3.5	19-10
Middle Tennessee	7-8	4.5	13-17
Liberty	6-9	5.5	17-13
UTEP	6-9	5.5	15-15
Jacksonville State	6-9	5.5	14-16
New Mexico State	6-9	5.5	12-18
Florida International	5-9	6	10-19

 

[FranklinRaider315]

Give him 8 years!

 

[blue rai]

Solid effort tonight. Great to see Jalen Jordan go out with a Great Game! Hope we can get at least a 6th seed in the tournament, This will at give us a shot at the finals. After the top 2 teams in this league everybody else is pretty even.

 

[SpaceRaider]

 

[SpaceRaider]

Blue Raiders put out Flames, 69-61 - Middle Tennessee State University Athletics

MURFREESBORO, Tenn. — Jalen Jordan keyed an 18-3 Middle Tennessee run that distanced his team from Liberty in a 69-61 win on Tuesday at the Murphy Center. The redshirt

goblueraiders.com

 

[crposton]

only conference game tonight, who had MT in fourth place in early March?

2023-24 Conference USA Standings​

TEAM	CONF	GB	OVR
Louisiana Tech	11-3	-	21-8
Sam Houston	11-3	-	18-11
Western Kentucky	8-7	3.5	19-10
Middle Tennessee	7-8	4.5	13-17
Liberty	6-9	5.5	17-13
UTEP	6-9	5.5	15-15
Jacksonville State	6-9	5.5	14-16
New Mexico State	6-9	5.5	12-18
Florida International	5-9	6	10-19

If the fans show up and make tourney games “home” games we have aa chance to make some noise.

 

[JohnDavidBlue]

I have enjoyed attending the tourney live. I never went to a game at Frisco but going down to Birmingham is not the worst trip to watch good tourney basketball.

I don't think we are going to make a lot of noise but I would love to be surprised.

 

[blueraider315]

My parents live just north of Huntsville and my mom works part time at the VBC as a bartender. Looking forward to this conference championship.

Last night was good. i thought a few times they may give up, but they never do. Interesting end to the game as well. Liberty didn't go into fouling, and then we just held the ball to get a turnover and they just inbounded it and closed out the game.

 

[sWiley]

Didn't watch but when you look at the box score, that is winning basketball.

13-14 from FT line (93%)

9 turnovers to 12 assists

10-23 from 3 (43.5%)

Won rebounds 32-31

I'm surprised we didn't win by more. It's a shame this team plays so much differently on the road.

 

[SpaceRaider]

 

[SpaceRaider]

 

[SpaceRaider]

 

[Noogaraider1]

100% Blue Raider Basketball to play its best towards the end of the season. I guess thats better than the flipside of that. La Tech likely to be a harder out.

 

[sWiley]

100% Blue Raider Basketball to play its best towards the end of the season. I guess thats better than the flipside of that. La Tech likely to be a harder out.

Indeed. So frustrating though to go back and look at some of these OOC performances earlier in the season. Some terrible losses to some terrible teams like UIC, Wofford (dog shit conference, bullied us on our home floor), Southern Utah, Murray State.

If you take away the D2 scrimmages we are still just 11-17 vs. D1 competition. They've won just one true road game all season.....insane. And we havn't played a single Power 5 school. Every game should have been a winnable contest except maybe the trip to St. Mary's....

The team is admittedly playing better now (at home) but still hasn't been a good season overall and I'm highly suspect of any meaningful results in the conference tournament.

Unless we somehow win the tournament and make the NCAA's, we still need to move on from McDevitt. This isn't anywhere close to good enough for a coach that's been here 6 years. I'd like to think we have some standards....

 

[Brew_Raider]

. I'd like to think we have some standards....

Standards and Chris Massaro do not go together.

I will be truly shocked if Massaro pulled the trigger this year. It would surprise me more than Stockstill.

 

[JohnDavidBlue]

Not sure why they think they can get 100 percent buy in when management of the basketball program is so bad.

New direction.

 

[MidTennMtneer]

....Unless we somehow win the tournament and make the NCAA's, we still need to move on from McDevitt. This isn't anywhere close to good enough for a coach that's been here 6 years. I'd like to think we have some standards....

Let's assume we lose to LaT (it is away). We most likely would have to play them again if we get a 4/5 or 8/9 seed. There is a scenario we get the 3, but unlikely. We are playing better but so are they, and they were better to begin with.

I personally don't see us winning it all and see McD finishing with a losing record for 4 of 6 years. IDK how if they keep him they have any kind of standards at all.

Heck, depending on Sat and if we have to play the 8/9 game, even if we won the tourney he could still have a losing record on the season.

 

[ewglenn]

Chris has said multiple times that he goes off conference records. We’re 7-8 there. I’m hoping to go ahead and lose out so hopefully they make a change.

 

[MT01]

Chris has said multiple times that he goes off conference records. We’re 7-8 there. I’m hoping to go ahead and lose out so hopefully they make a change.

There is no way an AD is going to look at one season and make a determination on all of that. Massaro will make a decision based upon the totality of the circumstances. If he does that that there is absolutely no way Massaro could bring him back for another year. If he does do so then a) it would defy any logic to retain when weighing the totality (which is not a good luck for CM) and b) any good will he conjured up by finally ridding us of Stockstill will evaporate quickly.

You all know my position on this situation for sometime. Frankly, he shouldn't have been the coach this year. And when you're picked to win your very bad league but can't get to . 500, have as weak of a non-conference schedule as we did but still can't get to .500, and come into the season with what a 30-40% win pct, this is more of a no brainer than firing Stockstill.

 

[SpaceRaider]

McDevitt interview at about the hour and a half mark of the Main Street Sports podcast

 

[Brew_Raider]

There is no way an AD is going to look at one season and make a determination on all of that. Massaro will make a decision based upon the totality of the circumstances. If he does that that there is absolutely no way Massaro could bring him back for another year. If he does do so then a) it would defy any logic to retain when weighing the totality (which is not a good luck for CM) and b) any good will he conjured up by finally ridding us of Stockstill will evaporate quickly.

You all know my position on this situation for sometime. Frankly, he shouldn't have been the coach this year. And when you're picked to win your very bad league but can't get to . 500, have as weak of a non-conference schedule as we did but still can't get to .500, and come into the season with what a 30-40% win pct, this is more of a no brainer than firing Stockstill.

I expect CM to justify keeping CNM based on going 7-9 this year after losing Cam and then look at the winning conference record over the past 3 seasons combined while ignoring the first 3 years in CNM’s tenure.

Not that I disagree with you at all. I think CNM should have been fired after year 3.

I just never expect Chris to do what seems like the obvious choice.

 

[MTLynn]

Since Massaro wasn't the one who made the call to hire McDevitt, I doubt he has the authority to fire him.

 

[MT01]

I expect CM to justify keeping CNM based on going 7-9 this year after losing Cam and then look at the winning conference record over the past 3 seasons combined while ignoring the first 3 years in CNM’s tenure.

Not that I disagree with you at all. I think CNM should have been fired after year 3.

I just never expect Chris to do what seems like the obvious choice.

I think your math might be a little off. He’s only had two 500+ conference records. And one of the two was barely so at one game (11–9). He’s had one surprise good season out of six. The rest have been mostly atrocious. Pretty easy to project a loss to Tech so that will put him at 46-60 in league play over six years. There is no way to sugar coat this. He’s had way more than enough time. No coach should be given this many years with that kind of performance - EVER.

For comparison sake Randy Weil was significantly better overall (84-90) and that was a terrible tenure. I know a good number here see it and know he should be gone but there are some others who think more time is deserved. This fan base gets conditioned to losing and seems to just lie down and accept it.

 

[Brew_Raider]

I think your math might be a little off. He’s only had two 500+ conference records. And one of the two was barely so at one game (11–9). He’s had one surprise good season out of six. The rest have been mostly atrocious. Pretty easy to project a loss to Tech so that will put him at 46-60 in league play over six years. There is no way to sugar coat this. He’s had way more than enough time. No coach should be given this many years with that kind of performance - EVER.

I am not arguing with you that Nick McDevitt should be gone. He should have been fired after 2020-2021. I am saying I don’t think Massaro will fired him.

I believe Chris will make an excuse like this: he will say Nick has an overall winning conference record over the past 3 years (31-22 with one game left) and will excuse this year’s 7-9 or 8-8 due to injuries.

It comes across like you are arguing with me when we agree: Nick McDevitt should not be our coach. I am just predicting the weak excuses I expect CM to use to justify not firing McDevitt this year.

 

[MT01]

I am not arguing with you that Nick McDevitt should be gone. He should have been fired after 2020-2021. I am saying I don’t think Massaro will fired him.

I believe Chris will make an excuse like this: he will say Nick has an overall winning conference record over the past 3 years (31-22 with one game left) and will excuse this year’s 7-9 or 8-8 due to injuries.

It comes across like you are arguing with me when we agree: Nick McDevitt should not be our coach. I am just predicting the weak excuses I expect CM to use to justify not firing McDevitt this year.

Fair enough. Thought you were saying he had three seasons with a winning record in conference. If he does what you think he will then my other two prior comments apply. Lacks no rationality for an AD to keep a coach with this kind of performance over six years AND it would unwind any good will created over Stockstill/Mason.