BASKETBALL Middle Tennessee (22-8, 13-4 C-USA)@ Old Dominion (12-18 7-10, 1 PM, Saturday, March 5, 2022

[SpaceRaider]

Regular season wraps up with road swing to Charlotte, Old Dominion - Middle Tennessee State University Athletics

MURFREESBORO, Tenn. – Middle Tennessee (22-7, 13-3 Conference USA) ends its regular season this week with games at Charlotte (15-13, 8-8) on Wednesday and at Old

goblueraiders.com

 

[SpaceRaider]

 

[SpaceRaider]

 

[JohnDavidBlue]

Word on Jefferson? He is needed for any chance at the tourney.

 

[SpaceRaider]

 

[MIDTENN05]

Line is -2 for odu. Mt already clinched double bye but I still think they want the momentum going into the tournament. If I was Wiley I would but 20 large on mt on the money line. Easy money.

 

[ewglenn]

looks like this one will be hard to win

 

[crposton]

Word on Jefferson? He is needed for any chance at the tourney.

Guess CNM said he could play if it was “for all the marbles”

 

[dukewayne]

I'm down with sitting Jefferson to heal an injury.

Dang, you still have to at least split on the road to keep mo heading into the tournament. Now they've gone from East Champs with all the mo and many talking of liking to see lose one due to long win streak to now a 2 game losing streak with no mo heading into the conf tournament. Not cool man.

 

[FranklinRaider315]

Line is -2 for odu. Mt already clinched double bye but I still think they want the momentum going into the tournament. If I was Wiley I would but 20 large on mt on the money line. Easy money.

Ouch.

 

[MIDTENN05]

Good thing you can’t gamble where I live, figured it was a sure thing. Oh well!

 

[kingaling42]

UTEP about to end NTs win streak as well.. 3rd and most important part of the season now begins.. nothing else really matters

 

[sWiley]

Concerning. No momentum headed into the tournament. No chance for at-large bids for NIT/NCAA now (NCAA was probably never in the picture, but NIT was).

It's CUSA tournament or bust now. Our first game will be very important to establish momentum for the tournament. The unthinkable would be losing to the 4/5 seed that we end up facing.

 

[TrueBlue147]

We could easily lose to a 4/5 seed. Dropping those two games was a big momentum killer. I knew we would lose but didn't think both. It seems like we lost a bit of that "killer instinct" when we're crowned Eastern Champions. Of course, it didn't help we didn't have Jefferson those two games. Hopefully things come together where we can win atleast one game. I don't see us getting past UAB.

 

[Brew_Raider]

Concerning. No momentum headed into the tournament. No chance for at-large bids for NIT/NCAA now (NCAA was probably never in the picture, but NIT was).

It's CUSA tournament or bust now. Our first game will be very important to establish momentum for the tournament. The unthinkable would be losing to the 4/5 seed that we end up facing.

You’re right.

If we beat ODU and Charlotte, we are probably a lock for the NIT if we make it to the conference tourney semi or finals. Now we have to win the tourney for the NCAA or we are going to CIT/CBI.

 

[dukewayne]

Now that I've had a little while to chew on things from a more calm perspective, I tend to think this is CNM's strategy. I didn't listen to the post game or anything; it's just my speculation.

To be clear, I'm not saying CNM set out to lose both road games. I am speculating that CNM's top goal was to take as healthy and rested team as possible into the C-USA tourney after securing 1E.

For instance that last MT possession while down 2, MT did not even take an aggressive move towards the basket. It seemed that CNM was cool with winning or losing in regulation based on a final 3pt shot. Despite ODU big foul trouble with an already short bench that would heavily favor MT in OT, it seemed CNM opted to finish the game in regulation. At least that is my guess.

Whatever the case, he appears to me to have placed top priority to health and a rested team over momentum heading into the tourney. Personally I think that is a risky proposition, but he clearly knows his team way better than I. This upcoming week will tell if he chose wisely. Perhaps he is confident the players will be able to turn the confidence and energy on despite losing the last two. I'm not saying he is wrong. I guess I'm saying that it is a little risky. In CNM's defense, arguably the best strength of this team for a tournament run is it's depth. Maximizing that strength with a fresh and healthy team as possible just might be a brilliant move. Again, I guess we'll find out this week.

 

[dukewayne]

Speaking of the various postseason tournaments, some improvements need to be made. Of course the P5 which drives the bus are likely pretty happy with things the way they are. I'm not expecting much change.

Not that many years ago, there were little more than 300 D1 schools which was still a lot. Now it's up to what? 360 I think, yet the tournament is still fundamentally a 64 team tournament. For the P5 if you are a little over 500, you still have a good shot to get in. Now if you're in a D1 mid-major conference of 14, it's highly likely only one is going to make the tourney. That begs the question, are conference tournaments really the best way to decide the auto-bid? Is it best at least for all non-P5 conferences?

There is much room for improvement to postseason play in the NCAA.

 

[JohnDavidBlue]

The entry for G5 schools in anything is horseshit.

 

[JohnDavidBlue]

I’m calling UAB to win the entire thing. Really disappointing final two games out of our guys.
I’m sure they know it too. As a G5, if you aren’t first, you’re last.

 

[crposton]

I don’t think this team needs to win these last two games for momentum. They know who they are and these games did not matter.

 

[SpaceRaider]