Ball State has been the devil to Ohio University in 25-26. Prevented us from back to back MAC football championships, and handed us our worst loss of the season that sent us in a tailspin. We need to exercise some demons tomorrow and destroy these guys. If we get another loss to Ball State while being heavily favored...we will be handed the title of official bitch of Ball State University.

It's amazing we're at this position, and I don't disagree. We're stuck in quicksand and theres nothing to pull us out.

5 games left... 13-13

BALLS - This a bad team. We already lost to them once. SHOULD be an easy W. Likely won't be easy, but should still be a W. If it's not...
@ NIU - 8-16, 3rd worst team in the MAC. MUST WIN.
Toledo - At least we're at home, but Toledo is almost always a loss.
@ UMASS - 6-4 in the last 10. They're about like we are... some decent wins. Some bad losses. Up and down all year. Need to win.
Miami - Would love to be their only loss.

Over .500 - I think his job is safe.
If we go on a slide and finish 14-17 - He's going to have to hope he's built enough goodwill in the front office to stay, he's still never had a below .500 season - this would be his first - I think he's safe, but next year he's on the hottest seat he's ever been on next season.

Feels insane we're at this point, but I don't like what I see. As much as I like Boals. As much as I think he's right for the job. I don't like what I see. And I don't like that I don't see any real changes. I think the fear of falling below .500 has kept him from making any needed shake-ups, and that's not a good place to coach from. And we're about to fall below .500 anyway.

We beat Balls at home.
We win a tight one on the road at NIU.

I don't see another W on the schedule after that.

That would make us 15-17. I predicted 14-18 to start the year. About right.

+1,000,000

The one thing I will disagree with here...I find it highly unlikely Ohio fires Boals. Barring a situation like there seems to have been with Brian Smith where the university can fire with cause and not owe money, I just don't see it happening. The university is not going to want to pay Boals to go away and simultaneously pay a new coach.

next year we will likely time travel back to 1998. maybe we,ll win fewer than 5 games.

My gut says there's a 95%+ chance Boals is back next year. We're not going to buy out an alumni with his history in the program, its just not going to happen. The only scenario is if we just drop the rest of these games and maybe a brawl breaks out.

We just had this same thing happen with Saul Phillips and the lame duck year was dreadful. If you're a serious donor to this program and you're not tied to Boals personally, I don't see how you would want to live with that situation. We most likely don't have a big money donor to go in and pay a portion of the buyout, or even a group of donors to do so (aka passing the hat). He probably "should" be let go, but I don't know if it's financially possible.

Sheldon should have been shooting foul shots 1 foot behind the foul line his entire career. Perfect on 3 attempts tonight with new strategy.

And... does anything good ever come from throwing the ball down low to Breath?

We're heading into late February and this team still doesn't have an identity and looks sloppy against low level competition.

I'm confident they'll win tonight but it's hard to watch this group. Very little development throughout their roster as the season has advanced.

This is some horrible basketball

I'm going to keep saying this until everyone hates me on this board.

Fire Jeff Boals!

It's not about his W/L record anymore. It's about his ability to navigate the current landscape of college basketball and the program regressing a ton in recent years. This season has a chance to be one of our worst final KenPom rankings of the past 25 years.

And tonight doesn't make one difference in my opinion. Ohio should dominate weak opponents like Ball State at home.