Use this thread to talk about anything game-related. For away games, we may have a separate travel thread.

Date: Thursday November 21st, 2024 12:00 PM

Opponent: Middle Tennessee St.  (3-1)

Site: HTC Center

TV/Streaming: ESPNU

Radio: Ohio Radio, The Varsity Network App (free)

MTSU statistics, roster and media guide

MTSU message board: GoMiddle.com

MTSU is 3-1 now.
Lost by 21 to Murray State today.

Per Torvik our stats.

Tempo Adjusted Offensive Efficiency: 109.5 (88th in country)
Tempo Adjusted Defensive Efficiency: 107.5 (242nd in country)

Raw Effective FG% Offense: 52.6 (128th in country)
Raw Effective FG% Defense: 62.8 (358th in country)

And we already know we're dead last in 3pt% defense.

So - you tell me what we need to improve to get better?

Based on individual box plus-minus (small sample size alert due to this generally being a very noisy stat)

Defensive Box Plus-Minus
1. Shereef Mitchell (+1.3)
2. Aidan Hadaway (+0.5)
3. AJ Clayton (-0.2)
4. Vic Searls (-1.3)
5. Ajay Sheldon (-2.1)
6. AJ Brown (-2.6)
7. Elmore James (-3.5)
8. Elijah Elliott (-4.6)
9. Ayden Evans (-4.8)
10. Jackson Paveletzke (-4.8)

Last year for comparison
1. Miles Brown (+0.7)
2. AJ Clayton (+0.6)
3. Jaylin Hunter (+0.6)
4. Shereef Mitchell (+0.6)
5. Gabe Wiznitzer (+0.1)
6. Ajay Sheldon (0.0)
7. Aidan Hadaway (0.0)
8. AJ Brown (-1.4)
9. Elmore James (-1.8)
10. Ike Cornish (-2.4)
11. Ben Estis (-6.1)
12. Quinn Corna (-8.1)

I'd say we're SEVERELY missing Miles Brown's defense more than anything right now, and Paveletzke (so far) isn't it.

This passes the sniff test for me. JP, EJ & AJB all have been beaten consistently on defense. Our top 3 guards in minutes thus far, so the 3 point barrage makes sense.

This is a much different MTSU team than the one we faced a year ago in Nassau.

Essam Moustafa should ring a bell, the Coastal Carolina big we tried for 2 portal seasons ago has landed at MTSU after a year at TCU. Averaging 12ppg and 8rpg.

Kamari Lands is a 6’8 ASU/Louisville transfer averaging 11ppg game. I’m sure they’ll pound the ball inside.

Last year’s leading scorer Jestin Porter also returns.

I’m with MDWST. I’d try a bigger lineup to shake things up and rip the bandaid off Evans or run more than we have been this season if we’re playing small.

Bingo. Unless/until we figure out our defensive woes we need to play slower not faster. Limit possessions.

Who's all going for the Thursday games?

Oh, yeah, I get that. Are we operating under the assumption that we are going to be the clearly inferior team in most of our remaining games? If so, then yes, I get that. But that's a completely different issue than trying to figure out how to fix perimeter defense or are we actually a better team in knowing how to win a low or high scoring affair. If we are already operating under that assumption after 3 games then that is unbelievably disappointing for a team that was picked nearly unanimously first in the MAC.

Yes, that changes the question. Instead of saying how to we universally lower the average amount of points we surrender per opponent possession we are changing it to how do we increase the standard deviation from night to night centered around that average. We accept that we will lose most of the time with our typical average but if we limit the number of possesions then some nights it is more likely that average will randomly be much higher than normal and on some nights it will be much lower than normal. Then on those flukishly low nights we give ourselves a better chance accepting that we will lose on the flukishly high nights. Yes, that logic holds. Absolutely, it holds. But if thats where we are, finding a way to occasionally win as an inferior team then we are in most disappointing seasons of all-time territory. This methodology isn't about becoming a better team but about making fluky outcomes where the inferior team wins slightly more often while accepting you will lose most games and are the inferior team most of the time.

Not yet sure what we're going to get from Pav, but I remain optimistic. I'll say this about his turnovers: there was a stretch in the Memphis game where Ohio had 4 straight turnovers in a span of 1 minute and two of those 4 were credited to Pav. However, the 2 turnovers credited to Pav were passes he made that should have been handled by his teammates.

While we're on the topic of official scoring and Pav: there was a play in OUr lone home game where Ohio was on defense and Pav slapped a loose ball toward Ohio's end of the floor where a running EJ corralled it for an uncontested layup. The center scoreboard gave EJ credit for the 2 points but not Pav for the assist.

Maybe too late to change this (and maybe the official scorer sees it differently), but I believe Pav saw EJ taking off toward our basket and deliberately batted the loose ball down to our frontcourt toward EJ, resulting in an uncontested layup.

I know, in the grand scheme of things, there are 1.5 billion people in China who couldn't care less (to paraphrase Reggie Jackson after he hit 3 HRs in one 1977 World Series game).

Hope to be proven wrong but I'm not overly optimistic at this point of early season. I have no faith in winning any game away from home and actually haven't for the past couple seasons. Defense is absolutely abysmal right now.

cc-cat I too was considering attending until I saw the pricing of $160 for all games. I thought that was over the top. It will be tv or radio for me


GO BOBCATS

Not sure the strategy of increasing the number of possessions is good for our defense.