Bobcat Preview

Since we just played OU, I'm not going to do a new preview. Click back here...everything I said then still applies.

As for this game, I think there a few dynamics.

First, OU's Coach was hot about the performance of his starters, who he essentially benched when we played last time.

Head coach John Groce was infuriated by what he saw from his starting five in a loss Sunday at Bowling Green. Groce benched his starters early in the second; none of the five played more than 25 minutes, and he promised there was no guarantee any of the starters—including his three seniors—would be in the lineup when the Bobcats began MAC tournament play. Yet, seniors Michael Allen, Justin Orr and Jerome Tillman all started against Western Michigan.

I am pretty sure of this--it won't be like the last time. This will be a win we need to grind out. I think OU has something to prove and what happened last time will not happen again.

That being said, we didn't NEED 75 points to win on Sunday. They have yet to solve our 2-3 zone, and if we keep playing the kind of defense we played on Sunday and have been playing, we are a difficult team to beat, even if we don't shoot 60%.

We showed against Akron and Kent that we can take a blow, and still win games. So, even if OU comes out with a big early burst of energy, I think we have shown the ability to keep it close and, as Coach says, grind it out.

OU is the ninth seed, and we were first, but we remember what happened the last time those two coordinates meet at the Q. There may be a big difference between the seeds, but there is a relatively thin margin between us and them.

This is a nice test for our team, in fact. I'm looking very forward to seeing how we do.