Beat the Rockets Preview Edition

The Rockets are coming into Anderson Arena Monday, so its a good time for our opponent preview.

I honest to god don't understand how this program got here.  Seemed like they weren't so bad when Joplin left, and then last year had single digit wins with a couple of good players, lost those players, and this year they are having a really rough season.  The Blade took a shot at cataloguing all the problems today, in fact.  (Note from the story that when it rains, it pours, as APR problems are now popping up).

They are far and away the youngest team in the MAC,  and it is showing.  They are 3-18 and their RPI ranking of 318 puts them among the 20 worst teams in D1.  While they have played a pretty tough schedule, one of their wins is not a D1 win, and one is against UMBC, a legitimate contender for the absolute worst team in D1.  They have lost 11 in a row, and have yet to win on the road this season.  In fact, they have yet to finish within 10 on the road this season.

Normally, I compare the stats and look at the strengths and weaknesses of the various team.  I started to compile all that, but it just isn't interesting and it gets to beating a dead horse pretty quickly.  Suffice it to say that they are in the bottom 3 in the MAC in pretty much everything.  On paper, they should not win a game the rest of the season.

Yet, I am pretty sure they probably win win another game this season.  And I am terrified it will be Monday.

While BG needed the win on Saturday, I am glad for this exact purpose that we did lose, because I do think we are better than that and we are unlikely to lay an egg like that twice in a row.  Coaches in basketball downplay rivalries, unlike football.  There are just too many games right on top of each other, and a team has to keep getting up, and the coaches seem to think a rivalry actually distracts from that.

But the Rockets come into Anderson Arena as a team that can afford to play a true rivalry game.  They have nothing to lose...and to get their first MAC win against their biggest rival would have to be a very positive part of a bleak winter in which they have not won since December 10.

They have the chance to point at this game...and if things crack their way as the game goes on, they will start to feel it and I believe will play really hard.

Bowling Green won a pretty decent game last year at Savage against the Rockets, and should clearly be in line to win this one.  But, losing to Toledo is bad enough....giving them their first (and possibly only) conference win would really suck.

After the game Saturday, our players were all striking the right note---that you can't look at records in conference play, and they are right.  The loss Saturday gives me some belief that they actually believe it.

Now, it isn't like we are playing a winless Miami team, where I would have metaphysical certainty that we would lose---regardless of the sport.  But I will not feel good until this one is over and the Falcons have wrung out a victory over their arch-rivals, and gotten a much needed win.