MVC games Wednesday, November 14

[Jet915]

Wow, UNI just turned it over, Toledo ball down 1 w/10 seconds......

[Aargh]

With 10 seconds left and UNI up 1 and the ball out of bounds after a Toledo basket, Koch got a turnover. Toledo playing for one shot to win.

And at the 9 second mark, Tuttle gets a steal.

[Jet915]

UNI wins 84-81, avoids embarrassing loss. A win is a win.

[MetDrakeFan]

Thanks for making the entire Valley sweat Panthers. Wow I'm glad you guys pulled that one out.

[CBB_Fan]

UNI tried very hard to lose that game, despite really excellent performances from Mitchell (27 PTs, 11-14 FG, 5 assists) and Tuttle (21 PTs, 9-12 FG, 10 rebounds). Hopefully the conference doesn't give up these easy games; we'll need it if we want to send more than one team to the dance.

[Aargh]

Key stat - Free Throws:
Toledo - 10/14
UNI - 32/39

Key stat - Fouls
Toledo - 27. 2 fouled out. 2 with 4 fouls
UNI - 12. 1 with 4 fouls.

[strike00]

What a strange game. For most of the game it seemed like UNI was on the edge of opening it up and putting Toledo away, you were waiting for it, but it just never happened. The defense was weak, and UNI has a lot to work on. Mitchell and Tuttle are outstanding, but UNI needs to play better. Getting Anthony James back is going to help a lot because the Freshman Bohannon really struggled mightily on both ends of the floor, and he ended up playing 35 minutes.

At least they came away with a win.

[Kyle]

What a crazy game. A win is a win, but we have plenty of room for improvement. Getting James back will help, but the defense needs to tighten up.

Toledo isn't a bad team (they return all 5 starters), but we should have been able to beat them soundly at home.

[UNIFanSince1983]

Hideously ugly game aside from Tuttle and Mitchell. The defense was awful. Toledo had made 7 3 pointers in their previous 2 games combined and we let them get 9 of them tonight.

I thought we were done for when Jake Koch got the 5 second call with 11 seconds in the game up by 1, but luckily the Toledo dude just threw it right back to us. Ugly ugly game, but all that matters is the final score. We really need to improve if we want to do anything in our non-conference and especially in the Valley. The Valley better watch out for Mitchell though. The kid was great last year and has only gotten better.

[Hail Our Panthers]

Definitely a type of game I haven't seen from the Panthers in recent years. Hopefully the closeness had a lot to do with first game jitters and all that. Really a poor game defensively, not used to seeing that at all from the Panthers. Toledo had a couple of good guards and as someone said, they abused Bohannon all night long. I think we may have missed AJ more than I thought we would, he's our best on ball defender when he wants to be.

What a game from Deon Mitchell though. Had a couple of sickest drives to the rim you'll see. With the way he's been getting to the rim at will, Sonnen, AJ, and Bohannon are going to have a lot of open looks for 3 this year. They say he's lost ten or fifteen pounds and he it shows...IDK if there is anyone quicker in the Valley off the dribble.

All thats between us and the B4A now is North Dakota..I wish we had another quality opponent before then. Certainly wish AJ would get some game time before then, but oh well.

Overall I had more discouragement than encouragement tonight. Some credit has to go to Toledo, they hit some tough shots. They went 19-17 last year and returned everybody but bad losses to Loyola and Minnesota have to leave you on why they got picked to win the MAC west. It'll be interesting to see how their season turns out.