Where do we begin? It hasn’t been the best week for my basketball teams. I support three teams: two in college and one in the NBA. I’ve witnessed two twenty point blowouts this week and this game. The result of this game was only a five point loss but it was worse than both of those twenty point blowouts. This is a game that IPFW basketball would have won at the beginning of the season. That team was playing pretty well. This current incarnation of IPFW basketball is playing awful. IPFW dropped their third straight game and sixth out of eight with the 63-58 loss to in-state rival IUPUI. The ‘Dons haven’t beaten a Division 1 school since December 6th when they beat Miami (OH). Kiss the Summit League Title goodbye.
Game Headlines
Space Jam Aliens
The Space Jam aliens have sapped the talent of a few IPFW players. Mo Evans has been inconsistent all season. His shot hasn’t been falling and it doesn’t appear to be getting better. I kept thinking he’d go on a hot streak at some point but now I’m in doubt. He has the talent to get it done, but he just needs a great game to break out of the slump. I’d argue starting Michael Calder over him and sending him to the bench. He worked well in the sixth man role last year. The other talent stolen was the talent of the great Steve Forbes. Forbes dominated the early part of the season. It didn’t seem like anyone could stop him. Then Steve suffered that ankle injury and he hasn’t been the same. Evans and Forbes in the IUPUI game combined for one made field goal and 7 points. That’s not going to get it done.
Reed and McCray Also Struggle
The aliens got to these guys too. Joe Reed has been playing good basketball the last few games. He finally came down to earth in this one. Reed shot 1-of-3 in the game and scored 4 points to go with 9 rebounds. I’m surprised that he took such a low amount of shots. Maybe it’s because Isaiah McCray was taking all the shots…..and missing them. McCray went 2-of-13 (0-6 3PT) and finished with 9 points thanks to free throw line shooting. He also had 9 rebounds. I respect that McCray has been playing well this season, but I hate when he has these off games. I bet he does too. His consistency has been all over the place which has been the story for IPFW this season. They are very inconsistent with their scoring. It seems that usually one player has a good game while everyone else shoots terribly. The thing that made the 2013-2014 IPFW team so good was that they usually got good consistent scoring from at least two players a game. This team usually gets one which brings us to….
Joe Edwards!
Yeah, Joe Edwards was the only starter that played well in this one. The senior scored 17 points on 6-of-12 shooting. He was the lucky player that got to keep his powers from the Space Jam aliens. The ‘Dons shot 36% in this game. Good thing Edwards was there to keep the percent up that high.
More Notes
Max Landis and Michael Calder played well off the bench. Calder scored 12 points on 5-of-6 shooting while Landis was 3-of-6 which was good for 9 points. Landis actually played more minutes than most of the starters so Coach Coffman seems high on him. I’ve liked Calder since he had that one good Canada game. I hope he gets more minutes.
Calhoun and Gunjina played in very limited action.Not sure how much we will actually see of these guys in Summit League play. No more Judsons on the schedule where they can be given playing time.
IUPUI shot 47.6%. I feel the IPFW defense has been really lacking this year. The defense doesn’t have a consistent offense to back them up this year so they need to get stops. The defense last year could afford to be mediocre. This team doesn’t have that luxury.
IPFW with Steve Forbes and Joe Reed got dominated on points in the paint and second chance points. That’s a problem. IUPUI, the team picked to finish last in the Summit League, should not be able to come in and take advantage of the team that was picked to finish first in the League. Coach Coffman is going to need to get these kids to fix this problem or else they will find themselves at the bottom of the Summit League.
Next: Thursday vs. Denver
It’s not getting easier for IPFW. This time Denver comes to town and IPFW will be looking to avoid a third straight Summit League loss. Denver ruined senior night last season which was the only home game IPFW lost in conference. IPFW will need to come in with improved defense and some consistent scoring or else Denver will beat them again. IPFW comes into this game as the only team in the Summit League without a win. That needs to change tonight or else it will be a long conference season. I still think this team can make a run. They just need to show up and play hard. I’m hoping that starts tonight.
-Brandon Brown
Big B Brown's Sports Blog 