GDT: SDSU vs WIU 2pm Western Hall GoLeathernecks.com

[OldHare]

Welcome to mirror scheduling as the men tip at 2pm to mirror the women perfectly! The Leatherneck men are a much improved group this year as they are 6-1 in Western Hall with the only loss to ORU 87-86. Coach Jeter has done a solid job overall. They are 3-3 in conference losing to ORU, St Thomas, & Omaha. They have defeated UND, NDSU, & Denver. The starters average 9.7-16.9 points per game. Transfer Jr Massner has become a great fit in Macomb to join 9 others who have transferred into WIU in the last 1-2 years. There are 5 freshmen on the roster as well. 6'10" Barisic & 6'10" Pearson will be the twin towers in the starting lineup. 6'7" Carius is another long starter. We will see how the coaching staff can lure some of the bigs away from the paint and defend on the other end. The Tommies just launched 3 balls(14-30) and the Leathernecks registered 2 technicals in the 89-66 loss. This game has the makings of a physical contest. ORU vs WIU had 1022 attend 2 weeks ago which is large for Macomb. The Jackrabbits might expect to see that many noisy Leathernecks today. This game should be close, but the Jackrabbits ought to find a way on the road to win. Go Jacks!!

[DieselJacks]

Happy to see Western Illinois back competing again. There was a time that we didn’t even know if they’d be in Division 1 much longer. This is going to be a tough matchup.

[JimmyJack]

Another terrible start. Can't hit a shot. Sigh.

[JimmyJack]

3 points and 4 turnovers in first six minutes.

[Carolina010]

Ugly start but I could get used to this new offensively aggressive Alex Ariens

[MontanaRabbit]

My god move the damn camera.

[Carolina010]

Hey that’s a lot of work to move the camera to both sides

[JimmyJack]

I feel like the webcam that keeps getting stuck looking at one end of the court or the other is a perfect metaphor for the state of WIU Athletics.

[Southeast]

My god move the damn camera.

Ridiculous. The new commissioner needs to crack down on the garbage TV coverage found in some corners of this league.

Glad to see the Jacks seem to have snapped out of the funk they started in. These road games are a crapshoot.

[JimmyJack]

It always feels inevitable that the Jacks will eventually score in bunches, but the slow starts need to stop.

[Carolina010]

If only they could get the camera to focus now

when this team is in their groove they can score in bunches really fast.

[Southeast]

Two SDSU blowouts in basketball. Nice little Saturday.

If you’re not already, I recommend dialing in the SDSU / Missouri wrestling dual on ESPN+. Jacks lead a top-10 team with 2 matches to go!

[jakejc795]

The Mayo postgame interview with Tyler was stellar. His knowledge as a freshman is very impressive; he sounded like a coach

[da_coach]

Cool thing about this Jacks team, they can beat you so many ways.

Against St Thomas, late in the game Thursday... had basically all guards on the floor... Baylor was the nominal "big man".

A lot of this Western game... had 2 traditional bigs on the floor together, and Baylor was playing the 3.

[goon]

Sort of a strange thought I had about this SDSU team. If they can play offense at a consistently high level, they only need to play defense marginally better to avoid those close games......

My example I was thinking of, in tennis, Pete Sampras was the best at this. he would win a set at 6-4 all the time. he didn't go for the break of serve...he would pounce on the opportunities that gave him the best chance. not that he didn't try, but if down 0-40 in 2nd service game, he wouldn't kill himself trying to get back into the game...which most tennis players wouldn't due how difficult it is to break serve multiple points in a row.. If he was down, 30-40 and opponent had a 2nd serve as an example would be a chance to go do deuce.

So the moral of the story is, which the St Thomas game made me see this. You don't need to go for broke as long as you hold serve......Pete could hold serve, SDSU, our offense should keep us in every basketball game. If our defense can find those moments we have that advantage, that's going to the difference of a disappointing end to the season or a great end to the season. Thankfully most summit teams don't have the offense to match us. The pressure was always on his opponent, Pete could hold serve and in a tiebreaker had the advantage anyway. Sometimes his score appeared closer then it really was in the match.