Miami is currently in the 8th spot in the standings, and only 8 teams make the MAC tourney. Say what you will about Kevin Steele, but I like having his experience in this game against first year head coach Dwayne Stephens. WMU is last in the conference, has no route to get to the tournament, thus they are in a position where it makes more sense to start playing for the future and getting some extra minutes for younger players, which they started doing last game against Akron, with reserve big man Owen Lobsinger playing a season high in minutes.

Steele still doesn’t have the pieces in place for his team to be great defensively, but his pack line principles make it tough for teams that can’t shoot from outside, and WMU definitely can’t shoot from outside.

Miami doesn’t have a good defense, but WMU’s is downright awful. Miami has been the best 2P% team in MAC play, and WMU is 9th in stopping it. Miami is also a top 10 team nationally in FT%, which played a huge role in the first Miami win, where the Redhawks made 90% of their freebies and the Broncos made 58.