Inbound plays hurt RedHawks

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By Jay Morrison, Staff Writer Updated 7:35 AM Thursday, February 25, 2010

ATHENS — The Miami University men’s basketball team had little trouble scoring during the 70-68 loss Wednesday night, Feb. 24, but the RedHawks did have difficulty getting the ball inbounds.

Leading by one point with 29 seconds to go, Miami had to use its last timeout because it couldn’t get the ball inbounds. After the timeout, the RedHawks nearly got whistled for a five count before getting the ball in, only to have the Bobcats’ DeVaughn Washington steal the ball and turn it into a pair of free throws for a one-point lead.

“I thought we played really well, but there at the end we made some key mistakes,” said MU coach Charlie Coles, whose team shot 52 percent from the floor, including a scorching 64 percent in the second half.

But the burned final timeout came back to bite the RedHawks after Kenny Hayes put them back on top by a point with a driving layup with 7.7 seconds to go.

“When Kenny scored, I said ‘Good, but not good,’ because I thought we left too much time on the clock, “ Coles said. “I would’ve called a timeout there if we had one. I saw (D.J.) Cooper with that ball going up the court, and my first inclination was to stop the dribble. And my second one was where is (Tommy) Freeman.”

Freeman was waiting on the right wing, where he took a pass from Cooper and drained a game-winning 3-pointer with six-tenths of a second left.

Road to Cleveland

While the last-second loss might have stung a little bit, it didn’t end up hurting Miami too much in the team’s quest for a first-round bye in the Mid-American Conference tournament.

Kent State and Akron both won Wednesday night to clinch two of the four first-round byes. Miami came into the night tied with Ball State and Buffalo for the third-best record in the MAC, and all three teams lost.

“We’ve still got a chance to get one of those byes,” Coles said. “Let’s come back from this one and go up to Kent (on Saturday) with a lot of spirit and see what happens up there.”

The rivalry

Ohio University is the only team in the MAC with an all-time winning record against Miami. After Wednesday night, the Bobcats own a 96-89 edge in the series.

The RedHawks were trying to sweep OU for the first time since the 2005-06 season, and just the second time in the last 12 years.

Miami hasn’t won in Athens since a 73-59 victory on Jan. 29, 2006.

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YMCA kids, 5th grade kids, children in 3rd world countries learning the game for the VERY FIRST TIME learn how to run an in-bounds play. They also learn, with a tiny, tiny bit of coaching, how to beat a full-court press. Charlie Coles' kids have a long and unfortunate history of not learning either of these basics. Like so many other games this season, this one's on Charlie. Go ahead, kick me in the groin with your disparaging comments, but this is 1 season ticket holder who wont' renew.

charliedoesn'tcutit
8:06 PM, 2/25/2010

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