Okay so why go out on a cold Monday night to watch a 1-6 MAC bottom feeder take on an average D2 opponent? Because I was anxious to get this season going, and the humble beginning of two Southeast Michigan commuters schools playing a game in front of a few hundred fans on an icy December night seems poetic when considering the season will end for us at the final four watching two great teams clash in front of 70,000 fans and a television audience in the millions. I was also curious to see if I could diagnose what exactly is wrong with Eastern Michigan. This team was predicted by Blue Ribbon to win the MAC West this season, but before Monday’s game they had lost 6 in a row to Purdue and a less than impressive roster of teams: Georgia, St. Johns, Cornell, Brown and Detroit Mercy.

The game was what you would expect. There is just a world of talent difference between division 1 and division 2. Eastern held Wayne St. scoreless for a ten minute stretch in the second half, and were able to work 12 different players into the game. This was also the first game of the year for G Tyler Jones who was with the football team playing a pretty decent WR until this week. His presence should help over matched 5′10″ walk on sophomore LJ Frazier who has been handling the PG duties with pre season all MAC Carlos Medlock out for the season with a foot fracture.  PF Brandon Bowdry displayed some range knocking down two triples, he lead all scorers with 17pts on the night. All in all it was a pretty workman like effort for the core guys and a much needed 67-47 win.

Eastern was without head coach Charles Ramsey who is on a 3 day suspension from the University for an altercation with a fan after their game with Detroit Mercy. Apparently the coach used plenty of profanity, and had to be physicaly restrained. Oh and the fan was a student at….Eastern Michigan University…. and a roomate of reserve F Zane Gay. Apparently the kid confronted Ramsey on his way back to the locker room about Zane’s lack of playing time. Not a good situation at all. I think that this start and this encounter might be a sign that Ramsey is in over his head at EMU and might never get things going in the right direction. We’ll just have to wait and see. They have Michigan this Saturday at Crisler which means a 2-7 start is likely.

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