By Price Brothers
3 13 2025
CLEVELAND— “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.”
Or, in the case of the Miami University men’s basketball team on one memorable possession Thursday afternoon at Rocket Arena: try, try, try, try, try, try again?
Luke Skaljac’s three-pointer with 13:45 left in the first half wouldn’t go in, but Reece Potter was there to pull in an offensive rebound.
Although Potter couldn’t convert the putback, Peter Suder grabbed the ball and kept the possession alive.
When Suder missed, he got his own board to set up a Brant Byers chance.
Byers’ attempt was no good, but Potter was there to clean it up.
And while Potter still couldn’t get the ball to go in on his first attempt, he stuck with the play and scored.
That trip down the floor only yielded two points for Miami, staking the Red and White to a 14-8 lead, but it took its toll on seventh-seeded Eastern Michigan. The RedHawks went on to out-rebound EMU by a margin of 45-32 in Thursday’s MAC quarterfinal, wearing down the Eagles and eventually pulling away down the stretch for an 81-75 win to advance in the bracket.
“There’s not anything more deflating than giving up an offensive rebound,” Miami head coach Travis Steele said. “You defend however-long –25 to 30 seconds– give up an offensive rebound…and then to have that happen like four times in one possession, that’s tough.”
Miami (24-8) wore down Eastern on the glass en route to a hard-fought victory, but also with its deep bench. The RedHawks out-scored EMU 35-8 in bench points, including 15 from Potter and 14 from Evan Ipsaro.
“That’s every night for us,” Potter said after the game. “Strength in numbers: We pride ourselves in that. We don’t necessarily see us as a bench thing – we think all nine guys could play anywhere in the country.
“We call ourselves the bench mob, and we know once we come in, we need to provide that juice, provide that energy off the bench, and provide that fire.
“We were able to do that tonight; we just need to keep that going.”
The RedHawks’ depth paid off in a game-deciding run, as Miami rallied from a 59-57 deficit with 7:35 left to break things open. Kam Craft got it started, which should come as no surprise to Miami fans. The sharp-shooting wing, who finished with a game-high 24 points, had already gotten MU off on the right foot by hitting some early jumpers to help the second-seeded RedHawks take a nine-point first-half lead before EMU came storming back.
Craft scored 16 of his points after intermission, including a driving layup that erased Eastern’s final lead to knot the score at 59-all. Potter then put Miami up for good with a three-point play on the next trip.
“I thought in the second half that our offensive execution was tremendous,” Steele said.
“We scored 50 points in the second half, so we just started producing and doing what we normally do,” added Craft, who buried six total three-pointers and scored 20+ points for the seventh time this season. “We’re one of the best shooting teams in the country, so getting us going [early] I think really helped us stay in the game.
“Then as the game progressed, water always finds its level, as Coach says. We showed that in the second half.”
Ipsaro and Potter eventually put the exclamation point on the aforementioned 17-2 spurt, as the sophomores combined for a drive-and-dish dunk with 3:21 remaining, which Potter threw down with authority to put Miami ahead 74-61 and force an EMU timeout. It was the big man’s third bucket in a three-minute span, including a pair of textbook assists from Suder.
Suder finished the game with a career-high 10 assists and a season-high 10 rebounds to go along with seven points, just missing what could have been the second triple-double in program history (Ron Harper had 38 points, 19 rebounds and 12 assists in February 1986 vs. Ball State). It was an especially impressive performance from the junior guard considering he didn’t practice all week leading into the tournament.
“Peter’s such a warrior; he’s going to play,” Steele explained. “Is he 100 percent? No. [But] he’s going to play…
“I told our staff going in: ‘If we can advance, Peter’s going to have a great advantage, because he’s had a week off – he’s got fresh legs.'”
And while Steele’s team is thankful to be celebrating the program’s first MAC Tournament win in Cleveland in more than 15 years, the RedHawks have their sights set firmly on the weekend, beginning with a semifinal matchup against Kent State at approximately 7:30 p.m. Friday.
“We built our team for this moment,” Steele explained. “The goal was obviously to make it to the NCAA tournament and advance [through] three games in three days here in Cleveland…
“We’ve got to be at our best right now, so we play nine guys…it’s different guys different nights for us. It does keep our guys mentally fresh and physically fresh…
“We didn’t come here just to win one game. The job’s not finished.”
Miami will take on third-seeded Kent State Friday at 7:30 p.m. in a MAC Tournament semifinal in Cleveland. The game will air on CBS Sports Network.
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