DaytonDailyNews.com

OXFORD — As the Miami University men's basketball team prepares to face Eastern Michigan today at home, the RedHawks are discouraged and puzzled and angry.

But they are not without a kind of stubborn — and not entirely unreasonable — hope.

Because they get it. They understand what possibilities still loom for the 2007-08 season. They've been there.

Today, Miami is 7-10 overall. Last season after 17 games, the RedHawks were 7-10 overall, and they still wound up in the NCAA tournament.

Jermaine Henderson, Miami's associate head coach who filled in for head coach Charlie Coles (who was under the weather) at the press conference after the RedHawks' 55-52 loss at Bowling Green on Wednesday, summed up the situation in one sentence.

"(Our Mid-American Conference record of) 1-4 isn't as scary as (it seems) — we've got to get better," he said.

That has been Coles' emphasis all season. Improvement. If the RedHawks have put it together by the end of February, their record doesn't matter much.

"Any team can do well in the MAC tournament," Miami senior forward Tim Pollitz said. "It's a brand new season.

"Obviously our record is not where we'd like it to be. ... We have to keep getting better each and every day," he added.

It's not that Pollitz isn't deeply concerned.

"This is Miami," he said. "Usually we don't take a record like this (well)."

Despite Wednesday's loss, there is reason for some optimism that the team is starting to right itself.

Miami played its second straight game without Michael Bramos, one of the top players in the MAC, and yet came within one shot of sending the game to overtime at Anderson Arena, an arena that has given the RedHawks fits over the past 12 years, an arena where even Wally Szczerbiak could not win.

The RedHawks committed only seven turnovers. They outrebounded the Falcons 32-27. Two struggling guards, Alex Moosman and Carl Richburg, were a combined 5-of-9 from behind the 3-point stripe. And Bowling Green's 55 points were the fewest Miami had allowed in the last 11 games.

The RedHawks lost because they missed too many open shots. Most everything else seemed to be in place.

Henderson said he didn't know when Bramos, who has a high-ankle sprain, will return.

"We'll get him back when we get him back," he said.

Meanwhile, the RedHawks are starting to get a chip on their shoulders, and a little bit of attitude right now wouldn't necessary be a bad thing for a team that seems to be sleepwalking at times.

"We're Miami; we're going to stand tall," Henderson said. "The league didn't help us out (with the MAC schedule). We had to start at Akron, and they'd been waiting for us for six months, and then we had to go to OU, and then it was Kent State."

The RedHawks have the second-worst MAC record of the 12 conference teams. The only team with a worse record, Buffalo (0-5), is the only team they've beaten.

That means Miami probably won't win any regular-season titles, get a first-round bye to the MAC tournament or receive an NCAA at-large bid. But as long as the RedHawks can keep showing signs of life, Coles and Henderson can live with that.

Contact this reporter at (513) 820-2197

or pconrad@coxohio.com.