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Sports TwitterPollitz was back to old self against EMU
Coach hopes star forward looks the same way against Northern Illinois tonight: hard to guard.
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
OXFORD — No one was more relieved than Miami University men's basketball coach Charlie Coles to see Tim Pollitz play his best game in more than a month last Saturday.
Coles hopes his 6-foot-4 senior can keep it up tonight when the RedHawks play at Northern Illinois.
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Pollitz has remained one of the top players in the Mid-American Conference this season, ranking second in scoring, seventh in rebounding and field goal percentage and eighth in assists. But Coles noticed something unsettling about Pollitz in recent weeks.
"Tim just hasn't been the same player since the Anaheim tournament that he was last year," Coles said. "He just wasn't moving. I don't think he's played well without the ball, but he did (against Eastern Michigan)."
Pollitz did just about everything during Miami's 65-52 win over EMU, finishing with 22 points, nine rebounds, five assists and two steals.
He had a similar game against Chicago State on Dec. 18, when he scored a career-high 26 points and had a career-high nine assists.
But there have been some low points, too.
Pollitz, who already plays with chronic pain in his knee, began facing the added burden of double teams when teammate Michael Bramos was forced to fight his way through a shooting slump and then reinjured the ankle he had sprained earlier in the season.
In Miami's first two MAC games against Akron and Ohio, Pollitz was limited to a total of 11 field-goal attempts.
He took 10 shots in the first half alone against EMU, which was a sign that he was moving without the ball much more effectively.
"When he moves, he's hard to guard," Coles said, "and we're hard to guard."
Miami will face a Northern Illinois team that opened the regular season with a six-game losing streak but has won two of its last three at home under coach Ricardo Patton, who is in his first year at NIU after 11 years as the head man at Colorado.
Contact this reporter at (513) 820-2197
or pconrad@coxohio.com.
