{"id":68485,"date":"2018-03-03T22:42:19","date_gmt":"2018-03-04T04:42:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/?p=68485"},"modified":"2018-03-03T22:42:19","modified_gmt":"2018-03-04T04:42:19","slug":"flames-tested-confident-ahead-of-motor-city-madness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/flames-tested-confident-ahead-of-motor-city-madness\/","title":{"rendered":"Flames tested, confident ahead of Motor City Madness"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Robbie Weinstein<\/strong><br \/>\n<em>Medill Reports<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Starting at 4 p.m. Sunday at Little Caesar\u2019s Arena in Detroit, UIC\u2019s season is on the line.<\/p>\n<p>The No. 3-seeded Flames take on sixth-seeded Milwaukee in the quarterfinals of Motor City Madness, the Horizon League\u2019s tournament. Historically, the league tournament\u2019s winner has been the only Horizon team given a berth to the NCAA Tournament, and this year will be no exception \u2014 the conference ranks 26th out of 32 in RPI and KenPom.com\u2019s ratings.<\/p>\n<p>Like all of its conference foes, UIC must win the league tournament to punch its ticket to the Big Dance. Although the Flames went 0-4 against first-seeded Northern Kentucky and second-seeded Wright State in the regular season, their recent play has them confident.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey\u2019ve done a lot of things this year and still got a lot to do that haven\u2019t been done in 15, 16 years. As I told them, we\u2019re not the game on the schedule anymore that everybody thinks they can win,\u201d head coach Steve McClain said after UIC\u2019s senior-night loss to Wright State.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI see so much growth in this team that it gets me excited to go to Detroit.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>UIC will likely have to upset one or both of the Norse and Raiders to win the tournament, but its immediate focus is on Milwaukee. The Flames swept the Panthers in the regular season by a combined 33 points, but Milwaukee holds road victories over Iowa State and Wright State and blew out Missouri Valley Conference heavyweight Loyola-Chicago at home.<\/p>\n<p>The Panthers are tough in the paint with 6-7, 230-pound Bryce Nze and 6-9, 225-pound Brett Prahl. Milwaukee ranks 18th nationally in defensive rebounding by percentage, according to KenPom.com, but McClain feels his team\u2019s last two games helped with preparation.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think that\u2019s why you saw us come out after the Northern Kentucky game and be so much better in the first half of this game, because you can get a fallacy that it\u2019s easy,\u201d McClain said. \u201cThere\u2019s no question I think this is great for us, because Milwaukee is a very physical team, and they foul all the time. So we\u2019ll be used to playing through that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Milwaukee will try to tighten up on Flames point guard Tarkus Ferguson, who roasted the Panthers for averages of 17 points, 6.5 rebounds and seven assists in this season\u2019s two games. UIC held Milwaukee to only .90 points per possession over the two games, far below the Division I average of roughly 1.02.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe just need to stick to our game plan, play them the same way we did the first two times,\u201d UIC center Tai Odiase said. \u201cWe really played overall great defense in each of those games, and I think if we just continue to do that, we\u2019ll be fine.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Robbie Weinstein Medill Reports Starting at 4 p.m. Sunday at Little Caesar\u2019s Arena in Detroit, UIC\u2019s season is on the line. The No. 3-seeded Flames take on sixth-seeded Milwaukee in the quarterfinals of Motor City Madness, the Horizon League\u2019s tournament. Historically, the league tournament\u2019s winner has been the only Horizon team given a berth [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":452,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31,3987],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-68485","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports","category-winter-2018"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Flames tested, confident ahead of Motor City Madness - Medill Reports Chicago<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/flames-tested-confident-ahead-of-motor-city-madness\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Flames tested, confident ahead of Motor City Madness - Medill Reports Chicago\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By Robbie Weinstein Medill Reports Starting at 4 p.m. Sunday at Little Caesar\u2019s Arena in Detroit, UIC\u2019s season is on the line. 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