While many Miami University families opened their homes to familiar faces for the Thanksgiving holiday, the RedHawks (2-4) opened their hardwood dwelling to the University of Evansville Purple Aces (2-2). The 'Hawks roasted the turkey early and coasted to dessert by feasting on the Aces to claim the 82-58 "W" Saturday.
"That's the best game thus far," Head Coach Charlie Coles said. "If you take the offensive end and defensive end. We had a combination of good defense and good offense. From a coaching perspective we did what we set out to do. That's when you know your team is playing pretty well. Tonight we played a great game and offensively we made some great plays. Our objective against Dayton is to continue ou defense and play defense against an even better team on Wednesday."
Just after the Aces treaded sneakers on the Millett Hall welcome mat the 'Hawks ended all hospitality by breaking out to a 7-2 run highlighted by a Julian Mavunga trey.
"Being intense from the beginning to end is very important," Mavunga said. "It shows toughness and were trying to find an identity. We are trying to show everyone out there that Miami basketball is tough. That's an identity we really want to have. That's what good teams do. Finish it out. Like against Kentucky, we learned from that because we had a lead the entire game and we gave it up at the end."
Coach Coles' team was resilient at both ends of the floor and Mavunga wetted the nylon with another trey and forced the Purple Ace coaching staff into a timeout. After the stoppage, Miami freshman Orlando Williams drove in for the hoop and the harm and gave his RedHawks a 34-17 advantage.
The Red and White dominated the first half 42-27 by exhibiting a balanced offense of interior offensive physicality and downtown sharpshooting.
Mavunga led the charge once again as he rose to the rim for his own version of hoop and the harm bouncing up the lead to 45-27.
"Coach Coles was always telling me that the talent was there and last year as a freshman I had my ups and downs and there were times where I didn't work as hard," Mavunga said. "This off-season I did a lot just to be prepared for the college game because it's very different from high school. So I feel it's the first year I've really been prepared to play college basketball. I changed my eating habits and I've been a lot more mobile. I feel like I have a lot more confidence."
The Purple Aces got out of the red when they sprinted out to a 9-0 run to chop the Miami lead in half. But it was RedHawk junior Rodney Haddix who doused the fire with eight straight points.
"Coming back from a New Mexico trip that we didn't play very well, this season things haven't exactly been how we wanted it," Haddix said. "To be able to start our first home game with a victory like that was very big. A big thing we got going on this year is protecting home court. We don't have a lot of experience, but it's good to come out like that against a good team like Evansville. We have a lot of players that can do a lot of things. Even guys can come off the bench can come in and score. We are tremendously deep and we got some younger guys that can put it in the basket."
Mavunga, Kenny Hayes and Nick Winbush came out on cue when the trio brought the treys to give the Red and White a 66-41 lead. The 18 points scored by Mavunga set a career high and his 10 boards gave him his third double double in four games. Haddix accounted for 14 RedHawk points.
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With 35 ticks left on the board junior Antonio Ballard sent home an alley-oop and the Purple Aces with a 24-point loss.
Coles and company are set to host the University of Dayton Flyers at 7 p.m. Wednesday.
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