A 4-7 record in Mid-American Conference play seems daunting this deep in the season, but Ball State coach Billy Taylor sees the situation another way.
In Monday's press conference, Taylor said there's still time to correct the mistakes made in his team's six-game losing streak.
There is just under three weeks until the MAC Tournament starts and five conference games to improve upon the Cardinals' seed.
Ball State's first chance is this Wednesday against Toledo at 7 p.m. in Worthen Arena.
"We had high expectations for our guys and they had high expectations for themselves," Taylor said. "I think there's a tremendous sense of urgency that we want to win. We have an opportunity to win on Wednesday against Toledo. It's not going to be easy, but that's the opportunity right in front of us."
Before MAC crossover play started, Ball State was atop the conference leader board after going 4-1 against the MAC West.
Despite the success, which included a 70-68 win over Toledo on Jan. 10, Taylor said it would be a mistake to think Ball State will roll over the West Division so easily again.
"I think it's kind of dangerous because we've had success the first go around with West teams, but you can't rely on that," Taylor said. "That would just be disrespectful. We have to come out and play hard because these games were really close the first time. We can't just say, ‘oh we're playing against the West, we now should win.' You have to go out and earn victories and hopefully our guys will understand that."
Taylor went lengths to emphasize that to his team and the media Monday, saying this Rockets team has revamped its offense on the perimeter.
"Rian Pearson is scoring the ball extremely well for them," Taylor said. "He's making more mid range jump shots than he did the first time around. I would say his confidence is higher as an offensive player. Curtis Dennis is the other guys. When we played them the firs time, it was his third or fourth game back with the team. Now he's played more games and gotten more comfortable and confident out there. So now the two and three spots — big guards, wings — are having success scoring the basketball."
Pearson leads the MAC in scoring at 17.2 points per game and Dennis pitches in with 12.5 points per game. Dennis would sit just outside the top-ten in conference scoring, but he hasn't played enough games to qualify.
Toledo's improved offense collides with a Ball State defense who's lost a little bit of the conference-leading luster it had earlier in the season. Ball State dropped to second after giving up 76 points to Kent State on Saturday.
Taylor said the team is making unacceptable mistakes. Whether it's game plan, personnel or young players making those mistakes, he said his team needs to better understand how to take away an opponents' strength.
Ball State's offense has taken a nose dive recently as well, starting with its leading scorer Jarrod Jones.
After tipping his average above 20 points per game this season, the senior center's scoring output has dipped down to 16 points per game. That is partly due to his 9.6 points per game over the last three games.
Jones said his improvement keys on understanding the defense and attacking it when he gets the opportunity.
"Just being able to adjust to the way different teams play me," Jones said. "They're obviously going to try and keep me from getting the ball or keep me from being a factor and make my teammates beat them. I can't let that happen. I gotta have the will to just go out there and dominate."
Taylor targeted Jones in his post-game comments after the Kent State loss on Saturday, saying he needed to be more productive.
It isn't all on the six foot nine inch shoulders of Jones, though. On Monday, Taylor said all of his seniors need to play better.
"There's definitely some frustration from those guys [the seniors] because we've come to expect more from them," Taylor said. "It didn't happen as consistently in the crossover games against the MAC East. They've had their moments, but I can't overstate how bad they feel that they haven't play their best over the past few games."
Even more than the coaching staff needs consistency at this point, Taylor said his seniors want to play better in the worst way. So bad, in fact, Jones is guaranteeing the end of his slump in the near future.
"He [Taylor] expects more out of me and I expect more out of myself," Jones said. "I don't think I've been effective in the last few games. That is something I will turn around and we'll be expecting a big performance coming pretty soon."
Whether from the seniors or other players on the team, Ball State needs to win to make up ground.
If the MAC Tournament started today, the team would host one of the four games on its campus site, narrowly. Western Michigan is also 4-7 in the conference, but Ball State owns the tiebreaker.
"We're a couple games back, but we still want that MAC West," Taylor said. "To have something positive we can hang our hat on to say we did well. Hopefully that will give us the momentum going into the MAC Tournament."
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