Ohio Basketball Topic
Topic: Official Game 19 Thread: Kent St.
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MonroeClassmate
1/24/2025 11:39 PM
OHIO was missing two but a top Kent player (Safford) done after hip surgery. His potential backup, Moss, done, second knee surgery. OHIO in the Convo with the lifetime record against the Flashes in Athens should not have been a surprise with a win given both teams not having a full quiver.

Need to work on getting the ball up the court under severe pressure for future situations like that. Kent has an awesome defense.

Somehow Sullinger and Sheldon have each taken shooting lessons from the school at the local Bricklayers Union--hope you boys didn't pay too much for the tips they offered.
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Andrew Ruck
1/24/2025 11:47 PM
Casper71 wrote:expand_more
Well, that was interesting! I guess none of us expected that. Way to gut it out.
Ummm, I know one guy who went on record as expecting victory.

We beat a non-terrible team! And won a game as an underdog! Exciting times.

Nerve wracking game, I feel like the lead was never bigger than 5 either way.

Student crowd has been decent this year. Sucked tonight.

Kent missed so many shots they would normally make. We were fortunate to escape. It's gonna be a struggle without Clayton & Hadaway but we have the depth to find a way.
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FearLeon
1/25/2025 12:02 AM
Pav-Had a couple moments of awful, but overall was huge. Showed up. Hit a massive 3.
AJB-Despite the 2nd half….balled out. Was a man tonight.
Vic- 9 points. 7 rebounds. 2 blocks. Huge assist on Pav 3. Being the only true big…..pressure was on and he hung in there. We don’t win without him. #TheUpgrade
Sheldon-His 3 point shot is gone….BRod gone, but man he played incredible D. 4 rebounds 3 assists 3 steals in 30 gutty minutes.

Our D hung in. But we did get lucky that they couldn’t shoot FTs and Sendy is awful. There has to be some kind of massive locker room issue going inside the Kent program right now. I’ll take it. But with this new lineup we have to shoot better to have a chance. Especially since we can’t rebound at all.
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OhioCatFan
1/25/2025 12:39 AM
Real gutsy win. I thought Elliot and Evans, especially Elliot, gave quality minutes. And, Searls made some shots that I haven't seen him make all season and got some crucial rebounds. I like the way they scratched and clawed their way to victory. I saw more fight in them in this victory than I have all season. It was a team win, with better chemistry than in any other game I can remember seeing all season. Go OHIO!
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Bobcat Jerry
1/25/2025 5:31 AM
OhioCatFan wrote:expand_more
Real gutsy win. I thought Elliot and Evans, especially Elliot, gave quality minutes. And, Searls made some shots that I haven't seen him make all season and got some crucial rebounds. I like the way they scratched and clawed their way to victory. I saw more fight in them in this victory than I have all season. It was a team win, with better chemistry than in any other game I can remember seeing all season. Go OHIO!
Does Pav have a pulse ? He’s curiously talented, unconventional in size and big in heart.
Last Edited: 1/25/2025 5:35:33 AM by Bobcat Jerry
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Andrew Ruck
1/25/2025 8:30 AM
Bobcat Jerry wrote:expand_more
Does Pav have a pulse ? He’s curiously talented, unconventional in size and big in heart.
Also I have to say it...He is from rural central Wisconsin and yet sounds like he is from inner city Chicago. All my family is from the same fox valley region he is and when I heard him talk it completely blew my mind.
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Deciduous Forest Cat
1/25/2025 8:51 AM
M.D.W.S.T wrote:expand_more
Side Note: I wonder if we’ve ever considered painting/wrapping the alcove behind the basket as bricks? In my head that would look cool on TV. The grey hospital tile is so lifeless.
Good idea but I've been calling for this for years and i won't have you steal my idea and pass it off as your own! :)
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colobobcat66
1/25/2025 8:57 AM
FearLeon wrote:expand_more
Pav-Had a couple moments of awful, but overall was huge. Showed up. Hit a massive 3.
AJB-Despite the 2nd half….balled out. Was a man tonight.
Vic- 9 points. 7 rebounds. 2 blocks. Huge assist on Pav 3. Being the only true big…..pressure was on and he hung in there. We don’t win without him. #TheUpgrade
Sheldon-His 3 point shot is gone….BRod gone, but man he played incredible D. 4 rebounds 3 assists 3 steals in 30 gutty minutes.

Our D hung in. But we did get lucky that they couldn’t shoot FTs and Sendy is awful. There has to be some kind of massive locker room issue going inside the Kent program right now. I’ll take it. But with this new lineup we have to shoot better to have a chance. Especially since we can’t rebound at all.
You do have to give credit to our defense , Kent only shot 56% (14/25) from the free throw line. Keep that kind of free throw defense up and we can hang with anybody,
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OhioCatFan
1/25/2025 10:28 AM
Bobcat Jerry wrote:expand_more
Real gutsy win. I thought Elliot and Evans, especially Elliot, gave quality minutes. And, Searls made some shots that I haven't seen him make all season and got some crucial rebounds. I like the way they scratched and clawed their way to victory. I saw more fight in them in this victory than I have all season. It was a team win, with better chemistry than in any other game I can remember seeing all season. Go OHIO!
Does Pav have a pulse ? He’s curiously talented, unconventional in size and big in heart.
Yeah, him too! Lots of great effort, hustle, and energy on the court. He and made lots of crucial baskets; well, every basket in that game was crucial.

As someone else said, he has a strange accent for someone from Wisconsin. One of the first times I heard him interviewed, I tuned in in the middle of the interview and thought he was one of our African American players until the announcer repeated his name.
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FearLeon
1/25/2025 11:39 AM
Andrew Ruck wrote:expand_more
Does Pav have a pulse ? He’s curiously talented, unconventional in size and big in heart.
Also I have to say it...He is from rural central Wisconsin and yet sounds like he is from inner city Chicago. All my family is from the same fox valley region he is and when I heard him talk it completely blew my mind.
This is true and made me laugh. Part of the PAV charm.
Last Edited: 1/25/2025 11:40:10 AM by FearLeon
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SBH
1/25/2025 11:54 AM
Not part of the charm are his ballhandling skills. Lost us one game by dribbling off his foot, had three dribbling related TOs yesterday. I'd like to see someone else bring up the ball against the press.
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GraffZ06
1/25/2025 12:43 PM
SBH wrote:expand_more
Not part of the charm are his ballhandling skills. Lost us one game by dribbling off his foot, had three dribbling related TOs yesterday. I'd like to see someone else bring up the ball against the press.
What? You don't enjoy a PG who can't beat anybody above D2 off the dribble and commits 6 turnovers, 1 in a crucial spot with 30 seconds left of a 1 possession game? Blasphemy. At least he's a defensive stopper.

First time my brother has seen this team in person this year and he had these comments.

1) How do we have NOBODY that can rebound? If I were Boals, we'd be doing block out drills for about 8 hours straight until they figure it out.

2) Do we have any other offensive play besides dribble around, get trapped, hoist up a 3 and have everybody stand around and watch it? That must be play #1. Maybe try play #2, where we feed the post and swing the ball, every once in awhile.

3) We won that game at the free throw line. Good thing Kent was terrible there.

4) Good thing VonCameron Davis was hobbled with his ankle and on the bench with foul trouble basically the entire first half.



Side note, my own observations. AJ Brown carried us offensively in the first half. Sure would be nice if he put 2 halves like that together and used this opportunity without Clayton to just become "the man" we all think he could be. He also had 4 turnovers (bad), but 4 steals (great!)....but 1 rebound and 0 assists (typical). He's gotta find ways to rebound and contribute beyond scoring. He's too athletic and too good to be so one dimensional.

We lose that game by double digits if not for Vic Searls. I'm perfectly comfortable with him starting, and while he's not All-MAC, our offense just runs so much more efficiently when he's getting touches. He's either scoring on the block, or drawing fouls, or forcing the D to trap/move and allows for passing lanes for open shots. He only had 1 TO last night. Good job big fella.

Ajay Sheldon is just flat out in a shooting slump. Down to 30% now on the season and trending south quickly. He was scrappy and important on the D side though. Perfect example of someone playing hard, but not playing well. He HAS to start hitting 3s for us to win games moving forward, because neither Reef nor Pavs is a real threat from out there, and we're going to have to out-shoot teams if we're going to get out-rebounded 45-25 every night.
Last Edited: 1/25/2025 12:47:31 PM by GraffZ06
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Bobcat Love's Sense of Shame
1/25/2025 1:06 PM
GraffZ06 wrote:expand_more
We lose that game by double digits if not for Vic Searls. I'm perfectly comfortable with him starting, and while he's not All-MAC, our offense just runs so much more efficiently when he's getting touches. He's either scoring on the block, or drawing fouls, or forcing the D to trap/move and allows for passing lanes for open shots. He only had 1 TO last night. Good job big fella.
Took a look, and it looks like our single best 5 man lineup from an offensive efficiency standpoint is Clayton/Elmore/Reef/Searls/Sheldon.

But that lineup has a pretty serious sample-size issue-- they've only had 22 offensive possessions. They're also basically a net nuetral lineup (164.7 Off Eff vs. 164.2 Def Eff).

If you look at lineups with 35+ offensive possessions (35 is pretty arbitrary, admittedly. Not sure what a reflective sample size is here), our top two lineups, our best lineup in terms of offensive efficiency is AJB/Clayton/Hadaway/James/Pavs.

Interestingly, we don't have a single lineup with a positive net efficiency rating unless you include very seldom used lineups with less than 20 total possessions.


Edit:

Another thing that jumps out as interesting: all of our worst defensive lineups include Searls. Though, I don't think the data includes last night.
Last Edited: 1/25/2025 1:20:48 PM by Bobcat Love's Sense of Shame
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Bobcat Love
1/25/2025 1:13 PM
Tough watch, but a great win! Any win over Kent is quality, and to do it short-handed showed a lot of grit. Very happy last night!
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GraffZ06
1/25/2025 1:18 PM
Bobcat Love's Sense of Shame wrote:expand_more
We lose that game by double digits if not for Vic Searls. I'm perfectly comfortable with him starting, and while he's not All-MAC, our offense just runs so much more efficiently when he's getting touches. He's either scoring on the block, or drawing fouls, or forcing the D to trap/move and allows for passing lanes for open shots. He only had 1 TO last night. Good job big fella.
Took a look, and it looks like our single best 5 man lineup from an offensive efficiency standpoint is Clayton/Elmore/Reef/Searls/Sheldon.

But that lineup has a pretty serious sample-size issue-- they've only had 22 offensive possessions. They're also basically a net nuetral lineup (164.7 Off Eff vs. 164.2 Def Eff).

If you look at lineups with 35+ offensive possessions (35 is pretty arbitrary, admittedly. Not sure what a reflective sample size is here), our top two lineups, our best lineup in terms of offensive efficiency is AJB/Clayton/Hadaway/James/Pavs.

Interestingly, we don't have a single lineup with a positive net efficiency rating unless you include very seldom used lineups with less than 20 total possessions.
Oh for sure, Vic has his own defensive issues which get reflected in the stats you stated above.

I meant post-Clayton injury.
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Bobcat Love's Sense of Shame
1/25/2025 1:22 PM
GraffZ06 wrote:expand_more
Oh for sure, Vic has his own defensive issues which get reflected in the stats you stated above.

I meant post-Clayton injury.
Makes sense. I don't think we can even put together a lineup that makes any sense without Searls post-Clayton & Hadaway injuries. Evans just isn't ready yet -- the lineup data with him makes that abundantly clear.
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71 BOBCAT
1/25/2025 3:10 PM
Like many on this board, last night's game proved to all, including the team, what can be accomplished with energy and desire despite losing 2 starters.
The players stepped up big time.




GO BOBBCATS
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Pataskala
1/25/2025 4:13 PM
Probably the best defensive effort of the season, given that they were short-handed. 19 turnovers (eight more than Kent's average), 35% from the field, just 16% from three. It helped that Kent couldn't hit a bull in the butt with a base fiddle from the FT line. Will need another effort like that Tuesday.

Rebounding is still an issue. Kent had as many offensive rebounds as Ohio had defensive rebss (22). Will need to do better Tuesday. Some of our better teams had guards who could crash the boards (DJ and Preston, for two). We could use more of that from this team.

Eight assists on 17 made FGs is a good percentage but the numbers are low. Probably can't beat Toledo with those numbers. Toledo's fourth in the MAC in scoring at 78 pts per MAC game.
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Andrew Ruck
1/28/2025 11:27 AM
Our game at Kent on 2/15 has been moved to Friday 2/14 for the CBS Sports game. I hate this for home games but actually kind of like it for away games.
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