No rebounds.
No made free-throws.
You sit AJ Brown during the two crucial stretches of the halves where JMU extended the lead to 13-17 points? Huh? If you want to compete on the road and have a chance to win quality non-con games, don't you want your best players on the floor for 30+ minutes?
We don't foul down 7 with one minute left to extend the game. That is a head-scratcher.

Elmore 22 minutes. AJ Brown 22 minutes...huh?

And with all that it got interesting with 80 seconds left.

Emphasis in practice this week.

Free throws.
Rebounding.
Stop dribble penetration.

James Madison has been bringing in some quality players both in Football and Basketball. The new coach seems to be a quality hire too. Apparently, their basketball facility is "NBA quality," whatever that means. Ohio has got potential, but I feel that they lost this game in the first half and spent the rest of the game trying to get back into it. Same old problem at this level, which is inconsistency. If we can tackle that, this team should be competitive throughout the year. It's early in the season, mind you, but James Madison looks really good.

If JM had such size superiority why not play Hadaway, Searls and Clayton and two guards?

Was in the arena tonight. "NBA Quality"??, not really. Reminds me of Toledo with better seating. Had an ok crowd there. Nice they put the students behind both baskets. For an 8,000 seat arena, almost the entire 2nd level was empty. Maybe 5,000 in attendance for a 32-4 team from last year.

Our bench, all 3 players, didn't do too much tonight. Our front court shut down their 2 6-11 Centers for the 1st half. Searls lone bucket on the block looked great, but not much else.

Paveletzke and Mitchell looked very good on Defense. Need more minutes from AJ Brown. Once he got going in the 2nd half he looked very good. Kind of absent in the 1st half.

BIG PICTURE ...

Not a bad road night overall for the MAC in the challenge getting 4 road wins w/Akron just missing a 5th in OT.

Miami, Central, Kent winning indicates MAC middle might be pretty tough this season. Buffalo getting a road win is HUGE considering they are likely worst team in the league.

If MAC can win 6 or 7 when the series flips in February, then all should be good. Should expect the Cats, Toledo and Akron to win returns at home. Add CMU, Miami and Kent and that's six. Anything after that is gravy.

Good job, MAC.

My biggest takeaway is AJ Brown absolutely is the X-factor to this season's success. He looked easily the most ready for the moment. Maybe the limited minutes were due to conditioning, but if they aren't, he needs to be a 30 minute guy.

To a lesser extent Hadaway also appeared up for the moment. I thought he got a raw deal on some foul calls. I made the BOLD prediction he would begin the season on a tear and I stand by that. Gotta make the free throws...

With a little over a minute left, we were down 10. I looked at the box score and at that point we were 7/15 from the line. Unacceptable for D1 scholarship players. Loud arena or not. If we're 11/15 at that point, it's an entirely different ball game.

Impressed with Jackson's ability to get to the paint, but I didn't see anything to indicate he can consistently set up the rest of the offense. And can our little guards stop trying to be post players when they get too far in? Can't stand watching us try to weasel up off balance scoop layups. Jackson tried that against their Demarcus Cousins look-alike in the first half and that went about as you'd expect.

On that note, as it stands now, our "bigs" next season are Hadaway, three guys not currenty in the rotation - two of which are hovering around only 200 pounds, and an incoming 6'7'' freshman. Are we going to honor a 14th scholarship? If not, we are going to have to drastically change our philosophies.

0 minutes for Nicol. That's not a good sign after a healthy redshirt year. If he can't establish himself in the rotation, it very well could be a portal entry in April.

Was Burris in a boot?

I'm not so hard on Elmore, physically. He had a good drive in the second half that just rolled off. I don't like the contested mid range jumpers. I hope he's healthy enough for a better shot selection. And we should not be sacrificing AJB minutes just so Elmore can play.

Would it have helped to get in an exhibition game against a D3? Why didn't that happen. Anyway, it was encouraging to not roll over and die after JMU went on their runs. In a way this game reminded me of the LSU game a few years ago. Shake it off for Asheville. I think we win that one comfortably.

Thought I would give out some grades for last nights game.

Hadaway - B+
Solid game from Captain Chaos. shot efficiently from the floor and from 3, competed on defense, no turnovers, needs to be stronger on the boards if he's going to play the 4, also 0-4 from the charity stripe isn't going to get it done. I think he'll get that turned around though.

Clayton - D-
Really rough showing from our preseason all team MAC guy, never settled in and looked comfortable, got taken advantage of defensively by JMU's bigs, looked super passive on offense, wasn't strong on the boards. 4 assists is encouraging and could be a nice wrinkle to his game, but I'll look for him to bounce back on Saturday.

AJ Brown - B
Didn't miss a shot from the floor and was 2-3 from the stripe, only problem is that he only took 5 shots, I think he'll be more aggressive offensively as the season wears on and he gets more comfortable after his injury.

Paveletzke - B-
Finished with a nice enough stat line but there is certainly some room for improvement. Good touch around the rim with a good handle but he was definitely bothered by JMUs size inside. 1 assist to 3 TOs isn't super promising if he's supposed to be running point but I'm a wait and see on his passing potential right now. I think his defensive potential as a small short armed guard is going to be a concern for most of the year. Seemed to have a lot of trouble fighting over screens.

Shereef - B
Efficient night, pesky on defense, tossed in some tough buckets, 4 steals, 3 assists but with 3 TOs as well. pretty normal Shereef game. Would like to see him and Pav shoot some more 3s.

Searls - C+
Nothing he did will jump out at you but if you can't tell that he's better than the Wiz already we were watching a different game. Set good screens, minimal boneheaded plays. Would like to see him be stronger on the glass but it's only one game so far. His post bucket was nice, curious to see how much they look to him to score. I'd expect him to improve throughout the year as he adjusts from D2 to D1.

Elmore - F
Didn't provide much of anything out there, love the guy, but as others have mentioned, shot selection is key. Would love to see him be more of a catch and shoot guy, as it seems he often barrels downhill without a plan and has to throw up a tough look. If he doesn't improve quickly, he's the most likely candidate to have a freshman eat into his minutes in my opinion.

Sheldon - B
Played well in limited minutes, seemed more comfortable with the ball in his hands than last year, scrapped and competed on defense, no turnovers, solid all around.

You saw what I saw. A month from now we won’t have any memory of this game. But the potential looks great. Two capable point guards, a couple of explosive shooting guards, two excellent front court guys and a center who looked at home in his first division 1 game. The hustle on defense was there, we just need to tighten it up. Certainly no need to panic.

Agreed on all points.

The 1st half was bad - they went ice cold and JMU went red hot from 3 to bury OU early and they had to climb out the rest of the way. I'm sure that effected a lot of what Boals had hoped to do rotationally, but Nicol and Evans not seeing the floor was a bit of a surprise - but to me that says they aren't ready to "figure it out" when you're down 15-20 and fighting to get back.

I wouldn't be shocked to see Evans in the rotation next game. SOMEONE has to rebound and it can't be the 6'1" PG. Hadaway had one rebound until the final possession of the game. AJC was fairly non-existent, but managed 5 rebounds. He's just not a tough guy inside and never has been. Was hoping to see Searls camp out, but we didn't get that either. He'll hopefully find his footing and his place. Like we screamed about all last season - we literally just need someone to rebound, set screens, and put your hands in the air to adjust shots.

And for the millionth time, we need someone with a killer instinct - like Brown was for JMU, just stepping up and burying shots every time they needed one. Hopefully someone can shake AJB and tell him how good he is, kid needs the greenlight to do whatever he wants. Shoot it 15-20 times. Just get to the hoop. Kid went 5-5 in 20 mins. UNLEASH.

For those who watch Netflix documentaries, I can't get over Pav's resemblance to Paul ("Paw Paw") Murdaugh of the infamous South Carolina Murdaugh clan.

Was curious about this and I can't find a season other than the Covid year where we didn't play at least one exhibition first. I'm sure there is one but it's been a while.

Obviously not the results we wanted but overall I thought it was a decent night. We looked like it was our first game of the season and I suspect a much different result next game.

The offense needs some work but that is to be expected on opening night. JMU went off from 3 in the first half and we were sloppy with the ball, the perfect recipe to get down 20+. We really only played one bad half so its not all bad.

I am concerned about our 3 point shooting, we need to find ways to get Clayton open looks, he has the ability to lead the league from deep and we just didn't get him enough looks. He was 1 for 3 but needs to be taking 6-7 a night, IMO. Hadaway took 6 last night to add some perspective. Sheldon also only took 1 attempt, he needs at least 4-5 a night as well or his minutes are wasted.

We got dominated on the glass as well. I think we were a step slower and were out of position a lot of the night. JMU is quick and athletic so that was a tough test out of the gate, I'm not worried and think we see improvement there sooner than later.

Did the fans have it out for Hadaway? Thought I kept hearing them chanting "#10 you suck"