Sheldon has made 5 of his last 28 attempts.

Short leash Kuany. No leash Hadaway. Make it make sense.

It would be fun to see what Kuany could do with a better coaching staff.

Or strength/conditioning - like 20-30 more lbs on his frame....

Suffering through another Bobcat loss (and not looking good in the process), I debated with myself which is more cringe-worthy: watching Hadaway throw up another attempt from behind the arc (where he's hitting 26% on the year) or watching him eat up the shot clock as he backs his defender down and his teammates become spectators.

And Hadaway is 3 for 18 from 3 in the last 4 games.

If I were Boals, I would walk him to the free throw line and say, " Every time you shoot from further out than here, you owe me 200 pushups."

Home from Kent and another loss in the MAC Center.

This game was there to be taken.

We held (actually and figuratively) a high scoring team to a reasonable score.

The turning point was tied score with the ball and Simmons decided to run over the defender--and then it was all Kent. Then soon after, Simmons went for a steal of an incoming pass, missed and the Kent player went in for the dunk and the and one.

Was awesome seeing JJ play with lots of energy and I'd say he passed up a few threes that I'd have told him to let fly. He and the others had some swell blocks.

Kuany's lankiness led to several deflected balls and he looks smooth letting the 3 ball fly. Too bad he completely muffed stuffing the ball before he caught it.

So many missed opportunities of muffs and stumbles in the first half when we shot a hot 25%. Too many offensive rebounds given up to have a real good chance to win plus the fouls. We at least looked much better than vs the Zips where there was ZERO defense by anyone.

We miss Reef sooooo much. If his defense and scoring was happening nightly, we'd be in a better place.

JJ Kelly and Simmons, another portal BIG and a 6'3" POINT who can distribute and play lockdown defense and we'll be in the hunt when adding in the pieces already on the roster and coming in as freshman.

I noticed we couldn't avoid getting ourselves into double teams and had no answer for the times we did.

Final thoughts through a few key subtle stats that I feel exemplifies this team and why it is struggling (and all of these can be attributed to a lack of offensive identity and lacksadaisical coaching style:
1. Sheldon plays 33 minutes and gets ZERO rebounds? I feel like I could walk on the court at age 50 and play 33 minutes and get one rebound. Pavs had 8.
2. Hadaway gets 14 shots. Simmons gets 13. Sheldon gets 7 shots and Conners and Burris each get 6 shots. How many shots did Pavs take? He took 6. How in the heck do we have the fourth-leading scorer in the MAC and only get the dude 6 shots, ranking him 5th on the team in attempts? But I also show this stat:
3. Pavs only had four free throw attempts. I know they double him but there were times when he could have taken shots and passed out instead. He has a smooth stepback and outside shot. Is he just mailing it in? Has Boals put a leash on him for some weird reason? I just know he is as good of a scorer as we've had here and the dude disappeared offensively.
4. We forced 20 turnovers and yet only had 8 assists?
5. This backing down and running 10 to 12 seconds off the clock offense has to stop. Please, if Boals does nothing else the rest of the year, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE tell Hadaway to stop backing people down. I am sick of seeing him do it, our guys clear out and then he bricks a shot. Simmons and Pavs are guilty of it as well but they can finish.

What makes you think Kelly and Simmons are coming back?

I am not convinced of that at all.

Man, I love Jack. Especially on *this team. He is all effort. Of course, his defense isn't stellar, but he does everything else at a high level. He TRIES. He TRIES HARD. Him leading the team in rebounds says a lot about the team, and a lot about him.

He didn't take a lot of shots, no one was hitting shit, so he stopped jacking up errant bricks and started doing everything else. And led the team in rebounds... as a 6'2" guard. What on earth are we doing out here.

As for the rest of the team... holy shit. I've literally never seen anything like it. This is the most confident group of bad shooters I've ever seen. It's like watching my nephews U10 team. Just jacking shit up from all corners. Missed your previous 8 shots? No worries man. Here comes a 32 foot fully contested launch.

As much as I want to yell at Boals for the awful minute distribution, good lord I don't even know what you do in this situation.

If I was Boals... flip a table, flip a chair, flip the entire line-up. No one deserves to start other than Jack. Minimum effort at both ends. And thats easy to say from my couch, but cmon man... Kent State didn't even play well. Jesus they shot 38% and won by 15.

I'm sending a clear message. Starters aren't starting. You are all on the bench. Bench guys this is your chance to make a stamp and prove youre a D1 athlete. This is Day 1. You all have to earn it. Who ever practices hardest, plays. That's it. No more sandbagging. If you're gonna lose, at least lose with effort and tenacity.

I'm starting to think he wasn't invited back to Toledo?

I keep going back to a direct quote from Boals after during a press conference after the Arkansas State loss where Sheldon went 2/8 shooting and played 36 minutes. Someone in the room asked him about Sheldon's increased load from the previous season and Boals mentioned his defensive deflections that really help the team. Then he talks about his shooting:

"He got some really good looks. I think he's shooting 48% from three in all of our practices. So we're gonna continue to lean on those guys."

At what point do you turn off the practice film and look at the game film? Some players just practice a lot better than they play. Especially when the guys he's practicing against are nowhere near the competition they face in-game.