About layups, face it Offut is 6'3" so he is not real big when going against the trees. Same with Keoolog.  The reason why dj is effective is, he knows when to pass/who to pass to when he drives the lane.  As for our bigs, they are SOFT.  Always have been and always will be.  We were a poor rebounding team last year and that has not changed.  Also, we are a finesse team and Akron is a power team.  Tonight, power won out. 

It does ll come down to Cleveland though so we better figure out a way to guard them...we gave up 86 points!  72 wins a lt of games but not this one.

  Actually his body language during a game kind of reminds me of HuggyBear.  I remember thinking this when he was at Kent State.

this is all crazy talk, the last 4 years Akron is 3-1 at home, we're 2-1 at home, losing at their house is disappointing but isn't a cause for concern. When they start beating us by 24 and 25 points at home like we have beat them in our house the past 2 years then I'll start to concede that they might be better than us. Until then, it's business as usual- they're a quality team that played a great game today and earned a win, my hat's off to them. But their fans weren't jumping around like the Nintendo kid at Christmas because we're not a great team. Stop with this blame game moping.

Come into our house and keep the score within 20 points and then we'll have a conversation about which is the better team. Check that, come to Athens and get a win, win in Cleveland and then win a game or two in the Tournament, and then we can start talking about who's better.

GO OHIO

FOr the first time in years,,, I am not.

Frankly, I'm appalled that he only wears white shirts.  Gives the team the wrong impression that we're just going to run a plain vanilla offense.  He needs to shake it up with some colors or (gasp) stripes!  Mix it up a little, JC.

Well, here's my thoughts on our inside game:

M. Endour 6'8
W. Mompremier 6'9
A. Campbell 6'8
T. Setty 6'9

Think the coaches saw a need?

Not only was there a need to recruit big men for next year, I think this is the direction you'll see JC recruiting moving forward.  He's going to go more physical/bigger and less finesse type hoops moving forward.  I don't remember his KSU teams all that well, but I think we'll look more like Akron in the years to come vs. what we look like today.  More banging, more pushing, more shoving and less Ivo & Smith types.  Just a hunch.

Yes to both questions.  Keely is a monster at times, but he's just one guy.    I don't think its crazy to think we need more.  Wouldn't you want another Keely?

We are good team.  We were second or third best in the MAC last year and gelled and got hot and went on one hell of a run.  Right now we are in a good position to do the same thing me thinks.

Oh boy.  This time last year did you really think we were easily the best team in the MAC?  And ready to run to the Sweet 16 and almost topple North Carolina?  We got hot and went on a roll.  That's not an insult.  That's what virtually all champions do. Hell just last night I watched a team who fired their offensive coordinator a few weeks ago win the Super Bowl.  Why?  They gelled and went on a roll.

Sounds like you have given up the ship very early this year.  Lots of games to go, including Akron visiting in late February, just like last year. 

First off, yes I did think we were the best team this time last year.   I didn't predict we would have a Sweet 16 run but go back and watch our wins over Michigan and USF.  We didn't particularly play great in those games and yet still were the better team in each of those games.  Against UNC we played extremely well in the second half but they clearly had much better personnel. Michigan and USF didn't.  The biggest thing we had last year was an identity and it was our defense and toughness.  It kept us in every game even if we weren't shooting well.   That is the main difference between last year and this year.  We aren't consistently good on defense.  I can't tell you why it is different but it is.  Our rotations aren't nearly as flawless as they were last year.  On offense I actually think we are better this year but we still are a jumpshooting team and jumpshooting teams tend to be streaky.  The problem is that so far we haven't been able to rely on our defense to get us through the streaky games.  We've given up 80 points 4 times this year compared to once last year.

As to whether I've given up the ship, hardly.  I'm just saying that we are not clearly better than Akron like we were last year IMO.  We might be able to get there but we've got to get better and more consistent.

Fair enough.  And, I agree our D isn't as consistent as last year.

Until I see something different - I started the season thinking we would not see a lot of "coaching" of this team/returning seniors. Sorta the "if it works, don't fix it" mentality (and JC has made statements to that effect). What has anyone seen that is evidence to the contrary, any "fixes"?