Some observations against Oakland:

DJ:  showing his value with13 assists without any fanfare. Seems he continues to increase his passing repertoire too. 

Rico: My personal MVP, despite playing only 12 minutes. Only guy who could shut down Bader who played all 40 minutes, scoring almost half of Oakland's points. Rico also active on offense with two follow-up rebounds and put backs. Seven points and 5 boards in 12 minutes. Maybe his pt deserves to be increased?

John Smith, due to foul trouble, played only 8 minutes. Oakland seemed to score underneath at will without him, put backs and alley-oops. We need him in there, and will also need Kadeem's presence to shore up one of our big weaknesses, defending the inside game.

Also noticed Big John has won every opening tap this year at the Convo (and probably both away games  too since we shot first in those two games).

When Reggie is awake out there, he can be dominating as noted by the last 10 minutes of this game. Team leading 8 boards along with 10 points. 

Ivo: what happened to the low post game play we saw earlier in the season and last year? Shouldn't we at least look for matchup opportunities to see if that is a strategy that might work at times? 

Like the way Christian kept his cool against some ridiculous foul calls against us.

Crowd of 5346 not that impressive given the number of season ticket sales, plus it was a Saturday game. (I know, any MAC school would drool for our numbers). But it doubled the UCLA-Texas attendance in Houston.

My biggest surprise of the day was not EMU's win over Purdue, but Groce's 9-0 Illini going out West and handling previously unbeaten Gonzaga. Never saw that one coming. What Groce showed tonight and what he showed at OHIO, is college ball starts with better guard play.

Also agree with most of the takeaways. Add:

Good spacing on offense - led to multiple possessions with great ball movement that got to wide open looks. Nick missed a couple wide open looks he would typically make, plus others as well, but we made a good % of them. If we are moving to position quickly, making snappy passes, rotating quickly, get some penetration and either shoot or pass quickly off of that - sure makes up for lack of bulk and strength inside on set offense plays.

Still issues establishing position/blocking out in the paint - when opponent shoots, and, continually frustrating to me, when WE shoot. Rico though in his short minutes seems to be the most aggressive player on the team when it comes to instinctively wanting to crash the boards. My son and I talked all game long about how many times we had No One w/in 12 feet of the basket after a shot (OUr or Their shot). We still have too much "reaching" for rebounds, need to establish position, quickly, with the "BODY". I remember one play where Petros backed Keely at least 8 feet back out of the paint to be in position to get the rebound. JC immediately yanked Keely. Musta got the message across - Keely manned up better, or at least spun around/back in position better the rest of the game.  

I'm with you on TJ Hall.  He does seem to be a clutch type guy.  Also seems to do it quietly.