Great win! Pavs again saves the day with his FT shooting down the stretch. Simmons looked good, especially on offense. His D seems sporadic -- good sometimes, and mind-numbing bad at other times. It seems to me that he's slowing coming around to look like he did when he played for UT. Sheldon looked very good on offense with a few threes, and then he starts bombing from beyond NBA range in a very uncontrolled fashion. Burris had some very impressive moments in the first half. His star seems to be rising. I agree with those who think Kuany should be getting more time. However, I'm now beginning to believe in the upside of this team.

I can't believe that arrogant UMass has started out 0-4 in MAC play. For years their hoops was too good to be brought along with football to the MAC. And, this year their very impressive non-conference record would seem to have said that they were going to be one of the MAC's best or maybe the best. So far, that has not proved to be the case. I would not be surprised if they pull things together and are the team to beat in Clevland.

Umass is NOT trash. Far from it. It is wild that they are 0-4. I think they are going to return home and take out all their frustrations and absolutely murder Ball State on Saturday.

Really like what we saw from the offense, ball movement to create open looks and then actually MAKING them for a change.

Simmons was the player of the game. Super productive in the paint, bringing a double yteam defense in the 2nd half that limited him but he still contributed with some really good boards and a key chase down of a long loose ball.

If you consider JJ & Burris one player (they were mostly 1 for 1 subbing last night), they are the player of the game which is exciting from 2 freshmen. 10-14 (5 for 8 from 3) 27 points. I continue to believe JJ is the best pure basketball player on this roster with a super high ceiling. For Burris, I am excited for the shot-making ability and he seems to play pretty good defense.

Pavs was the clutch guy again with the big 3 and swishing the free throws. He struggled to get shots up. I usually don't like fadeaways much but his is so high percentage he should do it more often when he can't get to the rim.

Hadaway 3 bad games in a row but this one especially bad. He has had butterfingers and poor court vision to go with the continued hoisting of 3s. He is shooting more than 50% more than last year and more than 75% more attempts from 3. He needs to get back to the type of player he was the last 2 seasons. I'm not dumping on him to the extent others are, and expecting him to sit down beyond normal rest is delusional - Not gonna happen. But as I said before, he is streaky and emotional and those type of players need some nuance and flexibility to their playing time. Before you go throwing him in the trash can, understand there will be games this season that we will win behind a dominating performance from Hadaway.

Very happy to escape with this one. This was my expectation in the predictions thread - "1-6 start sky is falling, then 10 game winning streak we are the greatest ever, then standard home/away MAC experience down the stretch." Pretty much exactly as I expected minus the BG loss. To that point, just as we over-panicked at the 1-6 mark, we should not get overly excited at the 8 out of 9 run and understand the tougher road ahead. Buffalo will be another tough one, gotta protect home court.

This is where I am with Hadaway. I'm not sure if it's him or Boals, but he's far too prone to trying to run the offense. I suspect the coaching staff -- rightly -- has asked him to step up as a senior leader, but he's trying to do too many things he's just not good at. And he's doing them at a high volume. He's our third option on offense, and should be getting his points as a slasher and on second chance points.

That said, there's no world where he should be sitting. Hadaway is our best and most versatile defensive player and needs to be on the floor. I don't understand what people are seeing in Kuany that makes them think he can do even half of what Hadaway does.

My hope is that last night's success on offense makes the path forward clear. Offense through Pavs and Simmons, with Hadaway and Kelly as 3rd and 4th options. Breath to spell Simmons because of how hard he has to work on offense, and then nothing but shooters off the bench -- Burris and Connors.

Even if he's healthy, I think Elliott should be the odd man out. He just destroys the spacing, and we looked a lot better last night with shooters that have gravitational pull for the defense.

I'd still like to Breath alongside Simmons for a few runs a game. To your point, Simmons works hard on offense. Breath can co-exist with that by taking on the opposing teams best post player defensively.

*Bump

Hate the dumb technical to foul out during his career game. But we called this performance. Captain Chaos doing Captain Chaos things.

Agree…love Captain Chaos, but he’s a senior now and he still shouldn’t be doing this stuff. The coaching staff has to be on this as well.

With all that said, Captain Chaos delivered big time against Buffalo.

You bumped the wrong quote.