Use this thread to talk about anything game-related.

Date: January 18th, 2012  7:00 PM

Opponent: Kent St.    (12-4, 2-1 MAC)

Site: Convocation Center

TV: SportsTimeOhio, ESPN Full Court, ESPN3.com

Radio:  Ohio Radio

Webcast: Free at OhioBobcats.com

Kent State's media guide, roster and statistics. 

Fan site: KentStateReport   

Yes, it's a long season, but I don't think you need an lol at the end there. In the context of our hopes of grabbing a bye, yes, it's absolutely a must win game. East roadies are tough enough. Can't lose ANY at home. Will we ever start hitting shots again?

 We've gotta have this game! I'm hoping to sneak out of work early and make it in time.  I would absolutely love to see Walt Offut drive strong to the bucket like he did a few times in the 2nd half at Akron...he looked great doing that.  Ivo needs to start making STRONG post moves.  He has great footwork, but seems content to shoot fade-aways?  I think our defense lately has been acceptable, though it wouldn't hurt for Ivo or Reggie to grab 10 rebounds like we know they're capable of.  Cannot explain how excited I am for this game. A MUST WIN! Go Bobcats.

I don't know that we deserve a lot of respect at this point.  All week leading up to the Akron game, their fans were predicting we'd come in and chuck up a bunch of threes.  They specifically pointed to DJ's shooting percentage and welcomed him to keep on keeping on.  And they were right.

I think this is part of the learning process for Ivo. The fade is nice coming off working to the right then pivoting to the left.  But several times he showed a really nice up and under move that I think he can be much more effective with and maybe get to the line more with it.  He just needs to identify the best move for the situation.

           Bring on Thug U ! 

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Dennis 'G'

Kent is a very good team but they are not world beaters.  If we play good defense, play with intensity, keep them from killing us with stickbacks on offensive rebounds, and shoot a little better than we have been, we have a good shot at winning this game. 

Except for, of course, the fact that we didn't really "chuck up a bunch of threes."  With 30 seconds to go in the game we had taken 16.  7 of those 16 were taken by Nick Kellogg.  If we had blocked out better we would have ended up taking only 16.   We didn't block out and we took 21 and people who weren't paying are thinking we took too many threes.

Interesting how similar these two teams are statistically. (I'm baiting JSF to find an exception).

OUVan:  

Akron shot 11 threes, we shot 21.

Akron was hitting threes at a .397 percentage going into the game, we were at .331.

A larger percentage of our shots were threes.

I'd say that's pretty definitive.

First of all, what difference does it make how many threes Akron takes?   I agree that on occasion we rely on the three too much but Saturday's game wasn't one of them.  Your assertion was that we would chuck up a bunch of threes and for most of the game that wasn't true.  The five we took in the last minute skewed the number.  The problem is that we have gone from a good shooting team to a terrible shooting team overnight.   Going into the Robert Morris game were were shooting .374 as a team.  In the last four games we are shooting .191 from three with many of those misses coming from previously good shooters.

Prior to the last four games D.J. Cooper, T.J. Hall, Ricardo Johnson, Stevie Taylor and Walter Offutt were collectively shooting .335 from three.  That is a good percentage.  It translates to a .503 effective FG percentage. In the last four games those five players are shooting 8-60 or .133.  Remove Cooper and the other four are 2-32.  I just can't believe that's going to continue.  And unfortunately we don't have the dominant bigs where we can foresake the three and just keep pounding it inside.  IMO we just have to keep running the offense and when an open three presents itself you have to take it.  

But back to the original point.  The reason we lost on Saturday was not because we took too many threes.

Personally, I expected a win at the BGSUcks, and I would guess most people did as well.  No matter, need to win the next two (really four) if getting one of those four byes is an aspiration.  Hopefully we see a really good defensive and rebounding effort.

We would benefit if wed hit some of our inside looks and we are not getting back on defense to save our lives