Has anyone seen Kenny Belton in practice yet?  I would love to hear a eyewitness report on how he is playing.  How is his mobility?  I take it the spinal injury is not limiting him.  How is he doing against our bigs?  Is Keeley faster than Kenny?  Can Keeley defend against  Kenney and vice versa.  Same about Jacobs.  How about a report on the progress  of Jacobs from last year?  Has time, conditioning, and a years worth of practice moved his game forward?  Goard would appear to  be a talent that may secure valuable minutes.  How does he look pitted against the others?  Could someoine please sneak into a practice and provide your exclusive to BobcatAttack.com?  I would be grateful for any information or rumors you may have.  Thanks!

So someone can comment and you can correct them.  Typical.  Why not just answer the question?

What's a kerfuffle?

Sounds like a French pastry.

Is Dragon on here anymore?

Did he ever graduate?....Just kiddin Dragon....ya know I luv ya.

Keely regressed last year
Jacobs won't see the florr again this season
& the new addition is over weight & hasn't played in 2 years so how much can we really expect. Maybe a good practice player and that's it.
I don't mean to be negative but I don't have high expectations from this group



GO BOBCATS

I don't really think its fair to say Keely regressed last season... his numbers didn't change significantly from two years ago to last year, and all but FG % improved (FG was down a touch, from 50% to 45%).  The one stat that changed significantly was FT%, which increased a whopping 30 percentage points.

I agree.  It was not so much that Keely regressed.  Rather, it was that he did not have the big increase in his stats that everyone expected.  If he can provide somewhere around 8 and 8 this year next to Baltic, I will consider it a good year for him.  The big thing we need from him is rebounding and defense.  Between Coop, Kellogg, Baltic, Hall/Johnson/Offutt, and the freshman, we should have more than enough scoring.

Actually I thought Reggie clearly did regress last year, but he was still the best of the bad choices we had on the interior.  He seemed lost on the court most of the season.  I have seen him at football games this Fall and he does appear much thinner.  Whether that equates to better basketball is to be seen.

As for Ethan, I was a bit surprised all season at how little confidence the coaching staff had in him all season long.  Even during late game garbage time, he would rarely see the court.  The coaching staff obviously saw him a heck of a lot more than the fans did--so they must not have seen much during practice as they wouldn't put him out on the floor for much more than a few minutes even during irrelevant stretches of games last year.

I think the key to the interior game this year is Jon Smith.  I've heard raving reviews about him, but little on this board when "new players" are being discussed.  When attending the early season games this year, I will be looking at:
1.  Are Jon Smith and Olfutt as good as advertised?
2.  How polished is Goard, another guy we don't see much written about here.
3.  Did Johnson or Hall develop over the offseason?  I'd love to see one or both of them pull a Baltic type off-season improvement.  Both appeared to have potential but were wildly out of control most of the season ala Baltic his Freshman year.

After that I'll peak at Belton, Keely and Jacobs---but I believe the guys listed above will determine what kind of year we're going to have.

	GP	GS	MIN	AVG	FG	FGA	FG%	3PM	3PA	3P%	FTM	FTA	FT%	OREB	DREB	REB	REB/G	PF	FO	A	TO	BLK	STL	PTS	P/G
FR	37	17	602	16.3	83	167	0.497	0	0	0	34	84	0.405	64	94	158	4.3	84	2	19	41	27	12	200	5.4
SO	35	9	641	18.3	72	159	0.453	0	0	0	41	58	0.707	67	95	162	4.6	87	3	25	50	38	18	185	5.3

Numbers don't show regression. I agree with those who said that he just didn't improve as much as most hoped. Across the board his numbers are pretty similar except for a slight drop in field goal percentage that was more than made up for by his improved free throw shooting.

Maybe some of the reason for the thinking he regressed was because he didn't have any huge games like he did as a freshman when he had 16 points and 20 rebounds against Akron. But I think the numbers show he was maybe more consistent. There were games as a freshman where he didn't put up any numbers at all.

He lost a good deal of weight between his freshman and sophomore years also. I think there was some adjustment for him there, but I think in the long run, a trimmer Keely will be good for him. I think we could see vast improvement this year.

How dare you impugn the play of Patrick Swatman Flomo and the importance of his play.  Any team we've had lately would have been a lot better with that type of Flomogenization.

Agree that inside presence hasn't been a recent strength. That was my point. Also probably worth mentioning here that Flomo was a few inches taller than Smith and played alongside Brandon Hunter. Which speaks to how the team's recruiting philosophy has changed. We used to be a frontcourt-oriented team for a long time. Not really passing judgment on that - either way can be effective as we've seen. I do question, though, if being guard/wing/speed oriented is a limiting factor when you get to the level of playing a team such as Tennessee in March that does it even better. I was basically saying that Belton is the only potential "space heater" I'm aware of on this team and IMO you need some ability to play that game. 

Hey speaking of Flomogenization....what ever happened to one of our most prolific posters, Flomo-Genenized?