Can't say that I blame you...that was tough to watch.  But, they are OUr team so we gotta keep the faith.

My fear, and these doubts are growing by the game, is that we will be saying the same thing in a couple of years.

This Coach needs to get these players playing smarter, more consistent basketball for the whole 40 minutes.  That is one of the primary duties of any college basketball coach!

First time in 13 years of season tickets that I left a game early.  Could stand no more and left with 3 something left.

We are all "done with caring" until the next game starts.  That's the nature of the beast.  Sometimes, teams just have to face great adversity to get to where they want to go, and if this isn't a big wakeup call, then nothing will be.

Senior leadership would help keep the team focused when things start going bad.

A motivator would help get them fired up when the emotion is gone.

Didn't see either out there today, or really all year.

Groce nor the team owe anyone an apology. They are working hard, they are giving a good effort physically, they just are not very good.

Just to follow up a bit more on the talent issue, yesterday UB's run was primarily the work of Byron Mulkey and Zack Filzen.  It wasn't until after our lead had evaporated that UB's interior advantage really came into play down the stretch.  Mulkey is a former walk-on, while Filzen was a Big Sky recruit (Northern Arizona) coming out of HS in Minnesota.  Admittedly, that combo has more experience than Cooper and Kellogg, but I don't think anyone would argue that they are inherently more talented or gifted players.

Similarly, while I'll be the first to admit that this year's squad does not match up on a talent-basis to those of the mid-to-late 80s, mid-to-late 90s, or early-00s, neither does the level of competition we are facing.  Barring a miraculous turnaround (considering that we still have road trips to Oxford, Kent, Buffalo, K-zoo, Mt. Pleasant, and Muncie), we are going to finish below .500 in the MAC for the third straight year, the first time that has happened since 1976-78.  This just happens to coincide with the weakest three-year stretch by the MAC in living memory.  So even if our talent level is down a bit based on historical levels, which I'll concede, given that the MAC as a whole is WAY down we still should not be struggling to just break even in the conference for three straight years. 

Given that, I don't see how anyone can conclude that coaching is not an issue right now at least to some degree.  Hell, arguably our worst team ever (the 5-win 1997-98 team) was able to avoid losing four straight home games, against a significantly tougher MAC (our current four-game home losing streak comes against teams ranked #167, #173, #141, and #99 respectively by Ken Pomeroy). 

In any event, this is the last year that Groce and his apologists can plead a lack of talent.  Next year every player on the roster will have been recruited by JG.  If Groce doesn't win, and win big, the next two years, it is unlikely to ever happen. 

One last thought on the "lack of talent" issue...some of what is being perceived as a lack of talent is actually a system issue.  Throughout its three years, this staff has focused primarily on recruiting high-post bigs, rather than more traditional low block post players.  For example, recruits and targets such as Ivo Baltic, Jon Smith, Ethan Jacobs, Marquis Horne, George Fant, David Chadwick, Danny McElroy, William Green, Griffin McKenzie, Cole Darling, Nate Anderson, Aaron White, and Kyryl Natyazhko are all primarily high-post type bigs.  While players of that type can certainly be quite valuable, they do tend have their limitations, one of which is typically defensive and rebounding toughness in the paint.  That was the book on Kyryl, for instance, even as highly regarded as he was.

So I'm not convinced that our rebounding and interior defense issues each of the three years under Groce are solely talent related.  Sure we'd be better off on the glass if Alex Kellogg had stuck around, and if Reggie Keely were developing faster.  But some of our rebounding and interior defense problems are inherently system related.  For instance, this year Ivo Baltic has generally been quite good, especially for a sophomore big.  I don't think we could have expected much more out of him this year.  Nor could anyone have realistically expected more than another rebound or two per game out of DeVaughn.  But yet, we're still getting slaughtered on the glass.

Thus, in short, the claim that all of our problems simply come down to a lack of talent, and are not at all coaching or system related, is really hard for me to swallow.  There is much more at work here than simply a lack of talent.

Ivo makes a move to the basket every single time he gets the ball within 19 feet of the hoop. Even the announcer said he had "tunnel vision" and looks to score everytime.

Nice free throw by Tunji. Opposite crotch.

Asown plays hard but he doesnt have the talent to play at this level

Kellog played well. Like to see him take more shots and consistently get more minutes.

Keely has cement in his shoes with telephone book hops. He sets basketball back 50 years when he has the ball.

TJ has horrible shot selection.

I would have liked to have seen DJ take over and make more plays in the second half. Note this doenst mean shoot, but more drive and dish. I think he is tired at the end of games.

I really dont understand what happened to Tommy, its like he lost any fundamentals he had over the off season.

Devo played ok yesterday but you never know what kind of effort you are going to get from him.

Groce is still learning x's and o's and how to coach

With certain rotations I almost feel like we are playing 3 against 5 out there.

I'm happy we got Stevie Taylor but we dont need more 5'10 players on this team next year. I dont get it.

Something tells me that Armon Bassett is not coming back! 

Sure, I think we'd have a better record if we had Bassett, Coleman, and A. Kellogg along with the existing roster.  But that doesn't mean that we are getting the most out of the current roster.  I think that the existing talent level is good enough to be better than 5-8 at home, and 8-11 overall.  This team should be beating the likes of Miami, Kent, Robert Morris, and Buffalo at home, even if we might be a bit undermanned.  For example, yesterday's game was completely winable even with this current roster, if the coaching staff had made any meaningful adjustments at either end of the court in the second half. 

Plus, as I've said before, it's not clear to me that the coaching staff had nothing to do with those player defections.  Both AB and Kellogg were recruited by this staff, so Groce & Co. are are at least partially responsible for their defections if for no other reason than the fact that they recruited unreliable players.  As for Coleman, I don't know the inside story of what went on there, but I do find it a little hard to believe that the staff was completely powerless to stop him from leaving, although it's certainly possible.

At the end of the day, it all comes down to results.  This is the third straight season where I feel like the staff is not getting the most out of the players that it has.  I was willing to give them a break in year one.  Year two I gave them some slack for lack of experience, although I think that the March run evidenced that we had way too much talent to finish with a 7-9 MAC record.  By year three, though, this is a trend, and one that I can 't just write off to a continual lack of talent.  Again, by year three any lack of talent is on the coaching staff.

Prior to yesterday, we had never lost 4 straight home games in the history of the Convocation Center, while we haven't lost this many home games since the 1910s.  And unless we manage to go 7-4 the rest of the way in the MAC, we'll have the first back-to-back-to-back string of losing MAC seasons since the mid-1970s.  Again, given how far the MAC has fallen, we shouldn't be setting these kind of records if we were well coached, no matter how far you might think the talent has slipped.

Brian Knorr had the opportunity to coach under Jim Grobe for a decade or more at AF and OU before being elevated to HC.  After he was fired, he said something very much like, "I guess I should have paid closer attention."

How many years did Coach Groce coach under Thad Matta who, at Butler, Xavier and OSU, has shown a certain ability to coach?  Was he not paying sufficient attention -  as to teaching, inspiring, leading, relating, communicating, organizing, administering, motivating and all other components that comprise the package of intangibles? 

We started 1-4 in the MAC last year too...

Anyway, I'll always care.  I'm a fan.