Not quite all--the game was there to win if free throws are made.

Agreed.  But the only thing that really sticks out to me is how awful we are at rebounding the basketball.

- DVW played well.  It's amazing what he can do when he stays out of foul trouble.

- Anyone who still thinks Cooper shouldn't have the green light is crazy.  He kept us in this game with his long ball, as well as his incredible scoring instincts.

- Tommy was solid as always. 

-Baltic showed some nice moves.  He is improving, and this gives me hope for the road ahead.

However, we play terrible defense.  Anytime we needed a big stop, we either did not get it (probably 2/3 of the time) or we did get it, only to give up an offensive rebound.

Growing pains will be tough.  You can see the talent, but the chemistry and another 2-3 viable options need to appear on a consistent basis if we have any chance at sustaining victories.  I'm thinking a .500 record in the MAC is what we're looking at, and if things go well, we may have a chance at clicking up in Cleveland.

It's absolutely devastating to see us drop games in the Convo though.  This, above all other things, drives me nuts the most.  WE DO NOT LOSE AT HOME.  Learn it.

To me the way that we give up offensive rebounds is due to poor defense.  The other side gets good position because we don't play good defense (too many holes, too much letting them get free near the rim) and we don't box out.

And that it keeps happening and is only not a problem when we're shooting quite well--that is not a good sign.

Improvement?


vidcast was choppy today so those who were there live may have better comments

No argument about the rebounding which obviously takes effort, positioning and skill.  But free throw shooting, heck fat kids and girls can do that!

LeBron James would drive me nuts watching him and DJ has the same style.  Consider a marksman taking an 8th of a second to sight and shoot when he has virtually no time limit on getting it all right.  DJ fires it up without extended focus.

The coach should show DJ videos of MAC stud Earl Boykins and how he shoots the lights out on the freebies.  He puts the ball under his arm and stairs at the front of the rim, he breathes deeply calming himself and concentrates, always keeping his eye on the rim then whack, 90%!  Screw that hot doggin dribblin look and throw it up like LeBron.  

Some guy rolled 3 consecutive 300 games and most bowlers throw 7-9 strikes every game.  Why can't any basketball player worth his salt knock down 8-10 and never miss two in a row?  Don't give me the tired routine because athletes in the biathlon are huffing and puffing and hitting the bullseye when its time to shoot.

some observation from my seat infront of my laptop-

- Agree that this one (again) came down to rebounds and free throws. 

- the student section looked good again tonight, was it good in person too?

- Coop's stat totals were in line with his season average even though his % were down. I have no problem with that, I'll take his averages 7 days a week. Same with TFree.

- Coop and Ivo are still tied as our leading rebounders with 6 each tonight. NO OTHER PLAYER HAD MORE THAN 1 REBOUND TONIGHT. 

- Was hoping Kellog could continue his momentum from the Akron game. We needed his outside game.

-  Glad to see Tunji give some quality minutes but dissapointed that we keep needing him to be an example for the scholarship players.

- In the 12 games this season Keely has not reached double digits in scoring he has a total of 39 points. During those same 12 games he has 37 personal fouls. I ain't mad him, but I am worried about him.

- Love Ivo's effort. Some of those moves are amazing, he could be really good some day. That turnover at the end was unfortunate.

- If I was a betting man I wouldn't bet a dime on these 'Cats for any game, but I believe that they can beat anybody on any given night, we just need to find out how to win more than 1 in a row. The good news is we don't lose more than 1 or 2 in a row either so the next game should be a win.

I think a more revealing stat is to break it down home/away/neutral and total/MAC. Here is the Groce breakdown

Home:    Overall 29-13  .690 / MAC 11-7  .611
Away:      Overall   8-23  .258 / MAC  4-13 .235
Neutral:  Overall   8-5    .615 / MAC  4-1    .800

Total:                     45-41 .523 /  19-21 .475 (he still has a losing MAC record even counting MAC tourney games!)

It's doubtful that we will turn the year around like LY, why you ask? It's simple, we only have 1 player and you need 5.
Last year we had 2 and one of those was able to create his own shot. We have too many players from LY who have regressed and not enough new guys to pick up the slack. And lets not forget we haven't replaced the 3 guys who left.
Rebounding is all about willing to work hard...we don't have that.
FT shooting...... we just can't
Depending on the 3 ball is always dangerous
Our best player can't shoot the 3 and he takes too many 3's.
Groce is quickly making TOS look good.
After this year Groce will have recorded 2 out of 3 loosing seasons.
Despite my disappointment this year I will give Coach a pass due to the loss of 3 players late last year and not having enough time to replace them.
I do want to see him recruit a big who can play to replace Jacobs, who at this time appears to be a bust.
I am not real concerned about replacing any of the other seniors as that will work itself out. No senior this year is un-replaceable.
Let's use all our scholarships for next year, no walk-ons please.




GO BOBCATS

The student crowd was quite good again and the crowd as a whole was pretty good, although I would say the atmosphere did not compare to the Miami game.

Losses hurt, but some are going too far. I hearpeople say we have no offensive options, we played terrible defense and we can't rebound or shoot free throws. If ALL of those things were true, we would have been murdered. We must have done something right to have a chance to win. So what was it?

I think we played a great offensive game until the final few minutes. I think we have plenty of offensive weapons. I think everyone here wants to see two or more guys who can score 20 points every game, but you don't have to have that to be a good offensive team. Kent State has only one go-to scorer. Akron doesn't really have one stand-out scorer this year. We've been pretty offensively efficient all year.

Defense has been suspect at times, but I thought aside from giving upt he offensive boards, it wasn't bad. We held Kent State's best player to 6 of 16 shooting. If Kent State didn't get so many easy stickbacks, it would have shot in the 30s percentage-wise.

It does seem like we miss key free throws, but as a whole, I think our free-throw percentage probably ranks about average. We are shooting a higher percentage than our opponents. Because Cooper gets more free throws than anyone on our team, it's imperative he improves at the line. 68.5 percent is about average across college, but not what you want from a guard who takes as many as he does. He can improved them. Anyone notice how much better Keely is at the line this year?

Rebounding, no one can deny has been a huge problem in the three MAC games. To give up that many offensive rebounds three games in a row, it's a miracle to have one one of them and even more of a miracle that all three easily could have been one. That has to be corrected.

This is really unfair.  We've been spoiled by a string of impact freshmen big men (Trent, Hunter, Leon), but those type of guys are the exception not the rule.  Most bigs take a year or two to develop at this level.  Writing off Jacobs on the basis of half a season, part of which he was reportedly fighting off an injury, is way too premature.  Anyone expecting significant contribution from him this season had unrealistic expectations.  Jacobs was always going to need a couple years to develop, and nothing that has transpired this year changes that.

I agree that the relative lack of garbage time minutes for Jacobs is perplexing.  Remember, though, that this is a kid that only played significant HS minutes his senior year, so he is pretty raw.  But that didn't stop a number of bigger programs, such as Minnesota, from expressing some serious interest in Jacobs. 

If the staff had done a better job of assembling ready-to-play front court talent this year, Jacobs' slow progression wouldn't be an issue.  The problem is that the other bigs haven't sufficiently stepped up.

The other question in my mind is why we burned Jacobs' redshirt already when it is abundantly clear he isn't going to contribute significantly this year. 

Also, we did use all of our scholarships. The walk-ons don't count against our limit of scholarship players.

My $.02 on the game:

Credit to Kent's offense-nice smooth flow, move the ball well, take what they're given, outside players can drive to the hole (and finish! ), or they can dump off underneath or take it back outside if necessary. They seemed to understand their offense pattern better than we do. Except for Coop, we are not like that at all. Slow moving passes, dribble in place, and if the ball goes low to a big, it's up to him to make the move, there are no other options.

Yes, we would have won if the free throws were made, but even good shooting teams will have an off  night at times. That's not our big issue. I hate to knock Coop 'cause w/o him-ouch, but the only thing really missing in his game is free throw shooting, and he does get to the line an awful lot.

The big problem, to me, and to what many have already stated, is defensive rebounding. We really need Reggie to step up as he is the player who can resolve the problem as he is big, wide bodied, and soft hands. Needs to find good positioning. But he did not show up in the 1st half for whatever reason and Groce sat him for the remainder of the game. If he would work as hard and focus as much as Tunji does, I think we would be a much better team.

The three frosh need to play more consistently game to game. Hopefully that will come. Yesterday, T.J.( 2 points) and Nick ( 1 shot) , by virtue of their 1st half play, also took themselves out of the lineup in the 2nd half.

But we're not far off from being a sound team.