All Ohio fans have to be pleased with 11-2 start. But I'm concerned about what the Cats will accomplish over the next 2 months if Boals can't find some help for Sears/Carter/BVP.

* BRod and Brown, who averaged a combined 50-plus pts/game as h.s. seniors and around 17 combined pts last year are currently averaging 14 pts/game this season (and that's with Brown getting starter's minutes v. coming off the bench last year).

* Boals is going less and less with Clayton/Towns/IJ, especially in the 2nd half at Akron. (Still getting quality and quantity minutes from Schmock)

The Cats are winning with this formula. But like the CBSSN announcer mentioned in the first half tonight, for Ohio to do some damage nationally, they're going to need other players to step up their games.

Towns is gonna have to be our Lundo. He needs to be that spark off the bench. He’s fast, athletic and 6’8/6’9. I’m not saying he needs to be a double double or 15pts+ a night. If he can give us 8pts and 7 or 8 boards a night, that’s solid.

Unfortunately, I have seen zero evidence that he's ready to do that.

I would actually prefer to see more of Schmock and Sears together with BRod on the bench and have Miles play the 3. I know it's a smaller team but Schmock just brings great energy. When Miles fouled out I had no reservations or worries knowing that Schmock was coming into the game. Dude is just tough. I have a buddy who covers high school ball in Columbus for one of the weeklies and he said Ajay Sheldon is like that. Smaller but just a dog on the court not afraid to mix it up and take shots. I agree about Towns and it seems like at some point Ezuma's going to need to play with our lack of bigs. Granger is still the weird one for me. He goes from being a 7 to 8 minute backup to DW3 to redshirt? Still one of my favorite personalities but how does he not play this year?

Random hypothetical...but if Preston came back, DW3 was healthy, and Lunden did not leave...how in the world would you distribute 200 minutes per game on this team? I am not saying this would be what I'd do, but just to show you how difficult and what an amazing problem it would be:

Preston - 35
Sears - 30
Wilson - 25
Carter - 25
BVP - 25
McDay - 20
Roderick - 20
Brown - 20

And that leaves 0 for Schmock, Clayton, etc. I know you shouldn't play the what if game, but the idea fascinates me. Essentially everyone would have to take cuts in playing time to accommodate Carter and Sears.

If Preston stays; Sears flies the coop!

Boals said something before the season that I thought was insightful. He said that every team is different. Last year’s team is connected forever, but this year is a completely different team. That’s turning out to be true in so many unexpected ways. It’s a great way to keep the team in the moment and focused on the next game up. Truly great leadership by Boals.

Right, most people who enter the portal do it in the spring when their choices are more wide open. As the late spring and early summer went on Preston's stock was rising. There was a very good chance that Preston was going to come back to Ohio when last season ended and there was no sign Sears wanted to leave. Preston, in theory, could have played in 22-23. I expect that Sears knew that after he got his degree that there was no reason for Preston to stay. He might as well go to the D-League if he still wasn't NBA ready.

Schmock took Preston's scholarship. We needed PG depth and getting a guy that led one of the best programs in D2 for a year was a good option considering the timing. But he would clearly not be getting any minutes in the scenario with Preston on the roster and a healthy Wilson and McDay. I think Sears would be under 30 for sure which is weird to think about for a potential MAC player of the year. Preston and Sears would not have been on the court at the same time for about half of the minutes. The real question might be about if we played 6 or 7 quality opponents in a row. I honestly do not think under this schedule that Preston would be averaging 35. Boals would be confident enough in most games that he would want to keep his best players fresh all year and get at least a few minutes for Clayton, Ezuma, and Towns and a lot of games would be easy wins. I think after watching what we have left play the way it has, it is likely that under the best scenario we would have been one of the best five teams or so not in the power 6.