He also spoke of ball movement, the floor spacing is awful so when teams double, they get deflections, nobody knows how to move without the ball, that is on him to teach that. You also have to swing the ball with zip on kick outs to either get an open shot or get the defense out of position. These things can be easily fixed with film study and conversation and references throughout the next few games. Don’t throw the towel in and go into self preservation mode. Go Cats

But clearly when it came to evaluating talent for this league...he missed the mark...big time. I mean he recruited players to Athens on scholarship who have transferred out who can't even get minutes on the D2 or NAIA or JUCO level. That's on Saul. It will be very interesting to see where he lands his next job as a head coach. His resume takes a massive, massive hit.

I think this is why he hitched his fortunes to the play of Kirk — and stuck by him — so much the last two years. He was the one player with the glimmer of a high-level player who if he figured it out could lift the program. Carter is great, but he's a prototypical solid MAC big man. His role player recruits have all been so blase that no one emerged as a frontline player.

If Kirk ever figured it out, he could be a guy who single-handedly lifted a program from .500 to a MAC title contender. But that style of player can be such fool's gold...

Trust me....I take no satisfaction in our basketball coach's upcoming dismissal. Unfortunately, I predicted nearly two years ago that Saul would not survive past year five. I wish I were wrong. The talent has not been there and now there are major questions when it comes to X's and O's and letting an undisciplined point guard do whatever he wants.

I don't root for someone to fail. But clearly...somehow...he underestimated the MAC and this job to some extent. It turned out to be a lot harder than he ever could have imagined. I hope he lands back on his feet. Maybe as D-One coach at a much lower level or D2. But his best route might be to pull a Larry Hunter and land at a Power 5 school as the main assistant coach. Do that for a few years and then try to get back in as a head coach.

I have no idea where Akron will end up in MAC play this season, but Groce is probably still getting paid from Illinois, so the Zips probably aren't paying him a bunch of money. His salary from Akron is more than likely less than what Ohio is paying our coach. Groce didn't have a great league record, but his teams usually were good in early March and in this league, that is the secret to success. Hopefully this team will find a way to get hot in March.

You don't take pleasure in failure or root for failure, but when somebody fails, you point out the ways they failed over and over again and pretend there's a group of people who disagree and argue with those imagined people in every thread multiple times a day.

We get it, man.

I try to lay low during hoops season, as I admit I'm a FB guy, plus I've been checked out since I saw us lay a couple of eggs in person in Charleston last year. I'll not pile on Saul because I think he is a hard worker and has made a genuine effort at OHIO. And I'll not pile on the players who invest a lot of time outside of the classroom in the name of OHIO. But I do have an observation after opportunistically catching another mid-major game the other night: UMASS at Dayton. I rarely watch any college hoops save for OHIO, but because of my proximity to one, and respect of Ted's diploma from the other, and seeing both as stretch peers to OHIO, I thought I'd take in a half.

Gentlemen, the difference in talent on those two teams v ours, all three of which have gone through recent coaching changes, is DEMONSTRABLY different, with our team being the farthest removed from change. Our level of talent and athleticism is not on their par, not even in the same realm, and I'd include Jordy as part of our mix. And both of those teams would get drilled most nights by Buffalo, who I also caught opportunistically earlier this season. Again, not a knock on the effort and dedication by our roster, we are just not where we should be considering our resources, investment and history in this conference.

We can and will do better.