Watched the Colgate game on the internet, and it wasn't pretty. Our young players beat themselves on several occasions. We are learning some tough lessons right now. Ronell is learning how hard it is to get an open look without a great PG feeding you the ball. Golden was amazing at creating open looks for Ronell....he having to find his own shot most of the time, which is proving difficult.

That was a game where just about everything that could have went wrong DID go wrong. I am going to forget I saw that game, and just move on. Colgate was a better team than us, but it should have come down to the wire. Time to regroup and go down to South Florida and take care of business. A win against International would go a long ways towards healing the wounds of the Colgate game.

It was ugly....

Interesting thoughts Kennesaw Basketball.

My take is we need to play more team basketball … a commitment from everyone on the floor to make the extra pass would go a long way. There are some guys that are ‘black holes’. That means that when the ball comes to them, it stops there and never comes out ... going up to the hoop no matter what. It is like the ball is dropped into a black hole. Look for that, you’ll see it. Not good for team play.

Can Wooten only score with an open look? If that is the case, he is in trouble after this year (he is in trouble for the rest of this year for that matter). I think that Whipple is the guy that needs to reach a little deeper. He needs to take the dunk first mentality. If he does that on the offensive glass and going to the basket, we will be a lot better off and Wooten will be a lot more open. If we can get 2 guys rebounding in double figures every game we’ll be ok. Until then ……

What were the young player mistakes that you were referring to?

Glad I missed this game. We have to develop a PG soon or we're in big trouble. McConnell is the guy I'm hoping improves with experience and ends up with the most minutes. Once he adjusts to the college game I think he gives us our best shot to win.

We are YOUNG. There's going to be a lot of growing pains. I'm just as big Owl fan now as I was though. We'll get through it!

if raw talent decided the outcome of that game, we would of won. we had more athletes, we just dont know how to play as a team yet. the good thing is, by conference play we should be a lot better as a team.

Raw talent does not equal athleticism. Colgate was a more talented team. Just because have a few guys that can jump higher doesn't mean they were more talented basketball players.

Young mistakes:
1. Not making the extra pass as some have mentioned
2. Allowing too many second chance points
3. Inability to capitalize when given advantageous situations (2 on 1, 3 on 1 breaks, ball in the post)
4. Several players lost composure - two technical fouls

Those are some of the things I recognized. Teams are going to have bad games. Hopefully our guys can learn from the mistakes they made, and come out better next game. Golden Ingle was this teams identity the last two years. It is going to take some adjustment to find their own identity. Most fans probably don't realize just how good Golden was as a PG. They look at his shooting % and think he is a mediocre player. He was probably the best PG in the conference for the past two years and was never recognized as such.

Agreed about Golden. We're hurting at this position. I really hope someone can step here before conference play. I like Pollock but not too much at the point. I like McConnell but he's young and seems erratic at times. Berry is fine coming off the bench, but Im not the biggest fan of him getting major minutes and being in our starting five. The problem is thats our only three options.

Thanks for the clarification guys.

Yes Ingle was a great player, but what I think is needed on this team is for that position to:

1-Get the ball up the court quickly regardless of the situation

2-Recognize where the ball should go and deliver it to the appropriate place (and not just to the first available place ... if JD Pollock is hot [or anybody else] he needs consecutive/repetetive touches)

3-Provide leadership in the form of encouragement and offerings of on floor suggestions when appropriate to the players on the floor outside of the micro management of Ingle

4-be available on the sidelines for Ingle's Micro management

5-get 2-3 steals and have at least 4 assists every game; not too much to ask from anybody who gets the major minutes

Despite this I repeat that I think Whipple needs to have the "dunk first" mentality. Wooten also needs to make an improvement on his ballhandling skills and defensive mentality for the next level. With his jumping ability, he should have at least 3 blocks a game --- if he so chooses.

sorry if something about this has already been posted.

I missed the game against colgate, but I did see the game against JSU. Even going back to last year this was a huge question I had and still have. It seems like we don't push the ball. I don't necessarily mean from the back court into the front court, but when the ball crosses half court we just seem to take our sweet time. Last year it happened a lot, and somewhat in the JSU game, but we dribble the ball around maybe passing it once or twice until the shot clock gets down to around 10 seconds, then we start trying to do something. Maybe this view is just me and I don't know what I'm talking about, but it just seems like a huge waste of time. It's my excuse for why the owls never really score in high numbers. I mean they'll have their occassional high scoring game, but never consistently. I made the comment to a friend I was with on friday at the game that I didn't understand why KSU didn't pass the ball more because passing opens up shots because you can pass a ball faster than the defense can shift. Ok, one more thing on my rant and I'll be done, there doesn't seem to be many picks being set or cuts made. I understand that might not be Ingle's offense, but if you're not really getting open looks like I saw on friday, and probably saturday too, you must create opportunities by setting picks and making cuts to the hoop. I don't know, I will agree it is the inexperience of our young team, but things need to pick up from what I saw, or we could be in for a long season. Ok I'm done. Agree or disagree?

Agree. I have been wondering why we have not been setting up picks as well.

We don't run a motion offense, therefore you won't see a ton of picks. It is mainly an offense of positioning with a key screen or two along the way. You run motion offenses with experienced teams. We don't have that, thus I doubt we will see much motion this year. You will see a lot of high-low action, downscreens for jumpshots, and penetrate and pitch to the wings. That is pretty much it. We will probably keep it as basic as possible since we have no true PG to run the show.

I think we are probably going to split minutes all year long between Berry, Pollock, and McConnell. Basically ride the hot hand from game to game, and keep Pollock in when you need a defensive presence.

Someone will probably step up before the season's over. The players get it. They know that someone has to do it so they're gonna try.

I hope so Nick. I know Ingle has recruited a great group of guys, and it is still very early. Maybe some early season struggles will forge the kind of team that we all hope KSU can be.

Nope, sorry. That's not it. The Kennesaw team is just plain bad.

So the ASun shapes up to be a couple of decent teams, a couple of mediocre teams and a lot of terrible teams. Looks like a better than average year in the conference.

Thank you, now run along kev.

Hello folks,
Well thus far the Bucs aren't anything to write home about. UNC-A coming up. UNC-A is off to a 5-0 start for the first time in school history.

ETSU will probably do okay in the A-Sun, but the Bucs are too thin inside. Reed and Smith fouled out against Marshall and the Bucs couldn't defend inside after that. Twiggs is turning out to be a pretty good 3, but Smith playing 4 is out of position and Reed playing 5 is also out of position.

Good luck (except when you play the Bucs!)