The unofficial online home for fans of the Kent State University Golden Flashes. Part of Collegiate Sports Nation (CSN).

(01-22-2012 07:30 PM)AlphaFlash Wrote:  After almost 24 hours, I'm going to chime back in. I'm going to try putting a positive spin, but I hate getting my hopes up. However, usually when these 2 teams are this good, we tend to split the season series. Last night aside, if there is a good time to tune our offense, it would be against our weaker conference opponents. (It's a good time to play the West.) But we will need to be perfect, I mean PERFECT against that competition. After all, the final score of the EMU/Toledo had less than 80 points total.
I can't blame Senderhoff. I think we have a very rare breed of athletes this year. We are very good skill-wise, but we can't quite wrap our heads around it. I don't think anyone here can say Sendy is a bad coach. Its not like we got Rob from a successful lower division program or sitting on a bench at a major team. He came from Kent State. He has proven his success to everyone here. Last year at this time, we had a discussion on here about how fortunate we are with Rob on our bench. I refuse to believe he is our iCoach.
Finally, other than the NIT bid, there is no real need to get the #1 seed in the MAC-T. The #1 seed hasn't won the tourney for years now. And how many times as the tournament championship gone to a team with a #4 seed or lower? It is very doable for Kent to put a run together and win it all. Like I said earlier in the week, this team can wake up and just start winning games and not even realize what happened.

Well, the top 2 seeds get byes into the SEMI's. That's huge. I believe one of those 2 teams will win the conference tourney.

The best part about last night's game is that when it ended we got to come home and they all had to stay in that hole.

As for Danny's point, the goal should be securing a top-four seed. Then nothing changes as far as what you've had to do in the past - win three games in three days.

Right now you've got Buffalo, Ohio, Ball State, Akron and Kent State vying for the top four. One of those five teams is going to have to play on Monday night at their home campus against NIL in all probability. Then, with a win they'd be playing Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. If that team is Kent as the #5 seed it is possible for this scenario:

Saturday March 3 - vs. Akron regular season finale
Monday March 5 - vs. #12 seed in MAC Tournament round one
Wednesday March 7 - in Cleveland vs. winner of other campus site game
Thursday March 8 - in Cleveland for MAC 1/4s
Friday March 9 - in Cleveland for MAC semis
Saturday March 10 - in Cleveland for MAC Championship

You guys can do the math. Asking any team in America do run through that gauntlett would be a death sentence.

I'm basically saying we can't be lower than the four seed and have any kind of realistic chance at winning the tournament. I realize we have bigger concerns right now but that's just food for thought.

I'd also like to add, last year a friend of me send a screen shot from a despondent and depressed Keith Dambrot standing on the MAC Center sidelines as the Flashes neared a full-court celebration at his expense. Eight days later he had the Quicken Loans Arena net in his hand pumping his fists with a huge smile.

Nothing has been decided. There is a long way to go.

(01-22-2012 08:05 PM)dannyb73 Wrote:  

(01-22-2012 07:30 PM)AlphaFlash Wrote:  After almost 24 hours, I'm going to chime back in. I'm going to try putting a positive spin, but I hate getting my hopes up. However, usually when these 2 teams are this good, we tend to split the season series. Last night aside, if there is a good time to tune our offense, it would be against our weaker conference opponents. (It's a good time to play the West.) But we will need to be perfect, I mean PERFECT against that competition. After all, the final score of the EMU/Toledo had less than 80 points total.
I can't blame Senderhoff. I think we have a very rare breed of athletes this year. We are very good skill-wise, but we can't quite wrap our heads around it. I don't think anyone here can say Sendy is a bad coach. Its not like we got Rob from a successful lower division program or sitting on a bench at a major team. He came from Kent State. He has proven his success to everyone here. Last year at this time, we had a discussion on here about how fortunate we are with Rob on our bench. I refuse to believe he is our iCoach.
Finally, other than the NIT bid, there is no real need to get the #1 seed in the MAC-T. The #1 seed hasn't won the tourney for years now. And how many times as the tournament championship gone to a team with a #4 seed or lower? It is very doable for Kent to put a run together and win it all. Like I said earlier in the week, this team can wake up and just start winning games and not even realize what happened.

Well, the top 2 seeds get byes into the SEMI's. That's huge. I believe one of those 2 teams will win the conference tourney.

How soon we forget what seed last year's champion was. Ohio was the #9 seed in 2010 and they actually had some NCAA success. It seems like this conference more than others has teams that have talent that just peak in the neck of time.

(01-22-2012 10:19 PM)AlphaFlash Wrote:  

(01-22-2012 08:05 PM)dannyb73 Wrote:  

(01-22-2012 07:30 PM)AlphaFlash Wrote:  After almost 24 hours, I'm going to chime back in. I'm going to try putting a positive spin, but I hate getting my hopes up. However, usually when these 2 teams are this good, we tend to split the season series. Last night aside, if there is a good time to tune our offense, it would be against our weaker conference opponents. (It's a good time to play the West.) But we will need to be perfect, I mean PERFECT against that competition. After all, the final score of the EMU/Toledo had less than 80 points total.
I can't blame Senderhoff. I think we have a very rare breed of athletes this year. We are very good skill-wise, but we can't quite wrap our heads around it. I don't think anyone here can say Sendy is a bad coach. Its not like we got Rob from a successful lower division program or sitting on a bench at a major team. He came from Kent State. He has proven his success to everyone here. Last year at this time, we had a discussion on here about how fortunate we are with Rob on our bench. I refuse to believe he is our iCoach.
Finally, other than the NIT bid, there is no real need to get the #1 seed in the MAC-T. The #1 seed hasn't won the tourney for years now. And how many times as the tournament championship gone to a team with a #4 seed or lower? It is very doable for Kent to put a run together and win it all. Like I said earlier in the week, this team can wake up and just start winning games and not even realize what happened.

Well, the top 2 seeds get byes into the SEMI's. That's huge. I believe one of those 2 teams will win the conference tourney.

How soon we forget what seed last year's champion was. Ohio was the #9 seed in 2010 and they actually had some NCAA success. It seems like this conference more than others has teams that have talent that just peak in the neck of time.

Yeah, being a top seed, or top 3, has been the kiss of death recently. Akron was a 6 seed last year, OU a 9 seed in 2010, Akron a 5 in 2009, Miami a 4 in 2007, OU a 4 in 2005. (KSU was the last No. 1 to win the tourney in 2008 and 2006.) So I guess trend has been to meander your way through the regular season and then get hot at the right time.

Remember Connecticut ran that gaunlet in the Big East last year so it can be done. However with this new format 1 and 2 have a nice advantage. Unless of course sitting around for a week causes some problems. See there is always an angle to discuss. It might be better to be a 3/4 and knock the rust off against a 5-8 seed( BG, WMU etc). Say Ohio wins the East and then has to play Akron, Buffalo or Kent in the semis. Knocking the rust off against one of those teams might be fatal.

I hate getting my hopes up with MAC Basketball, but I'm getting a little excited. I just recall sitting at the Gund in 2004 where OU (4) beat Buffalo (7) in OT. I tell you, in this conference anything is possible.

Lets beat NIU and go from there!

I am close to being convinced that Keith Dambrot is a very good coach who will not stand for losing. I remember the last time we beat them on their floor, he had what was thought to be a very good MAC team. However, he found out that he had no athlete that could match Antony Simpson and he post game said that he had to find more athletic, bigger players. I believe that he has completed that task. The OU coach may be of the same mindset. IMO, his stroke of luck was getting Cooper. Take Cooper off that team, and I wonder where they would be. Miami and Charley used to be our biggest concern. It could be that our team is about where we usually are from a talent standpoint. Just like several MAC teams elevated themselves to compete with Marshall a few years ago, maybe that has happened now in basketball. We now have more and better competition and we need to step it up or be average. I still hate the zits.

In closing, I would add that our weak OOC schedule did not prepare us well for road MAC games. This needs to be addressed in the future.

I sure agree with that last statement GF68. We made the same mistake Akron usually makes. I really can't understand why either. With all of our seniors there was no reason to ease up on the schedule. I know those things are not totally in a coaches control but it sure looks like it might have been done somewhat deliberately.

I said from the minute it was released that our schedule was weak. Other than WV we have had no real big match up. Even WV wasn't too special. I'm even okay with scheduling over matched teams, like a Big 10 or ACC school. Until recently, we usually found one of those on our schedule.

In closing, I would add that our weak OOC schedule did not prepare us well for road MAC games. This needs to be addressed in the future.
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I have to disagree about the OOC schedule. WV was our money game, did we catch them at a good time? absolutely. Clev St, Morehead,UAB and JMU were return games from home/home series. W CAR was return game from Bracket Buster 2 years ago. We played in a tourney at UT St. with 1 inferior opp.( St Peter's) , 1 comparable opp ( TX Arl) and one good opp. UT st. The only games I question are the Shawnee game, but I believe that was set up before Geno left and possibly Alcorn and Ark st. but we allowed to have a couple of cupcakes .

unfortunely for us some of these teams are having down years which makes the schedule look worse then it actually is. Hopefully we can win our next 3 and get a decent Buster game.

GO FLASHES!!!!!!!!

I've held off commenting until now to let myself calm down an think clearly. I noticed a lot of people seemed concerned that this might mark the beginning of the end for Kent St. as an elite team in the MAC. At this point I'm not concerned about that. If Kent were to fall back into an "also ran" category year in and year out it would be because of poor coaching and the inability to recruit at the same level as other MAC schools. I certainly feel that Sendy has made his share of first year coaching mistakes but I still feel very comfortable that he's our guy going forward.

Recruiting is a whole nother story. Losing to local teams and MAC schools will always hurt when it comes to recruiting against those schools. However, we haven't won many recent recruiting battles against the likes of Akron, CSU, and OU anyways. Since 2009 the only signees we've had that had offers from CSU and other MAC schools (according to rivals.com) were Johnson (UA and UT), Nealy (CMU), and Holt (CSU). With the ties this current staff has it seems NYC and Memphis are the main hunting grounds where there is plenty of talent and a sparse MAC presence.

Also, the effects of a bad season on recruiting won't be seen for at least another year as we have a very solid, 4 man, class locked up for next year. Two long athletic 4-year post players and a big physical Singltary type JUCO should help address the rebounding problems right away. If you start feeling a little down go over to Njcaa.org and check out some of Goodson's game logs. While we were losing to Akron he was putting together something like a 24pt 11reb night. He had a 34pt 11reb game earlier this year. Also, don't forget Pope will be in the mix next year. Throw in a 6'5" to 6'6" 3 star SG for 2013 (assuming he stays committed) and the immediate recruiting forecast is not bleak.

I was just as upset about this loss as any of you but there's no reason to think that we're toeing the ledge of the MAC summit.

Holt had an OU offer.

(01-23-2012 08:43 PM)OZoner Wrote:  Holt had an OU offer.

I thought I remembered them offering him, rivals didn't record it I guess. Anyways, my point was that lately we've done most of our recruiting against non MAC/CSU teams. I know Kent went after Keely, Cooper, and Horne acouple years ago and OU got em all. So losing recruiting battles to schools like OU isn't leaving us out cold.

(01-23-2012 08:52 PM)anti-zip Wrote:  

(01-23-2012 08:43 PM)OZoner Wrote:  Holt had an OU offer.

I thought I remembered them offering him, rivals didn't record it I guess. Anyways, my point was that lately we've done most of our recruiting against non MAC/CSU teams. I know Kent went after Keely, Cooper, and Horne acouple years ago and OU got em all. So losing recruiting battles to schools like OU isn't leaving us out cold.

Actually, if I recall correctly, we wanted Holt over Cooper and when he committed, either we pulled our offer to DJ or he simply chose OU at that point.

People forget we both recruited both Holt and Cooper. We offered Holt first and that sealed the deal for Cooper to then go to Ohio.

Anti-Zip, please refresh my memory. Who are the 4 recruits?

Kellon Thomas a 5'11" Pg out of HS in Indiana that is supposed to be very tough and fiery, sounds like a Porrini or an Abreu type.

Khaliq Spicer a 6'9" C out of HS in Detriot that was offered from someone big (Minnesota I think?). I think he had an offer from OU too. Sounds like one of our more heralded HS recruits in a while.

Chris Ortiz a 6'7" PF from NY, he's playing in prep school this year. I know the least about him but he sounds long athletic and has upside.

Darren Goodson a 6'5" 240 lbs ish Sf/Pf from Cincy, he's averaging 18+ppg and almost 7rpg in JUCO this year. Originally commited to BGSU out of HS before he had some legal trouble, the charges were eventuall dropped. Sounds like a Singltary type.

(01-23-2012 10:04 PM)anti-zip Wrote:  Kellon Thomas a 5'11" Pg out of HS in Indiana that is supposed to be very tough and fiery, sounds like a Porrini or an Abreu type.

Khaliq Spicer a 6'9" C out of HS in Detriot that was offered from someone big (Minnesota I think?). I think he had an offer from OU too. Sounds like one of our more heralded HS recruits in a while.

Chris Ortiz a 6'7" PF from NY, he's playing in prep school this year. I know the least about him but he sounds long athletic and has upside.

Darren Goodson a 6'5" 240 lbs ish Sf/Pf from Cincy, he's averaging 18+ppg and almost 7rpg in JUCO this year. Originally commited to BGSU out of HS before he had some legal trouble, the charges were eventuall dropped. Sounds like a Singltary type.

Khaliq looks like a great get! As much as I hate he is going to Kent, for the overall well being of the conference I'm ok with it

Rated 41st at his position, 57 th regionally and 9th in his state

http://espn.go.com/college-sports/basket...liq-spicer

So you've potentially got this kind of size going into 2012-2013

Jackson 6'7 (sr) (yeah they say 6'8)
Evans 6'6 (sr)(yeah they say 6'7)
Henninger 6'8
Pope 6'7
Spicer 6'9
Ortiz 6'7
Brunswick 6'10
Goodsen 6'5

Backcourt would potentially include
Holt (sr.)
Gaines
Brewer
Manley
Thomas