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16 points in the 2nd half isn't going to get it done against good teams.

dang, but defense has been lately.

I always like when Ty Linder has the chance to say....Its a KSU K-O!! I'll take it. Nice defense boys. Safe travels.

I'm not disappointed. Winning close early season games on the road however you can is what we need. Still undefeated on the road!

KSU 60 UALR 55, final.

6 of 15 from the FT line.....

Tough game for Kris Brewer, 2 of 10 from the field.

I will see whoever is going to the game on Friday vs NC A&T.

6-2 overall now, 3-0 on the road.

Good D and rebounding, a cold day shooting, but a road win is always a good thing.

see everyone on Friday

GO FLASHES!!!!!!!!!!!

It seems like UALR isn't a bad team. I'd say they could be a middle of the pack MAC team. So there's nothing to be ashamed of here, especially when all four of our scorers, Hall, Jackson, Brewer, and Manley, struggled from the floor.

Two things really concern me with this team. The free throw shooting is awful. If that doesn't change that will cost us some games. Second, there has been little to no development from our Jr bigs, Spicer and Ortiz. This is pretty concerning for the state of the program. Greene has only been on the staff for a few months, hopefully he can start to turn this trend around for post players at least. I was expecting a lot out of Spicer this year so his play has been really disheartening. I was watching a Wichita St. game yesterday in which Akron native Darius Carter put up 18 pts and 11 rebounds. The announcers were commenting on how much he has improved since last year and that Greg Marshall players always tend to improve. I couldn't help but thinking that's the biggest difference between the recent Kent teams and the Gary Waters Jim Christian era. We don't see the same kind of individual improvement year to year that we were used to.

Just got home from the game. Anyone who is disappointed today wasn't watching clearly. We DOMINATED that team. They were so fortunate to be in the game. Our missed FT kept them in the game. That said, we absolutely DOMINATED them on the glass and one other thing that needs to be said is that our defense is salty. The refs totally screwed us in the 2nd half with one call (the travel on Akbar) that would have given us a 10 point lead and seconds later UALR had scored 5 straight to cut it to 3. I would post pictures but nobody cares to see my 8 year old shooting pregame jumpers or in huddle pregame giving high fives. KB had probably 30+ friends/family in the stands and there was no way he wasn't taking that last shot in regulation. Happy with the win. On to the next one.

(12-14-2014 05:40 PM)anti-zip Wrote:  It seems like UALR isn't a bad team. I'd say they could be a middle of the pack MAC team. So there's nothing to be ashamed of here, especially when all four of our scorers, Hall, Jackson, Brewer, and Manley, struggled from the floor.

Two things really concern me with this team. The free throw shooting is awful. If that doesn't change that will cost us some games. Second, there has been little to no development from our Jr bigs, Spicer and Ortiz. This is pretty concerning for the state of the program. Greene has only been on the staff for a few months, hopefully he can start to turn this trend around for post players at least. I was expecting a lot out of Spicer this year so his play has been really disheartening. I was watching a Wichita St. game yesterday in which Akron native Darius Carter put up 18 pts and 11 rebounds. The announcers were commenting on how much he has improved since last year and that Greg Marshall players always tend to improve. I couldn't help but thinking that's the biggest difference between the recent Kent teams and the Gary Waters Jim Christian era. We don't see the same kind of individual improvement year to year that we were used to.

Agree totally...Brewer and Ortiz have hardly improved one bit since they've been on the roster. Spicer has improved marginally but he was basically a project when he arrived. We used to have guys like Whorton, Warren, Haut, Edwin, Haynes, Scott and Greene who showed tremendous improvement from one year to the next. Opposing coaches used to comment about our player development a lot (figuring the next year would be the year they'd finally get us).

Danny B, I love your enthusiasm for KSU sports but we are barely beating bad teams. Any team we had from '99 thru '08 would have crushed ULRA today.

I don't enjoy being negative but I gotta call 'em the way I see 'em....

Would our team today have beaten a 4-win Youngstown team in the '02 season?

(12-15-2014 06:40 AM)axeme Wrote:  Would our team today have beaten a 4-win Youngstown team in the '02 season?

I knew that was coming...I saw just about every game the '02 team played prior to that loss at YSU and I was at that YSU game. The early part of that '02 season had some player disharmony as the team had to get used to playing with Gates and incorporating him in the offense. A blind man could see the potential of that team and once they put their egos in check they were outstanding.

Good teams lose to bad teams sometimes (witness UofM losing to NJIT). From watching all but one game of this years team, I don't see a lot (particularly offensively and on the boards) that I Like and in no way shape or form would I even think of comparing them to not only the '02 team but any KSU team up until the last 2-3 seasons.

Yesterday, I was impressed with the D and the rebounding effort. Looking forward to Friday nights game!

My point was simply that perhaps there's a lot of negativity about a team that's 6-2 and 3-0 on the road after a quick trip to Arkansas where they overcame a cold shooting day and played some dominant defense.

I'm not going to be angry and unhappy every season, especially when this team looks like it is a good MAC team. The glass is more than half full.

(12-14-2014 10:02 PM)dannyb73 Wrote:  Just got home from the game. Anyone who is disappointed today wasn't watching clearly. We DOMINATED that team. They were so fortunate to be in the game. Our missed FT kept them in the game. That said, we absolutely DOMINATED them on the glass and one other thing that needs to be said is that our defense is salty. The refs totally screwed us in the 2nd half with one call (the travel on Akbar) that would have given us a 10 point lead and seconds later UALR had scored 5 straight to cut it to 3. I would post pictures but nobody cares to see my 8 year old shooting pregame jumpers or in huddle pregame giving high fives. KB had probably 30+ friends/family in the stands and there was no way he wasn't taking that last shot in regulation. Happy with the win. On to the next one.

It's hard to reconcile "DOMINATED" with being tied at the end of regulation.

One thing that's killing this team is the shooting. We're at 42.8% for the year, and have ended up strugging in a bunch of games where we are less than 40%. Free Throw shooting is 59% for the year. That's got to improve if we're going to have a good MAC run.

Malone hung in with us shooting 32%, Loyola beat us when we shot 39%, We 'dominated' UALR but they were able to force overtime with us just shooting 38%

I am not going to pull the almighty card and act like I am Jay Bilas or something, but some of you have no clue what you are talking about. Sometimes I think we look for a reason to complain. Yes, you are absolutely entitled to your opinion. Are you looking for perfection? If so, you are going to be horribly disappointed. Are you looking for blowouts? Again, if so, you stand to be disappointed on most nights.

If someone thinks UALR is a bad team, you might need to go back and look (a quick google search will tell you they are predicted 3rd in their conference). They are, on most years, top half of their conference and will be again this year. They are also, historically a pretty good home team. We just went on the road and won a game. A tight game, which means we were likely the tougher team (and visually seeing it up close, we were). This team plays hard, plays together, plays with passion, and I will tell you from what I saw yesterday, this is a team that can win the MAC. Will they? I don't know. Certainly, the odds aren't in their favor (I would take the field all day, every day).

I will leave this post with one last repetitive thought. What exactly are you looking for?

(12-15-2014 08:28 AM)Slinkin Street Flash Wrote:  

(12-14-2014 10:02 PM)dannyb73 Wrote:  Just got home from the game. Anyone who is disappointed today wasn't watching clearly. We DOMINATED that team. They were so fortunate to be in the game. Our missed FT kept them in the game. That said, we absolutely DOMINATED them on the glass and one other thing that needs to be said is that our defense is salty. The refs totally screwed us in the 2nd half with one call (the travel on Akbar) that would have given us a 10 point lead and seconds later UALR had scored 5 straight to cut it to 3. I would post pictures but nobody cares to see my 8 year old shooting pregame jumpers or in huddle pregame giving high fives. KB had probably 30+ friends/family in the stands and there was no way he wasn't taking that last shot in regulation. Happy with the win. On to the next one.

It's hard to reconcile "DOMINATED" with being tied at the end of regulation.

One thing that's killing this team is the shooting. We're at 42.8% for the year, and have ended up strugging in a bunch of games where we are less than 40%. Free Throw shooting is 59% for the year. That's got to improve if we're going to have a good MAC run.

Malone hung in with us shooting 32%, Loyola beat us when we shot 39%, We 'dominated' UALR but they were able to force overtime with us just shooting 38%

Have you ever watched a football game where a team dominates another and just can't punch it in the end zone and settles for FG's? Then one play later the opposition breaks one and scores a TD and is right back in the game even though they have been physically dominated? Yep. We all have. That's exactly how this game went. So while it may be difficult, I watched us have possessions where we got 3-4 offensive boards at a time. I heard the fans mockingly cheer their team when they finally were able to get a rebound. That said, we missed a lot of those shots from close range and have to finish under the basket better. When that happens, our shooting percentage should increase. Who the hell knows if/when our FT shooting will get better. It is a problem for sure.

(12-15-2014 08:01 AM)axeme Wrote:  My point was simply that perhaps there's a lot of negativity about a team that's 6-2 and 3-0 on the road after a quick trip to Arkansas where they overcame a cold shooting day and played some dominant defense.

I'm not going to be angry and unhappy every season, especially when this team looks like it is a good MAC team. The glass is more than half full.

+1

You can't apologize for wins. I would love to think that Kent State blows Little Rock out of the water 10 times out of 10, but I'm a homer. Carducci mentioned that Sunday's game was a good experience because many conference (road) games will be similar. Somebody earlier in the thread said that Little Rock would be middle of the road type MAC Team.

Lots of signs point to a tough race in the East, so yea, these wins are all valuable experiences.

I share anti-zips concern about the development of the KSU post players. But Ortiz and Spicer are getting their opportunities, thats for sure. Those two combined for 42 minutes where Davis and Lawrence only logged a combined 7. Ortiz had a nice game numbers wise. 9 points on 4-6 shooting, 8 boards, 1 foul and 0 turnovers in 23 minutes. I'll take that every night.

I thought Ortiz really brought it yesterday. If he can bring the type of effort, energy, and production that he did yesterday all season, we will have a chance to do something really special. And to be completely honest, I haven't ever really been a guy who has been an Ortiz fan. Not that I dislike him, just haven't ever really seen him produce enough to think highly of him.

Watching Lawrence for 2 hours before the game, that dude is a freaky athlete. If he can ever figure out how to get on the floor, wow!

(12-15-2014 08:58 PM)dannyb73 Wrote:  I thought Ortiz really brought it yesterday. If he can bring the type of effort, energy, and production that he did yesterday all season, we will have a chance to do something really special.

It's tough to get too excited over one good game. He's had good games in the past. I think he'll need to string together a few games like this before we start believing this could be an "all season" thing. Remember in the first 7 games he broke 4 points twice (never over 8) and broke 4 rebounds exactly zero times.

I badly want to believe in him but in his 2+ years all we've seen is brief flashes of strong play surrounded by a lot of ineffective play and forced corner 3's.

(12-15-2014 11:21 PM)anti-zip Wrote:  

(12-15-2014 08:58 PM)dannyb73 Wrote:  I thought Ortiz really brought it yesterday. If he can bring the type of effort, energy, and production that he did yesterday all season, we will have a chance to do something really special.

It's tough to get too excited over one good game. He's had good games in the past. I think he'll need to string together a few games like this before we start believing this could be an "all season" thing. Remember in the first 7 games he broke 4 points twice (never over 8) and broke 4 rebounds exactly zero times.

I badly want to believe in him but in his 2+ years all we've seen is brief flashes of strong play surrounded by a lot of ineffective play and forced corner 3's.

Lol. It's like you quit reading my post and didn't get to this part: And to be completely honest, I haven't ever really been a guy who has been an Ortiz fan. Not that I dislike him, just haven't ever really seen him produce enough to think highly of him. And no doubt, he loves the corner 3!