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

Is anyone going to today's game? The students are on break, so the attendence will be down. I'll be taking my 'Future Flashes' and be sitting under the baskets, and hopefully Jimmy Hall and Khaliq Spicer can put on a show of good post play.

North Carolina A&T doesn't have a lot of height - their centers are 6'9", and their power forward is 6'7". The main scorer is PF Bruce Beckford, averaging 15 points and 8 rebounds per game. Hall vs Beckford should be good to watch.

North Carolina AT&T has a 1-11 record and just got smacked down 97-55 on Wednesday at Nathionwide Arena by Ohio State.

I see that Acorn lost to North Dakota State. We'll be playing NDSU on Sunday in El Paso. ESPN has it "North Dakota State edges Akron 55-46", but a 9-point loss ain't what I call 'edging'. Akron also just lost at home to Middle Tennessee State.

We play North Dakota State on Sunday in El Paso. I see NDSU beat Kennesaw State by 68-55 at home, and we beat KSU by 58-46 at their place. We also get a game on Monday with an opponent TDB, either UTEP or Alcorn State. It looks like the winner of NDSU-KSU will play the winner of UTEP-ASU, and the losers play a consolation game.

Looking at the Sagarin 'predictor' rankings, KSU is 114th, UTEP is 67th, NDSU is 187th, 339th, and NC A&T is 336th

Personally, I would expect us to play down to the competition today. Sadly, we don't usually run teams out of the building. I hope I am wrong, but that seems to be a trend of recent years. I will say a 10-14 point win.

My kids want to see Blake Vedder on the court. We're hoping for a blowout.

Foul shooting made the game a lot closer than it should have been-they made theirs and we struggled to make ours. Overall I thought that was the most glaring issue tonight. Nice way to end the game with the mini confrontation........

Was anyone at the game and close to the scorers table when Gary Akbar and the A&T player pushed each other. I am curious on what was said.We play them again next season. They are both juniors.

Looked pretty good tonight. I like our energy and defense. At times our offense leaves something to be desired but man... Dev Manley can shoot the hell out of the ball. He might be the best 3 point shooter I've seen at Kent. I think what makes him so impressive is he looks comfortable spotting up or catching it off a curl and he even looks fine shooting it off the dribble. Not a lot of shooters can do all of those things with ease. I know a lot has been made of our failure to redshirt guys in the past but I think it's a real shame we weren't able to redshirt Dev when he averaged under 6 minutes a night in only 18 games as a freshman. He's got an outside chance of reaching the all time 3 pointers made record for Kent so it stands to reason he would destroy it without that freshman year.

One other comment, I'm starting to really like Gary Akbar. He's the kind of player we haven't had for a long time. He's got a high major body and athleticism without an obvious physical short coming. He's not short for his position, he's not underweight, or slow, he has a good motor, and most importantly, he appears fine accepting his role. Usually when we get a guy with his physical attributes he can't accept not being "the guy". That doesn't appear to be an issue with Akbar. That's the kind of selfless role player we've been missing. He looked really good playing the high low with Spicer tonight, too.

(12-19-2014 09:30 PM)bball4me Wrote:  Nice way to end the game with the mini confrontation........

What happened there? I was out in the hall by that point and heard the PA announcer telling the fans to stay off the court.

I think I called for a 14 point win. Not too shabby. What is shabby is our FT shooting percentage. It's downright pathetic. Will cost us 1-2 games this year if it doesn't improve drastically.

(12-19-2014 11:33 PM)dannyb73 Wrote:  I think I called for a 14 point win. Not too shabby. What is shabby is our FT shooting percentage. It's downright pathetic. Will cost us 1-2 games this year if it doesn't improve drastically.

Yes - 49% from the field, 45.5% from 3, just 48% free throws.

(12-19-2014 10:35 PM)anti-zip Wrote:  

(12-19-2014 09:30 PM)bball4me Wrote:  Nice way to end the game with the mini confrontation........

What happened there? I was out in the hall by that point and heard the PA announcer telling the fans to stay off the court.

Yeah - something was going on, but I didn't see the start of it, and couldn't see who was involved.

I noticed that neither team really respected each others space - there were a couple of times that the Flashes were grouping up to talk on the court before a free throw, in the lane, and the Aggies were grouping up in the same place. At the end of the game, it seemed like the Flashes were heading northeast-to-southwest to ring the victory bell at the same time the Aggies were headed southeast-to-northwest to get to their locker, someone took offense.

One of their guys were upset, but just a little pushing and shoving

(12-19-2014 10:34 PM)anti-zip Wrote:  Looked pretty good tonight. I like our energy and defense. At times our offense leaves something to be desired but man... Dev Manley can shoot the hell out of the ball. He might be the best 3 point shooter I've seen at Kent. I think what makes him so impressive is he looks comfortable spotting up or catching it off a curl and he even looks fine shooting it off the dribble. Not a lot of shooters can do all of those things with ease. I know a lot has been made of our failure to redshirt guys in the past but I think it's a real shame we weren't able to redshirt Dev when he averaged under 6 minutes a night in only 18 games as a freshman. He's got an outside chance of reaching the all time 3 pointers made record for Kent so it stands to reason he would destroy it without that freshman year.

One other comment, I'm starting to really like Gary Akbar. He's the kind of player we haven't had for a long time. He's got a high major body and athleticism without an obvious physical short coming. He's not short for his position, he's not underweight, or slow, he has a good motor, and most importantly, he appears fine accepting his role. Usually when we get a guy with his physical attributes he can't accept not being "the guy". That doesn't appear to be an issue with Akbar. That's the kind of selfless role player we've been missing. He looked really good playing the high low with Spicer tonight, too.

I agree- when we recruited Akbar, I looked at his numbers in NJCAA and wasn't impressed, and didn't know why we were going after him. After each game, I looked at his box score lines, and nothing has been impressive. But you do notice his energy and defense on the floor.

He's kind of the tweener - where last year we played a lot of 3-guard offense, out beyond the arch, this year we've been running 2 guys out there, and Akbar and Hall in the middle space that was pretty much left empty last year

(12-20-2014 08:21 AM)Slinkin Street Flash Wrote:  

(12-19-2014 10:35 PM)anti-zip Wrote:  

(12-19-2014 09:30 PM)bball4me Wrote:  Nice way to end the game with the mini confrontation........

What happened there? I was out in the hall by that point and heard the PA announcer telling the fans to stay off the court.

Yeah - something was going on, but I didn't see the start of it, and couldn't see who was involved.

I noticed that neither team really respected each others space - there were a couple of times that the Flashes were grouping up to talk on the court before a free throw, in the lane, and the Aggies were grouping up in the same place. At the end of the game, it seemed like the Flashes were heading northeast-to-southwest to ring the victory bell at the same time the Aggies were headed southeast-to-northwest to get to their locker, someone took offense.

One of their guys were upset, but just a little pushing and shoving

I did not see what started it but I was at our bench end of the floor and saw a NCAT player being restrained by 2 of his teammates. He was doing the street thug thing of trying to pull off his jersey to mix it up with our player or players. It eventually took 3 of his teammates to almost carry him to the locker room. He was totally out of control. I did overhear someone remark that they thought our Davis had words with someone but can not confirm that.

This team does more to aggravate my heart condition than almost any team that I can remember. Let me say that I have respect for our defensive effort. That is the only thing that is allowing us to win. But, our offense is hard to figure. Hall is now discovered and his easy games are in his past. As I have said before, he really needs a mate to the two man post game. Spicer's disappointing passing and ball skills makes our interior game a one on two or three game. Also, Manley offers us a great outside threat. Unfortunately, he is the only consistent shooter. We have others that can and will have good games outside on occasion, but no one who can do it like Manley. He needs to get more looks but he gets defended pretty well. I am frustrated because I see the pieces that we have but it has not been put together. Now for the foul shooting ............ wait, I need to consult my cardiologist.

Kent always seems to give me heart conditions almost every year in this sport lol.