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

(02-22-2022 09:34 PM)Muskrat Wrote:  42 points is good for 4th place all-time, and Sincere is only the second Kent State player to score 42 points or more, as Dan Potopsky scored 49, 48 and 48 in the mis 1950s. Not sure if any of the three were at home.

It looks like two of Potopsky's were at home, but all were in losing efforts. So that makes Sincere's the most points in a win.

(02-22-2022 07:57 PM)dannyb73 Wrote:  Need to play better defense. Can't believe BSU will shoot 63% in the second half as well. However, if they do, I predict a loss.

I actually thought the first half defense was really good. BSU was just knocking down contested shots. There were a few open looks but for the most part we were doing a good job contesting. They hit a high arcing one on Carry early where he did a phenomenal job if locking up the guy, forcing a tough shot and nearly blocking it with a strong contest... Then it goes in. In the second half they started getting more open looks. It seemed like we kept getting behind in the defensive rotations. Most of the times it looked like it was because a wing defender was either doubling when it went inside, or cheating in case he had to. My takeaway was at halftime BSU adjusted to trying to exploit our questionable post defense and Hamilton being out helped that be effective. I'm real nervous that the our post defense will eventually bite us.

This what a win we needed. I feel we needed to get pinched a little after 2 yawners. I have a hard time seeing us lose another one this year. The thing is I have a hard time seeing Buffalo, OU, Toledo, and NHCC losing in the regular season too. It's aggravating seeing OU and Toledo above us in the standings even though we smeared them.
Also, I haven't said it this week, but this team is going to be very special this year. I hope our guys see that and don't get sucked in the Portal.

(02-22-2022 09:29 PM)anti-zip Wrote:  Anyone remember more than 42 at the MACC? I remember McCollum putting up 42 against us.

The local guy that Geno didn’t offer? What ever happened to him anyway?

(02-22-2022 10:37 PM)Polish Hammer Wrote:  

(02-22-2022 09:29 PM)anti-zip Wrote:  Anyone remember more than 42 at the MACC? I remember McCollum putting up 42 against us.

The local guy that Geno didn’t offer? What ever happened to him anyway?

A local guy before him that we didn't offer and was begging to come to Kent State was also pretty good. Some kid named Earl Boykins. Not sure where he ended up.

(02-22-2022 10:33 PM)AlphaFlash Wrote:  This what a win we needed. I feel we needed to get pinched a little after 2 yawners. I have a hard time seeing us lose another one this year. The thing is I have a hard time seeing Buffalo, OU, Toledo, and NHCC losing in the regular season too. It's aggravating seeing OU and Toledo above us in the standings even though we smeared them.
Also, I haven't said it this week, but this team is going to be very special this year. I hope our guys see that and don't get sucked in the Portal.

Akron has a game at Ohio and Toledo has a game at Buffalo. And, of course, Buffalo has a game in the MACC.

It wasn't all that long ago that I thought that this season could end up being Senderoff's worst. Now, it has a chance of ending up being his best. One never knows, do one?

(02-22-2022 10:40 PM)dannyb73 Wrote:  

(02-22-2022 10:37 PM)Polish Hammer Wrote:  

(02-22-2022 09:29 PM)anti-zip Wrote:  Anyone remember more than 42 at the MACC? I remember McCollum putting up 42 against us.

The local guy that Geno didn’t offer? What ever happened to him anyway?

A local guy before him that we didn't offer and was begging to come to Kent State was also pretty good. Some kid named Earl Boykins. Not sure where he ended up.

Boykins can thank Gary Waters for “discovering” him. And I get that sometimes athletes use the slight as fuel to what drives them, but in McCollum’s class I believe we signed 6 recruits so the net should have been cast wide enough to include him since he’s local enough.

(02-22-2022 10:41 PM)Muskrat Wrote:  

(02-22-2022 10:33 PM)AlphaFlash Wrote:  This what a win we needed. I feel we needed to get pinched a little after 2 yawners. I have a hard time seeing us lose another one this year. The thing is I have a hard time seeing Buffalo, OU, Toledo, and NHCC losing in the regular season too. It's aggravating seeing OU and Toledo above us in the standings even though we smeared them.
Also, I haven't said it this week, but this team is going to be very special this year. I hope our guys see that and don't get sucked in the Portal.

Akron has a game at Ohio and Toledo has a game at Buffalo. And, of course, Buffalo has a game in the MACC.

UB is capable of winning at home against UT. Akron cannot win in Athens.

(02-22-2022 10:40 PM)dannyb73 Wrote:  

(02-22-2022 10:37 PM)Polish Hammer Wrote:  

(02-22-2022 09:29 PM)anti-zip Wrote:  Anyone remember more than 42 at the MACC? I remember McCollum putting up 42 against us.

The local guy that Geno didn’t offer? What ever happened to him anyway?

A local guy before him that we didn't offer and was begging to come to Kent State was also pretty good. Some kid named Earl Boykins. Not sure where he ended up.

I know for a fact this is wrong .... Boykins was a hard recruit by Grube and came down to KSU-EMU. Gary Waters recruited for EMU and was the difference. Boykins did want to transfer to Kent with Waters, but WAters told him to stay and be loyal to EMU.

(02-23-2022 07:55 AM)cleveland Wrote:  

(02-22-2022 10:40 PM)dannyb73 Wrote:  

(02-22-2022 10:37 PM)Polish Hammer Wrote:  

(02-22-2022 09:29 PM)anti-zip Wrote:  Anyone remember more than 42 at the MACC? I remember McCollum putting up 42 against us.

The local guy that Geno didn’t offer? What ever happened to him anyway?

A local guy before him that we didn't offer and was begging to come to Kent State was also pretty good. Some kid named Earl Boykins. Not sure where he ended up.

I know for a fact this is wrong .... Boykins was a hard recruit by Grube and came down to KSU-EMU. Gary Waters recruited for EMU and was the difference. Boykins did want to transfer to Kent with Waters, but WAters told him to stay and be loyal to EMU.

His Wikipedia page indicates his only offers came from EMU and Iowa with Iowa then pulling their offer.

Quote:Eastern Michigan and Iowa were the only two Division I basketball programs to offer Boykins an athletic scholarship, though Iowa later withdrew its offer.

https://www.sfgate.com/sports/kroichick/...628956.php

Quote: His career took off after a summer-league AAU game in 1993. Boykins' size and Serluco's structured offense had not attracted many college recruiters, but Gary Waters, then an Eastern Michigan assistant and now the head coach at Rutgers, came to scout a team from Detroit that featured future college stars Robert Traylor and Maurice Taylor.

Boykins, playing for his Cleveland team against Detroit, brought out the bag of basketballs before the game. Then, when his teammates came onto the court, he kept shooting. Waters remembers wondering, "Why the hell is the ballboy shooting with the players?"

The "ballboy" promptly scored 42 points to lead his team to victory. Waters called his travel agent and pushed back his departure so he could watch Boykins the next day. He went for 40-plus again.

STAR AT EASTERN MICHIGAN

Waters called Ben Braun, then Eastern Michigan's head coach and now at Cal, and said, "I think I found a point guard." When Braun asked how big Boykins was, Waters coyly replied, "Big enough."

The fact is, you can name any school and come up with lots of "mistakes" in recruiting. Same with professional teams and drafting and free agency and releasing players. Absolutely nobody knew McCollum would be as good as he turned out to be. He kept growing and growing and improving his game. I wasn't until he had already committed to Lehigh that the consensus was he could excel at the D I level. Given that Kent State men's basketball has not had a losing season since 1998, I would say that in the final analysis their recruiting must have been better than average.

Buffalo could find themselves with tired legs by the time they get to the MAC Center. They played last night at Miami, they play tomorrow in Dekalb and then host NIU on Saturday. That is followed by a Tuesday home game with UT before finishing things up vs. Kent at the MAC Center.

(02-23-2022 07:55 AM)cleveland Wrote:  

(02-22-2022 10:40 PM)dannyb73 Wrote:  

(02-22-2022 10:37 PM)Polish Hammer Wrote:  

(02-22-2022 09:29 PM)anti-zip Wrote:  Anyone remember more than 42 at the MACC? I remember McCollum putting up 42 against us.

The local guy that Geno didn’t offer? What ever happened to him anyway?

A local guy before him that we didn't offer and was begging to come to Kent State was also pretty good. Some kid named Earl Boykins. Not sure where he ended up.

I know for a fact this is wrong .... Boykins was a hard recruit by Grube and came down to KSU-EMU. Gary Waters recruited for EMU and was the difference. Boykins did want to transfer to Kent with Waters, but WAters told him to stay and be loyal to EMU.

I will just say maybe I missed something but I was in the basketball office almost everyday of the school year during Grube's tenure.

(02-22-2022 08:46 PM)Albert Flasher Wrote:  No Hamilton tonight?

Groin pull in warmups. Sendy said likely no big deal

(02-23-2022 08:38 AM)fallsdog Wrote:  Buffalo could find themselves with tired legs by the time they get to the MAC Center. They played last night at Miami, they play tomorrow in Dekalb and then host NIU on Saturday. That is followed by a Tuesday home game with UT before finishing things up vs. Kent at the MAC Center.

Per ESPN Buffalo 11-4 in MAC and 4 games left. NIU twice , Toledo,,KSU.
That means they only play 19 games. Schedule calls for 20?
Could be interesting problem at MAC office.
I never like Kent’s odds in those situations. We definitely need to beat them next week.

In a few years, when we get the new arena we should keep the lightning bolts.
https://www.espn.com/video/clip/_/id/333..._5GmP30K2M

(02-23-2022 08:55 AM)Older and Older Wrote:  

(02-23-2022 08:38 AM)fallsdog Wrote:  Buffalo could find themselves with tired legs by the time they get to the MAC Center. They played last night at Miami, they play tomorrow in Dekalb and then host NIU on Saturday. That is followed by a Tuesday home game with UT before finishing things up vs. Kent at the MAC Center.

Per ESPN Buffalo 11-4 in MAC and 4 games left. NIU twice , Toledo,,KSU.
That means they only play 19 games. Schedule calls for 20?
Could be interesting problem at MAC office.
I never like Kent’s odds in those situations. We definitely need to beat them next week.

Buffalo had three MAC games postponed. Apparently, one will not be made up. It looks like the game not rescheduled was a game at CMU. Interestingly, KSU's three remaining games are against teams they lost to earlier in the year,

BTW, Kent State did offer a scholarship to McCollum, at least according to what I read in the Canton newspaper years ago. Others did too, but he stuck with the first school to recruit him - Lehigh.

(02-23-2022 10:10 AM)Muskrat Wrote:  BTW, Kent State did offer a scholarship to McCollum, at least according to what I read in the Canton newspaper years ago. Others did too, but he stuck with the first school to recruit him - Lehigh.

Looks like we didn’t and Geno admits they didn’t see him progressing enough, but we did hit on Holt so it turned out ok.
https://www.mcall.com/sports/penn-state/...story.html

Quote: Nearby Kent State wasn't hot in pursuit of McCollum. Neither was Ohio State or other Division I programs in the state, though Akron wanted him to take a redshirt because it didn't have any scholarships available.

https://michael-lore.com/nba-prospect-cj...ong-dream/

Quote: Akron was very interested in him but had only one scholarship to offer and eventually gave it to Zeke Marshall. Kent State expressed interest, too, but gave a scholarship to Randal Holt. Bowling Green and Miami (Ohio) also recruited McCollum.

https://www.foxsports.com/ohio/story/leh...ams-062613

Quote:When it came to recruiting, though, he was treated like an off brand. Nearby Akron showed interest, but didn’t have a scholarship open. Kent State had one but had quality backcourt depth and already had a point guard committed in McCollum’s class. Bigger programs either saw a player they deemed too skinny or didn’t see McCollum at all.

McCollum played in the LeBron James-sponsored King James AAU program out of Akron as a high schooler, but he didn’t start on his team.

“A few times when we saw him in big (AAU) tournaments, he only played two or three minutes a game,” then-Kent State coach Geno Ford, now at Bradley, said. “That was a team we watched; a team a lot of college coaches watched often, as much as we could. We scouted him a bunch, and we saw a really, really skinny kid who could shoot it but had a long way to go.

“I’m not ashamed to say I missed with that evaluation, and credit for that goes to C.J. himself and the work he put it. Guys get better, and he didn’t just blow up but he did it in a hurry. He’s a confident guy who can get his own shot and has a great mind for the game, too. He always had a knack for scoring and here we were worried that he was too skinny or that he wasn’t getting enough time in AAU.”