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

The Golden Flashes return to the Memorial Athletic and Convocation Center on Friday night to host the Jackrabbits of South Dakota State. SDSU enters the game with 3-4 record that includes wins over Boise State, Valpo and Saint Bonaventure. They have been defeated by Akron, Arkansas, Stephen Fitzgerald Austin and James Madison.

This should be a good test for the good guys. The Jackrabbits spread the ball around nicely on offense with five players averaging between 8 and 12 points per game. Their leading scorer is 6'3 sophomore Zeke Mayo. The product of Lawrence Kansas scores just over 12 points per night and leads the team in rebounding grabbing 7.4 boards a game.

Another Jackrabbit to watch is William Kyle. The 6'9, 215 pound forward averages 10 points on 66% shooting. He also leads the teams in blocks with 9 on the year. The other "big" that could give Kent State some trouble is 6'8, 240 pound Matt Dentlinger. 6'8/240 is a pretty nice frame at the mid major level.

After consulting with the analytics department, the unanimous opinion is that if Kent State plays good defense, values possessions and puts forth the type of effort that had them toe to toe with the number one team in the nation, the Flashes will improve to 6-2 ahead of Monday's matchup with Gonzaga in Spokane.

I say they will!

Kent State 74
SDSU 59
Sincere Carry and Giovanni Santiago combine for 40 points

I thought I would present some analytics so the Falls Dog Analytics Co. would have something to evaluate.

Kent St. is in a 4 way tie for 344th in Division 1 averaging 21.3 fouls per game. Pretty close to the most in the nation. Other teams of note are

1. Notre Dame 11.1
62. Akron 15.3
62. Houston 15
241. Average MAC team 18.4 (didn’t bother with a weighted average, to lazy)
344. Kent 21.3

Kent fouls 21.7 times at home and 21.0 times away. Pretty consistent.

An average MAC team is pretty low in the rankings although with non-conference schedules varying a lot evaluating conference games might provide better data.

No matter who the refs, Kent does seem to enjoy fouling.

Interesting that Houston who plays the same style of attacking aggressive defense as we do is so much lower. Either they play it much better than us or there's some respect-bias in the refs eyes. I'm sure defending without fouling us starting to be a focus in practices.

For the record Akron is also 62nd tied with Houston. I doubt the refs are biased in Akrons favor. We just foul a lot and as you say they need to fix it.

Well, I haven't seen Akron play yet this year, but I'm assuming their defense isn't as tenacious as ours. I know they are normally a good defensive team but they're 136th in opponent ppg and 234th in opponent fg%. We're 42nd and 18th (with 14% of our games coming against the #1 team). So my point about comparing our fouls per game to Houston was about the fact that both teams play the same super aggressive defense. Again, I haven't watched Akron play yet, but on paper it doesn't appear they're relevant to that conversation.

(12-01-2022 07:07 PM)anti-zip Wrote:  Well, I haven't seen Akron play yet this year, but I'm assuming their defense isn't as tenacious as ours. I know they are normally a good defensive team but they're 136th in opponent ppg and 234th in opponent fg%. We're 42nd and 18th (with 14% of our games coming against the #1 team). So my point about comparing our fouls per game to Houston was about the fact that both teams play the same super aggressive defense. Again, I haven't watched Akron play yet, but on paper it doesn't appear they're relevant to that conversation.

As I said elsewhere, the fouls kind of come with the territory, given how they play defense. If you look at the free throws made by their opponents, you also have to consider how many good stops KSU gets and how many points they get off turnovers. Dumb fouls can and should be eliminated or greatly reduced. But they are going to get lots of "good" hustle fouls too. To worry TOO much about fouls you risk losing defensive pressure. I remember once my coach hitting me (that used to be a "thing") because in a tough, physical game I had no fouls. He said it was because I wasn't hustling.

I know we all know Kent's defense is really good this year and is normally really good. Here's a fun fact to help illustrate just how good they've been so far...

College basketball started tracking steals as a stat in the 85/86 season. From the fall of 1985 until 11/19/22 no Kent player had ever reached double digit steals in a game. The school record was 8 by Chris Singeltary once. Second place was 6. Over a period of one week 11/19-11/26 we had a player get 10 then a player get 8... and it wasn't even the same guy. I have a feeling by the time the season is over our all time records for steals in a season, game, and career are going to be littered with Jacobs and Carry.

Note: I know steals don't equal defense. Guys can get steals by gambling. Clearly not what's happening here since the overall defensive numbers are really really good.

We have a history with S. Dakota St. Played them one time before in 2006. We won 105-50.

Please update the history…Beat ‘em in 2022.

Good to see Carry have a bounce back game with his efficiency. After the Houston game his season percentages looked pretty ugly.

Really solid performance tonight. Tough going for the Jackrabbits. Flashes were dominant on both ends.

Watch Hornbeak, he is becoming a player right in front of your eyes.

What happened to Odusipe? Reinjured?

(12-03-2022 12:10 AM)GFlash68 Wrote:  Watch Hornbeak, he is becoming a player right in front of your eyes.

Agree ... but still has a ways to go. Must make his presence felt -- at least rebounding -- in top tier games. But certainly tracking in the right direction!!!

His offensive game is coming along as well.

Covid

Sent from my SM-G930V using CSNbbs mobile app

(12-03-2022 10:43 AM)GFlash68 Wrote:  Covid

Sent from my SM-G930V using CSNbbs mobile app

Thanks, GFlash68. I appreciate it. It is so difficult, more so than ever, to get info on Kent State sports. I hope that resurgent COVID (currently averaging 2300 new cases daily in Ohio) and flu, which looks like will be more widespread this year than the last few years, don't wreak havoc on what looks like can be a really good season.

Something that's been kind of lost in the great start to this season is the contributions of the role players. The efficiency of the role players has been unreal. Here's the FG% of our top three bigs. Hornbeak 78.3%, Payton 85.7%, and Gillespie 93.3%. Sure they're not taking a ton of shots, but God that's automatic. Those would be really good FT%s. Speaks to the benefits of being in a lineup that often features three PGs on the floor at one time.

Add to that Davis shooting 40% from 3 and Sullinger shooting 47.6% from three and you've got a situation where trying to double Carry or Jacobs to get it out of their hands becomes really hard.

(12-03-2022 02:31 PM)anti-zip Wrote:  Something that's been kind of lost in the great start to this season is the contributions of the role players. The efficiency of the role players has been unreal. Here's the FG% of our top three bigs. Hornbeak 78.3%, Payton 85.7%, and Gillespie 93.3%. Sure they're not taking a ton of shots, but God that's automatic. Those would be really good FT%s. Speaks to the benefits of being in a lineup that often features three PGs on the floor at one time.

Add to that Davis shooting 40% from 3 and Sullinger shooting 47.6% from three and you've got a situation where trying to double Carry or Jacobs to get it out of their hands becomes really hard.

I've really liked what I've seen from Sullinger and Davis.

(12-03-2022 11:09 AM)Muskrat Wrote:  

(12-03-2022 10:43 AM)GFlash68 Wrote:  Covid

Sent from my SM-G930V using CSNbbs mobile app

Thanks, GFlash68. I appreciate it. It is so difficult, more so than ever, to get info on Kent State sports. I hope that resurgent COVID (currently averaging 2300 new cases daily in Ohio) and flu, which looks like will be more widespread this year than the last few years, don't wreak havoc on what looks like can be a really good season.

It probably will. I went to two games and guess what I caught. Not too bad except for a 3 day cough. After that I started working out again without any problem. Really a weird disease. I’ve had worse colds yet I can’t get a negative test.

(12-03-2022 04:49 PM)burden Wrote:  

(12-03-2022 11:09 AM)Muskrat Wrote:  

(12-03-2022 10:43 AM)GFlash68 Wrote:  Covid

Sent from my SM-G930V using CSNbbs mobile app

Thanks, GFlash68. I appreciate it. It is so difficult, more so than ever, to get info on Kent State sports. I hope that resurgent COVID (currently averaging 2300 new cases daily in Ohio) and flu, which looks like will be more widespread this year than the last few years, don't wreak havoc on what looks like can be a really good season.

It probably will. I went to two games and guess what I caught. Not too bad except for a 3 day cough. After that I started working out again without any problem. Really a weird disease. I’ve had worse colds yet I can’t get a negative test.

Very weird. The symptoms can range from extremely mild, especially so if one had been vaccinated, to severe enough to require admission to intensive care, and even death. Former Flash basketball star John Whorton had a nasty case. I assume the players have been vaccinated, but that doesn't always prevent positive test results.