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

Nice column by Terry Pluto:

http://www.cleveland.com/pluto/index.ssf...thispage=1

3,576 isn't too bad for attendance during break and when people are out of town for the holidays...

3,056 was CRakron's attendance...

I think its awesome that we can pull more people than a school located in a decently large city.

Good job marketing

Excellent article by a great b-ball man. Nice comments about Fisher, ironic too considering that highly touted recruiting class so far appears to be wayyy off yet this kid just snuck in the as an unrecruited afterthought and is leading the way.

I have spoken to Terry Pluto meny times ,he is a fine writer and a better person ,the Akron Becon sports is diminished by him not being there and the Plain Dealer has been rewarded with his talent..e-mail him with a comment, he will most likely awnser you back..great person... did i say i'm a Pluto fan...lol

Never thought of it but the recruiting class has been a bust. Spates never made it, Garcia is not even close to being ready, Woods is a 10 minute per game player and one was redshirted. So much for the 35th best recruiting class in the country. I'd hate to see number 38.

burden Wrote:Never thought of it but the recruiting class has been a bust. Spates never made it, Garcia is not even close to being ready, Woods is a 10 minute per game player and one was redshirted. So much for the 35th best recruiting class in the country. I'd hate to see number 38.

Do not be so critical at this point. Here is my take on the class and I will admit some optimism but it has a strong dose of possibilities.
1- Antonio Dimaria, IMO, will be a pleasant surprise. He has size, shot, and ability. The only reason he is red shirted is that he plays into our strength and we really do not need him this year. Down the road, we will have had him for 5 years and this fits with my MMM4S. (Mid Major Model For Success) We have done well with this formula in the past.
2- Fisher is a lucky find, but from what I now see, he does more for us that Spates could ever do. He takes the place of Spates in that class and is not a downgrade.
3- Garcia was not a part of the rating system in the 35 rating. I do not fault his recruitment. He is tall but just does not fit with our floor team of this year. The team style of play may be different next year and he may be of help. If not, no big deal.
4- Woods is somewhat of a disappointment with me also. I see why he was rated highly, but it is obvious that he has not played KSU style BB. I think that any MAC would be happy to have him right now. He will be at the very least a serviceable player for us. ( I hope) He made possibly become what he is supposed to be.

I am OK with this class. It is possibly as good as advertised, just not apparent now. Have a little more faith, my friend.

I'm with GFlash68. I don't know about the ranking, but Fisher replaced Spates, and he is a great recruit. Dimaria was redshirted, so there is no way to evaluate him until next year. Woods has not been great, but is in the rotation so he can't be considered a flop at all. I don't see Garcia ever mattering, but there is still the realistic chance that 3 of the 4 could be assets to the program, with a minimum of one star (Fisher).

Fisher is a better fit for this team than Spates ever would have been. He is fine young man and is an unselfish teammate. We upgraded with him. Woods has been slow in learning the system and has had a injury to his toe. Some transfers fit in quicker then others.[/u]

I agree with ksur. I mentioned several weeks ago in another topic that, while Spates may have more pure talent than Fisher (maybe), Fisher is by far the player we'd rather have.

GFlash68 Wrote:

burden Wrote:Never thought of it but the recruiting class has been a bust. Spates never made it, Garcia is not even close to being ready, Woods is a 10 minute per game player and one was redshirted. So much for the 35th best recruiting class in the country. I'd hate to see number 38.

Do not be so critical at this point. Here is my take on the class and I will admit some optimism but it has a strong dose of possibilities.
1- Antonio Dimaria, IMO, will be a pleasant surprise. He has size, shot, and ability. The only reason he is red shirted is that he plays into our strength and we really do not need him this year. Down the road, we will have had him for 5 years and this fits with my MMM4S. (Mid Major Model For Success) We have done well with this formula in the past.
2- Fisher is a lucky find, but from what I now see, he does more for us that Spates could ever do. He takes the place of Spates in that class and is not a downgrade.
3- Garcia was not a part of the rating system in the 35 rating. I do not fault his recruitment. He is tall but just does not fit with our floor team of this year. The team style of play may be different next year and he may be of help. If not, no big deal.
4- Woods is somewhat of a disappointment with me also. I see why he was rated highly, but it is obvious that he has not played KSU style BB. I think that any MAC would be happy to have him right now. He will be at the very least a serviceable player for us. ( I hope) He made possibly become what he is supposed to be.

I am OK with this class. It is possibly as good as advertised, just not apparent now. Have a little more faith, my friend.

first, i think gflash is really jim christian. :ncaabbs:

as far as the class, it didn't pan out as we all expected, but it is panning out. i strongly believe this class will result in multiple mac championships in the next 5 years. wouldn't it be sweet to have a mac championship for the 2010 anniversary!?

sure this class is different from what we thought but by next year I think we will see it was a good class

I agree that demaria appears to have good size, athleticism and it sounds like he is a shooter. As for Woods I am starting to see him do more on offense and defense with every game. It seems like he has alot of pure ability but hasnt met a coach that can pull it out of him to be an effective player. I think if anyone can do it, its JC and staff. We'll see how good he is by the end of next year, my guess is he'll develop into a solid MAC player.

We were all excited about Spates, myself included, but one AC who was familiar with him told someone in the program when asked about KS coming to KSU, "how much do you like your job?" May have been the best thing that never happened to us. I'm thinking there's no way he could have blended in as well as Al Fisher and been as big an impact player as he has. AF is way beyond what I would have expected from either player.
Like in a lot of other things, in recruiting it's often better to be lucky than good.

Actually Spates was a legit upper div.1 player , so lets not fool ourselves, he would of been the best point ever to play here ,is too bad he is what ever he is ,if he was an alter boy he be nowhere near here ... and burden you are right on brother, it was not JC proudest recruting moment (in my humble opinion) Gabe on the bench,DEmaria red-s ,Spates gone , about the only one who can help now is Woods ,he is a great shoter and should be putting up more 3's , he's 13-27 for 48 % from downtown...:cheers:happy new year all....

I agree with Axeme, Oldfan1. While I conceded that Spates is most likely the better pure basketball talent, there are other things that matter and make a guy a better fit. I don't know much specifically about Spates' past problems, so I won't judge the man. Suffice it to say that there was at least a possibility of "problems", and a program like Kent State, or any other solid mid-major, depends on teamwork and unity, esprit de corps, if you will, things like that. The major-majors can afford to stockpile 4 and 5 star recruits regardless of the intangibles, knowing that it is no big loss and they have to send one or two packing. My opinion, and it's just my opinion, I'm glad that we were able to get Fisher instead of Spates.

kent 76 i agree with you ,but part of my point was that if Spades was am academic all-american and an alter boy we would of not even know his name ... THE ONLY REASON KENT had a chance at him was becouse of his problems... hny

I have got to respond to this one. Fisher was NOT part of the class. We were lucky to get him (thank God) but Spates was part of the highly ranked class not Fisher. Anybody who thinks Garcia is going to help much must be seeing something I'm not. I will patiently wait until next year but I am not expecting very much. If he had that potential he'd be playing a bit and Scott would not be playing 37 minutes per game. Woods is Ok and might develop nicely. A little disappointing but not a major problem. The redshirt might be fine but he wasn't ready so he could not have been a big part of the 35 ranking.
Having said all that I love what Fisher is doing for us and if Woods and the red shirt develop it will go down as a pretty good recruiting class just not the class we expected. As they say sometimes it's better to be lucky than good.
By the way if I was JC I would not admit that I was looking at the wrong tape when I decided to recruit Omni Smith. That's not very comforting to me that a mistake like that took place. The odds of that turning out the way it did was probably 5% at best. Again lucky is better than good.

Burden, you're right in that Fisher was not part of the original class, but they did sign him to a scholarship this year, so he is part of the final group of signees for the Fall 2007 semester. But you're right in that Spates was part of the group someone ranked 35th, not Fisher.

axeme Wrote:We were all excited about Spates, myself included, but one AC who was familiar with him told someone in the program when asked about KS coming to KSU, "how much do you like your job?" May have been the best thing that never happened to us. I'm thinking there's no way he could have blended in as well as Al Fisher and been as big an impact player as he has. AF is way beyond what I would have expected from either player.
Like in a lot of other things, in recruiting it's often better to be lucky than good.

Korey Spates wuld have been very unhappy here and we would have been very unhappy with JC for bringing him in. All's well that ends well.

It's fair to say that this class isn't setting the world on fire. IMHO, though, add "Yet". Keep in mind we've played just 12 games in about 7 weeks with a deep and experienced bench. Fishes is exceptional to break through- seldom do even high major programs have more than two exceptional recruits.

As for the debate about recruiting quality, seems to me to be reminicent of a discussion we had in 2005 about J.C.'s inability to recruit when he showed up with Smith, Sullinger, McKee, Mincy and Parks. Of that class, 4 of 5 worked out, and Parks is TBD. At the time, GF68 told us to expect to put 3 years into Parks to get 2 out. Personally, I'd do that for a guy of his size in the MAC.

I guess if we're going to point out that there are "flaws" or that mistakes have been made in recruiting over the past few years then we should also note that the program and coaching staff is incredibly strong to sustain those errors and maintain stability and continue to challenge for MAC championships.

The positive thing about our program is that nearly every year since 2003 we have been tabbed as rebuilding by the rest of the conference, but we continue to be at or near the top of the league year in year out.