I went down to the game tonight. The attendance was surprisingly 9,950. I guess alot of NKU fans were there too.

To be honest, I was disappointed. I don't know why......I just was. I see alot of positives, but what I look for is individual improvement. I look for fire in a guys belly. I look for drive and passion..........and I only see it in a few guys, unforunately.

Keep in mind......I also went down for Midnight Madness. Here are my observations:

Eric Hicks - he has a very focused look on his face and plays with alot of passion. He has surpassed Maxiell as the best player on this team, in my opinion. That is based on Midnight Madness and tonight. He is a beast underneath and has a wide variety of moves and can get up and down quickly and put the ball in the basket with a nice soft touch from 2 feet to 10 feet. I even saw him attempt a couple of three pointers and one bounced in. His FT shooting is much improved and looks smooth. His rebounding is solid..........he is a true fighter. He had 24 points with like 15 minutes left in the game and I think he only played like 20 minutes of the entire game and finished with like 30 points. I have would have to check the boxscore, though. Definitely the most focused and improved player on the team. I just hope it continues.

Jason Maxiell - looked the same as always in the first half. Was alot more aggressive in the second half, but honestly, he only has that turn around jumper still. He did have a nice tomahawk slam on a baseline feed.....and surprisingly swished a three pointer in the last couple minutes of the game. He was solid.......but really looks the same as his last two seasons.

Roy Bright - not much to say. Nothing negative to say........he kinda does alot of the little things. He did nail a three pointer in the second half, cleanly. Not flashy.......just does his job. No complaints.

Souleymane - did not play, I have no idea why.

Banks - did not play, and I found out it's academics.

Jihad Muhammed - is clearly the better PG between he and Chadd Moore. Jihad emphatically tries to get guys into position, pointing to them and the spot he wants them. Jihad's herky jerky stop and start ballhandling is really a change of pace and hard for his defender to cover, I noticed tonight. He is a pass first PG.........but in the second half nailed three beautiful three pointers hitting nothing but net and they were 20-25 footers. He also tried to play defense........was not a slacker.

Chadd Moore - his shot is definitely improved.........but my problem with Chadd is that he loses his man on defense repeatedly. He just seems to lose focus on what's going on, unlike Jihad.

James White - looked better tonight. I was very pleased to see him penetrate over and over and nail some driving shots.......and that is what we need from him. He made some poor decisions in the second half......but everyone got sloppy for some dumb reason. His three point shooting was on tonight.

Kirkland - I gave him praise at midnight madness for his smart passing and decision making......well, tonight he just flat out sucked. He made poor decisions and was not aggressive at all. Everytime he penetrated he would lose the handle on the ball. His defense still sucks, too.

Some kid named Eric Murray (a walk-on maybe?) played alot of second half minutes. He didn't look bad and played defense better than some of our regular starters. Patzwald played and so did Meeker. Lucas did not play for some reason.

The worst part of the night was the sloppy defensive play after they got a 25 point lead. I can't believe how many times that NKU ran that play on an inbounds play under the basket where they got like 4 easy layups. At what point do the UC players catch on?????? It was pathetic and the adults around me were laughing at how stupid the UC players were not to catch on. LEARN!

I was disappointed in the lousy defense. They switched to a zone for a short while which didn't really work. They also tried to full court press which didn't work at all. And finally in the second half, they gave up easy basket after easy basket.........all due to guys just flat out losing their man and giving up easy open shots. It was bad.

I would say that Hicks is the most improved. White is improved and penetrated like we need him to do.......but he lost focus in the second half. Jihad is a very pleasant surprise and will be the PG of this team. He has energy that alot of those guys don't have unfortunately.

My take? Right now............it reminded me of last year when they'd come out.....shut down the other team......go up big and get complacent. I know, I know......it's only an exhibition game. But I only went looking for individual improvement from the veterans and to see the newbies. Hicks and White are improved and Jihad is the best newbie, IMO.

Good review Bearcattitude! I went to the game too, and here are my two cents to add in...

Eric was very active inside, grabbing pretty much every thing near 5ft of him and putting in the basket. Sure part of it has to do with NKU's lack of size in the post, put we've seen him do the same against better competition last year as well. He's definitely improved offensively (with a better range) and looks to be a bit better at the FT line. However, he did have several lapses on the defensive side.

Jason Maxiell didn't really get into a rhythm for a while, and committed a couple silly fouls, but warmed up quite nicely shooting the ball towards the end.

I did like that James White was agressive attacking the basket. If I remember right, he brought the ball up the court on a few occasions and had a couple of nice passes in the first half.

Just like most people I didn't know who Eric Murray was, and was surprised to see him play that many minutes. He didn't do anything spectacular but also didn't do anything stupid on defense.

Bearcattitude mentioned the inbounds plays that we continually get beaten on. That was terrible. I will give credit to the Norse running great screens for their players (probably a necessity due to the lack of athleticism compared to the 'cats), but it seems our players will have to learn how to play the screens better for the regular season. Our guards (Chadd and Meeker mostly) seems to get beat by the opposing player driving to the basket a lot.

It appears we're going to be a pretty fast-paced team this year, at least on offense anyways. Whoever has the ball is always pushing it up court, and everbody seems to be looking to run as soon as we get the rebound. However, defense is another story. Aside from losing guys from screens, we also can't seem to run an effective full-court press. Our guys look like they are out of positions when applying the pressue, not sure if it's because of being over-agressive or not agressive enough, which results in someone getting wide open right under the basket or on the 3pt line. Hopefully, we will get better at this as the season goes on.

So is Murray more of a post player or Guard type. Same with Roy.

jarr Wrote:So is Murray more of a post player or Guard type. Same with Roy.

He looks to be about 6'-5" and played in the post tonight. My guess is he'll be backing up in the forward position. But someone may know more about this.

Hicks is amazing, He is so muscular that he reminds me of The Hulk or something.

Good wrap-up, Chatter. Thanks.

One question for anyone attending... does White look like he has added any muscle?

At MM he looked maybe 5 pounds heavier than last year.