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

And also....out of timeouts....Kent stinks

Not just the baseline play is predictable but of late his teams are as well. Usually always revolves around selfish guard play with no consistent discipline on or off the court.

We have quite a bit of talent in Simons, Boo, Roberts, Pippen. But you cant have 4 guys that are the man. Just not enough shots to go around. We have some other pieces Beck, Whittington, Santiago, Peterson and Williamson but until those top 4 get off the "I need to get mine mentality" this team wont evolve. Those 2 road L's will be the most winnable road games of the MAC season.

Personally, I'd throw Santiago out there 30 minutes a game and take my chances with a true point guard who will make everyone around him better.

(01-19-2020 11:40 AM)ksu315 Wrote:  Not just the baseline play is predictable but of late his teams are as well. Usually always revolves around selfish guard play with no consistent discipline on or off the court.

We have quite a bit of talent in Simons, Boo, Roberts, Pippen. But you cant have 4 guys that are the man. Just not enough shots to go around. We have some other pieces Beck, Whittington, Santiago, Peterson and Williamson but until those top 4 get off the "I need to get mine mentality" this team wont evolve. Those 2 road L's will be the most winnable road games of the MAC season.

Personally, I'd throw Santiago out there 30 minutes a game and take my chances with a true point guard who will make everyone around him better.

I don't see were you get 4-guys trying to be the man??? ... When Kent has won -- and let's not forget this team is 13-5 -- it has been with five (5) players averaging in double figures with no real go-to guy ... yet with all of them at one time or another leading the team in scoring.

I'm guessing you also had a problem last year when JWalker was 'the man' and in your eyes likely dominating the basketball?

Right now one of those five (Whittington) is struggling and another (Pippen) has flatlined both due to health issues.

I'll grant you Kent has no true floor leader, but even when you have one (Jalen Avery) he loses value when the ball gets into the hands of a playmaker (Walker) who does not always do as expected.

Much like Avery, it will probably be more as a sophomore when Santiago take over the point. Kent's bigger issue is health.

Being 'predictable' is no big deal. Most teams know what's coming when they play Kent State (and vice versa). And few can stop it when Kent has all hands on deck. History has proven that.

Right now Kent just is not collectively on its game.

Go check out some of these other fan boards (EMU, WMU, Toledo, UB, Akron and others) and you will see a lot of the same angst and more about their teams.

It's college basketball. There's good and bad in every season.

(01-19-2020 11:40 AM)ksu315 Wrote:  We have quite a bit of talent in Simons, Boo, Roberts, Pippen. But you cant have 4 guys that are the man..."I need to get mine mentality"

I sure wish that mentality included driving to the basket with a modicum of toughness. It’s staggering to me how little those guys get to the free throw line. Staggering.

There’s good and bad in every season. Yes, thank you. Agreed.

But those two losses are for the dog. If you want Odell Beckons Jr. handing out cash you can’t lose to WMU and Miami. I would almost rather see Kent win those two by sign stealing than I would see them lose to those schleps.

Fallsdog hitting the bottle early on this Sunday to honor Dr. King.

Excellent points by both of you. I appreciate your loyalty to the program.
I watched the entire game and have to admit the last 5-6 minutes were a mess on offense.
I know there must be a " plan" but there didn't look like there was a plan.
Just get it downcourt and see what happens. No direction, sets, no picks etc.
I watch/ gamble on, a lot of college hoops ( thank God for ESPN+) and Western Michigan is a bad team.
That's a conference road game they should have had.

Maybe I am just old and bored by it all, but every season seems to be a rerun. Look good enough in non-conference to create hope, never be too bad or too good in Conference and then hope for three wins in the tournament so we can go to the NCAA (and probably lose). If we don’t get the wins make a consolation tournament and go to some God forsaken place to lose our last game of the season.

(01-18-2020 08:16 PM)fallsdog Wrote:  And also....out of timeouts....Kent stinks

I wanted to address this. To reiterate, my post about the last play isn't meant to be an indictment of Sendy, or a "sky is falling" type thing. Again, just that specific play I think is stale and we need to stop using.

As far as how we perform out of Timeouts, I've never personally looked into the numbers in the past but I know I've heard in previous years that Sendy teams are normally stack up pretty well. Personally, I'm not sure I'm a big believer that these numbers mean much. I doubt any coach is drawing up a play in every huddle and it's not like they're going to be making things up on the fly that their players haven't already practiced. However, I went ahead and crunched the numbers through 5 MAC games so we have something quantitative to add to the debate.

Here's the rules I'm working with.
- I'll count the first offensive opportunity after the timeout for the coach.
- If a foul occurred before the timeout so free throws are the first thing, I'm looking at the team not shooting the free throw's possession.
- If a foul occurred before the timeout so free throws are the first thing, and they result in an offensive rebound, I don't include this timeout (assuming anything drawn up goes out the window here).
- If the first offensive opportunity results in a missed shot and an offensive rebound that counts as a missed shot and whatever happens after the rebound isn't counted. I feel it's safe to assume no coach is drawing up a play that includes getting an offensive rebound.
- For points per opportunity I'll count any possession ended in drawing a shooting foul as 2 points regardless of the outcome of the free throws. Ie. Don't penalize the coach for drawing up a play that draws a foul, but his guy misses the free throws.

Coming out of timeouts where Kent gets the first offensive opportunity these are the numbers:
-32 opportunities; 6-11 2FG 54.5%; 5-11 3FG 45.5%; 3 FT drawing fouls; 7 turnovers; 1.03 points per opportunity; 43.8% success rate; 21.9% turnover rate.

Coming out of timeouts where Kent's opponent gets the first offensive opportunity these are the numbers:
-31 opportunities; 6-15 2FG 40%; 4-9 3FG 44.4%; 2 FT drawing fouls; 5 turnovers; 0.90 pointer per opportunity; 38.7% success rate; 16.1% turnover rate.

Comparing these numbers to Kent's season numbers on the same type of scale (for the same 5 MAC games).
-397 opportunities; 95-186 2FG 51.1%; 46-106 3FG 43.4%; 35 FT drawing fouls; 70 turnovers; 1.00 points per opportunity; 44.3% success rate; 17.6% turnover rate.

So the conclusions I'll draw from this...
We're shooting slightly higher percentages, and scoring slightly more points coming out of timeouts than we are on average. Our success rate is slightly lower and it seems to be entirely from the high turnover rate coming out of timeouts. If we cut that turnover rate a bit our out of timeout numbers would look significantly better.

And while we're slightly more efficient coming out of timeouts than we are on average, we're significantly better than our opponents are. Our 2pt% is much better and our points per possession and success rate are also much better than our opponents.

So my conclusion is we're doing fine coming out of timeouts. Could stand to cut a few TO's but, our performance out of timeouts is not a problem.

(01-19-2020 01:44 PM)fallsdog Wrote:  There’s good and bad in every season. Yes, thank you. Agreed.

But those two losses are for the dog. If you want Odell Beckons Jr. handing out cash you can’t lose to WMU and Miami. I would almost rather see Kent win those two by sign stealing than I would see them lose to those schleps.

Eric Haut's niece (aka. John Groce's burner account) tweeted yesterday that due to budget cuts we've have not been able to purchase our vibrating band-aids this year.

(01-19-2020 04:03 PM)anti-zip Wrote:  

(01-18-2020 08:16 PM)fallsdog Wrote:  And also....out of timeouts....Kent stinks

I wanted to address this. To reiterate, my post about the last play isn't meant to be an indictment of Sendy, or a "sky is falling" type thing. Again, just that specific play I think is stale and we need to stop using.

As far as how we perform out of Timeouts, I've never personally looked into the numbers in the past but I know I've heard in previous years that Sendy teams are normally stack up pretty well. Personally, I'm not sure I'm a big believer that these numbers mean much. I doubt any coach is drawing up a play in every huddle and it's not like they're going to be making things up on the fly that their players haven't already practiced. However, I went ahead and crunched the numbers through 5 MAC games so we have something quantitative to add to the debate.

Here's the rules I'm working with.
- I'll count the first offensive opportunity after the timeout for the coach.
- If a foul occurred before the timeout so free throws are the first thing, I'm looking at the team not shooting the free throw's possession.
- If a foul occurred before the timeout so free throws are the first thing, and they result in an offensive rebound, I don't include this timeout (assuming anything drawn up goes out the window here).
- If the first offensive opportunity results in a missed shot and an offensive rebound that counts as a missed shot and whatever happens after the rebound isn't counted. I feel it's safe to assume no coach is drawing up a play that includes getting an offensive rebound.
- For points per opportunity I'll count any possession ended in drawing a shooting foul as 2 points regardless of the outcome of the free throws. Ie. Don't penalize the coach for drawing up a play that draws a foul, but his guy misses the free throws.

Coming out of timeouts where Kent gets the first offensive opportunity these are the numbers:
-32 opportunities; 6-11 2FG 54.5%; 5-11 3FG 45.5%; 3 FT drawing fouls; 7 turnovers; 1.03 points per opportunity; 43.8% success rate; 21.9% turnover rate.

Coming out of timeouts where Kent's opponent gets the first offensive opportunity these are the numbers:
-31 opportunities; 6-15 2FG 40%; 4-9 3FG 44.4%; 2 FT drawing fouls; 5 turnovers; 0.90 pointer per opportunity; 38.7% success rate; 16.1% turnover rate.

Comparing these numbers to Kent's season numbers on the same type of scale (for the same 5 MAC games).
-397 opportunities; 95-186 2FG 51.1%; 46-106 3FG 43.4%; 35 FT drawing fouls; 70 turnovers; 1.00 points per opportunity; 44.3% success rate; 17.6% turnover rate.

So the conclusions I'll draw from this...
We're shooting slightly higher percentages, and scoring slightly more points coming out of timeouts than we are on average. Our success rate is slightly lower and it seems to be entirely from the high turnover rate coming out of timeouts. If we cut that turnover rate a bit our out of timeout numbers would look significantly better.

And while we're slightly more efficient coming out of timeouts than we are on average, we're significantly better than our opponents are. Our 2pt% is much better and our points per possession and success rate are also much better than our opponents.

So my conclusion is we're doing fine coming out of timeouts. Could stand to cut a few TO's but, our performance out of timeouts is not a problem.

Well done ...

And I would speculate that 2pt% goes directly to post play, where Kent is currently struggling. I would also bet a fair % of those turnovers out of timeouts were committed by post players either passing out of doubleteams or committing offensive fouls.

Sendy is far from perfect ... for one, it takes him too long to get freshmen involved unless they are 'special' ... but x/o wise he's as good or better than most.

(01-19-2020 02:19 PM)JimJoyce Wrote:  Fallsdog hitting the bottle early on this Sunday to honor Dr. King.

Caffeine induced rant. The bottle will come out for the packers/49ers

Burden wrote:
"Maybe I am just old and bored by it all, but every season seems to be a rerun. Look good enough in non-conference to create hope, never be too bad or too good in Conference and then hope for three wins in the tournament so we can go to the NCAA (and probably lose). If we don’t get the wins make a consolation tournament and go to some God forsaken place to lose our last game of the season."

I was thinking the same thing, Burden.

(01-19-2020 02:39 PM)burden Wrote:  Maybe I am just old and bored by it all, but every season seems to be a rerun. Look good enough in non-conference to create hope, never be too bad or too good in Conference and then hope for three wins in the tournament so we can go to the NCAA (and probably lose). If we don’t get the wins make a consolation tournament and go to some God forsaken place to lose our last game of the season.

I have been feeling pretty much the same way - the weak preconference schedule makes it difficult to get any sort of handle on most of the MAC teams. Compared with the past couple of years when UB had an edge in talent that the MAC is pretty much open to anyone. It appears Akron fans believe they're building a resume for an at large bid should they not win in Cleveland but I wouldn't count on it. I was at the BG game and although BG didn't play well that night stealing a win there is such a waste when you go up and chock at Kzoo.

Granted, it's still early and they are only one game behind the leaders, (Akron and BG and Ball St.) and they have home games remaining against all three, plus one at Akron. They certainly could win the MAC - regular season and/or tournament. But, sadly, I just don't see it. I hope I'm wrong, but it see it as more likely than not that they will have a so-so season like they had three of the last six seasons. They just don't, IMO, have enough talent, especially with Pippen clearly struggling, no doubt due to his past injury problems.

Lol at Akron fans thinking they're building a resume for an at large bid. I assume that's based solely on the fact they were top 40 on the NCAA NET rankings before their loss to UT. First, NCAA NET rankings are too new to believe they could persuade the selection committee to go against common sense. And if you're crutch is those rankings they haven't beat anyone ranked inside the top 100. Maybe if they win out until the MAC title game and lose in triple OT on a half court shot with all their starters fouled out they'll have a sliver of hope for an at large bid.

I am impressed with how quickly Groce has turned things around but they are a paper tiger.

Who leaves faster Groce or Lewis?

I don't know whether Groce or Lewis leaves sooner, but I'm sure Groce wants out faster than Lewis. Plus, there are far more DI basketball jobs worth leaving for than there are football jobs. Even if you consider any job that pays more worth leaving for, there are still more basketball jobs than football jobs.