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

The Golden Flashes welcome the Bobcats from Ohio University, or Ohio as they prefer to be called, to the MAC Center for a Friday Night tilt. The game will tip at 6:30 and can be seen on CBS Sports Network.

The Bobcats enter the game with a 9-10 mark which includes a 3-4 conference record. I should add the Jeff Boals and company 0-5 on the road. That mark, however, does include some hard fought games against Western Michigan, Akron, BG and Davidson.

Unless I am mistaken only 8 teams will qualify for the MAC Tournament at Rocket Mortgage Field House. As it stands, Kent State is in a logjam of teams hovering around the 8th spot. A home win over OU would be very valuable.

I look forward to Friday evening with excitement.

Go Flashes!

On a side note, those jerseys they gave are really nice for a SGA. Also gave out nice football jerseys at one of those games and the rings they gave out with the MBB season tickets were sweet as well. I was hoping one would find its way onto eBay, but so far no luck.

Bad 3s, then Payton gets the quick rebound right under the hoop and tosses out it and away. SMH. Santiago you’ve got to make that layup!

Miss free throws... Lose games.

Going 4/23 from 3 point line didn’t help us any either.

(01-26-2024 08:41 PM)AlphaFlash Wrote:  Miss free throws... Lose games.

Missed FTs, missed opportunities right at the hoop and chucking bombs from 3 at a 17% clip is hard to overcome.

And errant passes!

The ball is precious.

I don't know what's up with Payton but he hasn't been the same player for the last couple weeks. I have two possible explanations for what we're seeing from him.

1. After tonight he's now set a career high for total minutes played in a season. That's for his prior two D1 seasons and both of his JUCO seasons. With no healthy center the last couple weeks most of those minutes are spent leaning on the biggest guy on the floor. I wonder if he's getting tired legs. Sort of like a fireballer relief pitcher who comes in there and throws 99 mph for 15 pitches, but then they try to stretch him out as a starter and he loses 5 mph off his fastball because he can't just let it all hang out anymore.

2. He is a player that lets offensive struggles get into his head and effect the rest of his game. Our PG play so poor. Our offense is sloppy. Outside of a couple of guys not many guys can throw a solid entry pass. And defenses are keying on him. All of this adds up to him getting frozen out on the offensive end. Few touches and when he does touch it he's not in a spot to score. He lets himself become mentally disengaged and it affects his defense and rebounding.

Whatever it is, you can't get 20 rebounds against CSU then be struggling to pull down 5 or 6 against middle of the pack MAC schools. If it's #2 they need to start drawing up some pet plays to start games with to get him looks right away. Get him going early. If it's #1 maybe it's time to start playing him exclusively at the 4. That means letting guys like Hunter, Freeman, Rollins, and VCD lean on the biggest guy for stretches while Hornbeak is out. Just some thoughts. Not that it will fix this team, but I hate seeing such an exciting player toil like this in the second half of his Sr year.

Other thoughts on tonight. Glad Rollins and Hornbeak are back... But man they looked rough tonight. Particularly Hornbeak. Hunter looked decent out there. I think he could stand for a bigger role. Freeman has come along nicely recently. He needs to be getting 20+ minutes each night. Our PG play is rough. We're going to struggle against any team that can effectively pressure the ball.