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

The Flashes are in Athens for a 7PM tip on Tuesday against Ohio U. The Bobcats have agreed to use only one player 6'8 or taller at a time....just kidding. Lets hope KSU can bounce back from whatever that was in Ypsilanti.

I'm not overly confident

Ohio 81
Kent State 69

I did some checking. The Flashes have been playing OU since the 1930s. They’ve played nearly 70 games in Athens.

Now I’m no spring chicken but I’m also not exactly a millennial. But in my lifetime we have won 11 games down there. Eleven.

(01-14-2019 04:12 PM)JimJoyce Wrote:  I did some checking. The Flashes have been playing OU since the 1930s. They’ve played nearly 70 games in Athens.

Now I’m no spring chicken but I’m also not exactly a millennial. But in my lifetime we have won 11 games down there. Eleven.

I’d have to look up exact years, but I remember lots of games from the Convo being aired on ESPNU/FSN/Sportstime Ohio. Some memorable some not so much.

OU has had some excellent teams that have been tough to beat down there, whether it was in their current facility or earlier ones. I recall Kent State beating some good OU teams in Athens, and losing to some mediocre teams down there, too. This will be a game of two 1-2 teams. We'll see, maybe, just what kind of team we have.

Agree Muskrat. I am a big closet Bobcat fan. They always seem to play solid defense and keep home court. Wasn’t Jim Christian there once???

Walker needs two more threes to tie Holt's school record for a career.

Yeah, Jim Christian coached them a few years and did well. He left in 2014. Before Christian, Akron's current coach coached them and did fairly well. Very few coaches have won fewer than half their games there. The current coach, though, isn't much above .500.

Something I like to look at from time to time is a teams break down of frequency and efficiency on three point shots vs. two point shots to get an idea of what a teams identity is or should be. What I look at is points scored on three point attempts (this one is easy) and points scored on two point attempts including free throws. Since the vast majority of free throws come on two point attempts or drives in side the arc, I credit all free throw points to the two point category. Then to convert free throw attempts into possessions I use the accepted multiplier of 0.475 * FTA.

Right now Kent is averaging 1.096 points on 3 point attempts and 1.090 on 2 point attempts which at face value seems pretty well balanced. However, we're ranked 4th in the MAC in points on 3 point attempt vs. 11th in the MAC on points on 2 point attempts. The MAC average on 3 point attempts is 1.047 points while the MAC average on 2 point attempts is 1.141. So bottom line, we're one of the most efficient MAC teams outside the arc and one of the least efficient teams inside the arc.

So that brings us to the next question, what's the frequency of attempts look like? Currently on possessions we get a shot (taking out turnover possessions) we're attempting a three 33.3% of the time which is 6th in the MAC. The league average is 33.6%.

So my takeaways from this... we should shoot more threes. Every MAC team except us and Toledo is more efficient going inside the arc, but since we're so inefficient going inside attempting more threes is a better bet for us. The fact that we're below league average in the rate at which we're attempting threes seems like a mistake to me. Shooting more threes might help our efficiency inside the arc improve too as it should help stretch defenses out.

Next point... we know we lack size this year, but how does that translate into rebounding? Just looking at rebounding margins doesn't give you the complete story because one team missing more shots than the other affects how many rebounds are available on each end. The better way to look at it is the percentage of rebounds grabbed on each end of the court. Right now we're grabbing 32.8% of the rebounds available on the offensive end. That's good for 4th in the MAC (MAC average is 31.9%). However, we're only grabbing 69.5% of available defensive rebounds which is 10th in the MAC (MAC average is 73.2%). So we're a pretty good offensive rebounding team, but not a very good defensive rebounding team. Interestingly, this plays well with our strength of three point shooting as well. Missed threes tend to result in longer rebounds which makes offensive rebounds more likely.

Bottom line... let's embrace who we are and let it fly from deep.

Something else that's interesting. This match up with Ohio will be very conflicting styles. They attempt threes at the lowest rate in the MAC (28.3% of shots) and are 9th in points per 3 attempt at (1.00). They're also 3rd in the MAC grabbing 77.2% of their available defensive rebounds. I don't know if any of this means anything... but I'm bored.

A few memorable games from the convo...

https://kentstatesports.com/boxscore.asp...ath=mbball

https://kentstatesports.com/boxscore.asp...ath=mbball

https://kentstatesports.com/news/2013/2/..._4583.aspx

https://kentstatesports.com/news/2014/3/...KSUOU.aspx

Good first half for Kent and Walker. He was 3-4 from three 5-8 overall with 14 points and 4 assists. He didn't wait long to break the three point record.

Can we play with even the tiniest bit of tempo? Im sick of watching this team walk the ball up and waste the first 10 seconds of the shot clock.

Looking good!!

(01-15-2019 07:50 PM)anti-zip Wrote:  Good first half for Kent and Walker. He was 3-4 from three 5-8 overall with 14 points and 4 assists. He didn't wait long to break the three point record.

Then 1-7 in the second half with 0 assists... we gotta do more to get him quality looks.

A win is a win especially in Athens. not pretty but I will take it.

Great defensive game plan on Kirk. That was a real hard-nosed win. Guys locked down when OU tied it instead of cowering.

I refused to post after the EMU beating and took a deep breath. I hope those of you who bashed Rob and this team on Saturday have been back tonight to apologize. Or at least now able to recognize you may have jumped the gun. This team is 13-4. You can pick apart the schedule and bash the 2 P5 schools we beat, but we are 13-4. That speaks for itself. The league is going to be hard. All these teams know us and our personnel so we are going to lose some games. BG is now 4-0 in conference and they just kept pounding and it got away from us. EMU is a terrible matchup and I think it's safe to say our kids quit. That does happen from time to time. Not ideal, but not something any team is immune to. IMO - there is a lot to like about this team. They are not without flaws, but good grief, we are 13-4. If that's not good enough after 17 games, are the expectations realistic around here?

(01-15-2019 10:39 PM)dannyb73 Wrote:  I refused to post after the EMU beating and took a deep breath. I hope those of you who bashed Rob and this team on Saturday have been back tonight to apologize. Or at least now able to recognize you may have jumped the gun. This team is 13-4. You can pick apart the schedule and bash the 2 P5 schools we beat, but we are 13-4. That speaks for itself. The league is going to be hard. All these teams know us and our personnel so we are going to lose some games. BG is now 4-0 in conference and they just kept pounding and it got away from us. EMU is a terrible matchup and I think it's safe to say our kids quit. That does happen from time to time. Not ideal, but not something any team is immune to. IMO - there is a lot to like about this team. They are not without flaws, but good grief, we are 13-4. If that's not good enough after 17 games, are the expectations realistic around here?

Agreed.

A 13-4 record is terrific. A 2-2 MAC record isn't great, but nothing to panic over. I think, though, what has many concerned, including me, is the fact that the two losses were blow-outs. The fact is that the coach's regular season MAC record over the years isn't all that much above .500. I came to expect a little better than that. Maybe that is not a realistic expectation? I don't know.

Nice win last night. Ohio is not an easy place to win and they did.

I’m willing to “throw out” the two blowouts. BG is as hot as you’d ever want to see a team get right now and EMU had one of the flukiest performances a team has had against Kent since 2002 IU.