Kent St

[swampcougar1]

Tomorrow night 6 pm at home. Hope for a decent crowd in spite of Thanksgiving Eve. They are very good team. Have not found any Vegas odds yet but will be surprised if they are not 3-5 point favorites. Will be on Flo sports for those who can not attend.

[Our city]

Odds Shark has us as 2 point favorites - that could change

[Comp Time]

What a win. I think we led for about 13 seconds in the whole game. Easily our worst outing of the year, and Kent State is a very good team. I'm surprised we pulled that one out. Gritty performance by our guys when we clearly did not have our "A game."

[swampcougar1]

Nice to have good crowd with students gone and being thanksgiving eve.

[GoCougsGo]

That was a wild one. That Kent State team lived up to the hype and I fully expect them to win 20+ this season. We looked completely gassed after the first 10 minutes as KSU just ran circles around us. The foul disparity was interesting but when you run up tempo like they do, it’s going to produce an exorbitant number of fouls. On the other hand, it seemed like every shot they took sank so not many opportunities to put them on the line.

Glad to win this one and we most certainly don’t win that game if it was played anywhere else.

[GoCougsGo]

And one more thing……why on earth was the majority of the offense being run through Babacar? Good Lord that was head scratching

[sweetpea]

Not at the game.
Lampten not in box score.
Injury?

[matrojan]

Lampten looked fine. I think his minutes are diminishing because Baba and Ante are just better. This looked like a really bad matchup for Lampten too.

Heck of a game.
Kent St is legit. Doubt we win this game on the road or a neutral court.

KSU came in with a focused game plan. They hadn't anyone who had tested them and they were itching to knock us down a peg.
I didn't hate our effort in that first half wasn't necessarily A effort but it wasn't terrible. We were still getting boards.

That said you saw the formula where we lose in the CAA. Shots aren't falling and we aren't getting enough effort plays to make up for it, meanwhile our opponents are executing their offense and building a huge lead.

Free throw shooting really dipped yesterday. Wonder what our average will be in the season more like last night or what we saw during the classic.

Baba what can you say. Kid is growing in front of our eyes. Felt at the end of last year that the 5 spot may be the best option. His footwork under the basket is miles better. He also is showing instincts on D. Ante is polished and interesting that he sometimes tries to do stuff facing the basket and gets himself into trouble cause he underestimates the level of competition.

Bolon's lack of true D1 athleticism shows in games like this. I'd personally put Rae in ahead of him while letting Bolon feast on second units, but i trust coach he obviously has his reasons.

[cofcxc]

4th! at Real Time RPI and receiving votes for the AP Poll for the first time since I don't know when (Herrion's first year?)

[Barking Spider]

We were tired after the Charleston Classic. Several times our guys had hands on knees during dead balls. It was the whole team and completely understandable. Slower footspeed compared to the tourney and missing free throws we had been making previous three games. Not being negative about anything, just saying the reality of what I saw. During the post game interview, Coach even said he was worn out and needed a rest. The best part was all of the guys still played hard and gave it everything they had in the tank. The staff substituted so that our guys were still going while Kent State's #3 (fantastic player) and #2 both ended up with cramps and slowed up. Sincere would have made that last shot in the first half (he did not miss many) but our depth wore Kent State out. Very Happy with our effort!

[GACoug]

They played 5 games in 10 days, understandably tired. Also Kent St. Had nearly a week to focus on the cougars. I think both of those things negated any home advantage. It was a great win to finish a very hard stretch.

[GoCougsGo]

Kent with a 5 pt loss against #2 Houston. Low low
Scoring affair in the 40s. Such a good team