DooleyBull06

Saw a mock draft that had him going in the 2nd round. Believe it was an ESPN mock.

Numbers numbers numbers. Bla bla bla. What do your eyes tell you? They should tell you that, right now, we are a team that is anywhere from 4-8 in the conference. We can beat the directionals all day long but can’t beat the top teams. Your eyes should also tell you that bc of numbers like above Whitesell will be back. Until this team proves it can beat the good teams and string more than 2 conference wins in a row, we are a middle of the pack team. Upside sure, but I think most of us are tired of saying, “this team is athletic” bla bla bla. At some point it has to be done on the court. As I’ve said before, the Whitesell ere is defined as missed opportunity. Can’t win the big games. IE…the conference title game a couple years ago.

Also it’s seemed like Hardnett battled lots of nagging injuries last year.

Oh for sure. Trending up no doubt. Miss Oats. Nothing but love for him. Was ahead of his time while in the MAC. We had a good one.

Still a decades away conversation. They’ve never made a final four. And making it there this year or even winning doesn’t make them a blue blood. Great start yes with Oats. But let’s see him finish his career there and win 4 or more titles before that term is thrown around.

Can they make a final 4 first. Loooong way to go before bama basketball is in the convo of blue bloods. Agree with everything else you said.

I don’t know the finance situation and shy away from that topic but my best ignorant guess is all of the above

You might be class of 75 but this is not an “old man get off my lawn” take good sir. The onus for attendance falls on the students. We are a large public university, it should be an event to attend a game and go wild as a student. Agree we should unplug the DJ and get back to the pageantry of college athletics…band, cheerleaders, mascot and dance team. Chants from the crowd. Anyone see the Maryland game last night? During tv timeouts the band and students played off each other to single out players from the opposing team and the students would simple say, “you suck.” That’s funny and engaging to me while not being crazy offensive. The lack of amenities speaks to the lack of commitment from above. That had to change when we had our glory run. Has the time to upgrade or build anew passed? And finally…given the 450k salary and 300k buyout, we are def not gonna fire Whitesell and have two HCs on the books.

Maybe we should hire Stack when he’s fired lol

With a scorer like Bates, if they just make it to Cleveland, they could be a dangerous first round opponent

Think we need to stop with excuses and blinders…we are not as good as the top 3 teams in the conference. Could we, on any given night, pull an upset? Sure. But the month of February is going to determine if this team finds some fight or if they quit on the season. Next 2 games are must wins.

WTF is his salary then?

This is fun x and o convo…remember our win against Arizona. Who am I kidding, everyone does. But specifically remember how we put Ayton in a blender? We did that in a half court set by having him guard dribble drivers and pulling him away from the paint. Rather than always shooting over the top of taller defenders, one way is to attack them in space. If Jones can be the threat outside, we have guys like Powell who can penetrate. Then either finish, get fouled or kick for open looks. Combine that with our transition attack…that’s a way to counter opposing teams height and strength down low. But overall, we aren’t gonna win many games when Jones shoots 1-13. He has become the key to this offense.

NIU plays Ball St today so that’s a win win for us. As the loser will be 4-4 and we hold the tie break. BG plays at Toledo so I expect them to lose. We will leap frog them based on tie break also. End of the day we could be in 5th. We also have the tie breaker right now over Ohio too. It’s way too early but this is still fun looking ahead.

Here’s the questions we should be asking… 1) Does this team right now have the ability to rip off the 3 wins in a row that it would take to win the conference tournament? 2) If not, how do we become a team that can do that? Quick glance at the standings…looking like the best seed we can get is a 4. Fortunate that right now we have the tiebreakers against the middle of the pack. Beating Akron with students back will go a long way. After Akron there’s a landing spot to get on a roll.

Comparing Clark to Foster is foolish. Clark should be compared to Battle. That’s the kind of impact he had on his teammates, winning and the school. And he only played a year. As for the game last night…typical Kent State style slug fest. Tons of fouls. No rhythm game. We didn’t beat them at their game. Had Jones had a better night, perhaps we steal one there. As we close out January right now this team has an identity. It hustles and plays hard. It’s competitive as others have mentioned. However we currently are inconsistent. One night we shoot 50% or better the next only 33%. Last night we shot and outshot them at the line. Despite that horrible technical foul sequence where we missed 3 of 4. We are just, at this moment, inconsistent. As we move through February, to really get this thing going we gotta level out a little. The truth of this team lies in the middle. If we level things out, IE: turnovers, with our explosive abilities, we can be the team no one wants to face in March. And yes for fan confidence sake beating a Kent or Akron or Toledo along the way would be nice. Someone fact check Whitesell’s record against teams ahead of him in the standings during league play. Curious to see what that looks like.

We are facing a potential final 4 team guys lol….temper expectations

And Kent state goes down. Life on the road

It’s crazy how rollercoaster we are. Funny thing is this is what we all kinda of expected. Ups and downs. But lots of promise. Obviously we won’t play like this all the time. But the truth lies in the middle. Somewhere between tonight and Toledo. Keep building and trending up.

That was a sick alley

Had to go there. That’s a trigger for some of us lol

Guess he finally decided to play tonight. Kinda what I was expecting from him all year. Like against Michigan

Umm whoa. Didn’t see that coming.