1. We give up an amazing number of uncontested three-pointers.

2. We don't rebound.

3. Almost everybody in this league is more athletic than we are.

Totally agree. The program is badly underperforming both on and off (recruiting) the court.

This team didn't, and doesn't, need Wiz. He was beyond awful.

Unless he was injured I would bench his ass right now. His effort on defense was absolutely embarrassing. His team getting absolutely smoked and he's on the bench yucking it up. Great leadership.

I think we have solid guards. Sheldon has caught the Ivo/BRod shooting bug but he plays solid defense. AJB and Pav took over when they needed to. What we lack is an actual big. I like Vic and I think he's a good backup up for the MAC but we need a Dwight Wilson again. Someone who's good enough to start and move bodies. Clayton hasn't shown any interest to play down low. Evans isn't going to be big enough unfortunately but I still think he'll be a good 4 that plays like a Jon Smith.

Clayton has no interest in doing the dirty work of playing defense and rebounding. Perfectly content to go from 3-point line to 3-point line. Sitting him may be a good wake-up call.

My goodness some of these takes are golden, some of them BA Mt. Rushmore worthy.

To me the difference in this game was obviously 3pt shooting and rebounding. We are in trouble when it comes to rebounding until we get a healthy Hadaway back. Searls has some offensive skills but is a liability on the glass and defensively, MAC big men are a huge step up from what he was going against at Ashland and its showing now that he is getting more minutes. The lack of strength is hurting us.

Hadaway is very clearly our Treg Setty and we desperately need that presence on the court. Keep seeing people saying we had no fire, which is true, and Hadaway is that guy.

Jackson Paveletzke should have the green light to create any sort of offense he can, not sure why he's been getting crapped on all season. Just look at the box score from last night, super efficient.

Not sure what to say about Clayton, an embarrassing performance no doubt. Did he get hurt or benched last night? The calls to bench him for next game are absurd. That would be a great way to completely derail this team more than it already is at a time where we desperately need a big performance.

AJB has not developed at all IMO. He actually may have taken a couple steps backwards since his freshman year. Somebody of his size and length needs to do more, 1 rebound is pathetic.

I don't expect Elmore James to come back unless there was a death in the family or something like that. If this is a mental health issue and he does return, not sure we can trust that he's in the right state of mind to be competing at a high level and should probably focus on his own health instead of playing basketball.

Well I expected full doomsday melting down and bickering amongst each other and you guys delivered.

This season continues to be disappointing no doubt, but is still not a lost cause. Virtually every Bobcat hoops season includes at least 1 disappointing loss to a middle-of-the-road MAC team on the road. Even our championship seasons. I knew this game wasn't gonna be easy. EMU shot lights out (yes largely aided by poor defense) but in the end it is our worst loss of the season as EMU ranks KenPom #307 even after the win against us.

Vegas can aide us in figuring out just how disappointing and "below expectations" we are. On the season we are 5-12 against the spread. We have now lost 5 games in which we were favored (EMU, Marshall, Tx State, MTSU, Illinois St). We have won 0 games as underdogs. That is pretty telling. Our best win by KenPom rankings is #189 UNC Asheville. Any way you slice it, the disappointment this season has been thick and heavy.

AJC scores 58 and goes 13 for 18 from 3 in just 46 minutes of play en route to the national player of the week honors. In the 3 games since he has scored 18 points and is 1 for 9 from 3. I am very curious what happened with him last night, I can't imagine he did anything to warrant getting benched (especially already being shorthanded) but at the same time he looked completely healthy. Did anyone listen to the radio postgame???

The smiling with a teammate doesn't bother me. Look grumpy and you'll say oh he quit on the team, look happy and you'll say he doesn't care about losing. He was extremely supportive of his teammates while sitting on the bench, I really don't care if something made him smile at some point. AJ has been a model citizen and proud Bobcat for 4 years, I don't think he deserves to be thrown under the bus because of an ill-timed smile.

Vic's line looks great from last night on the stat sheet but agree with others that he struggled in several points. Only 2 TOs credited to him but could have been 2 or 3 more. Should have had several rebounds he didn't get. But overall he wasn't bad.

Call it yips, a slump, or something else but Sheldon's outside shot has disappeared. 4 for 23 from 3 in MAC play. Much like B-rod, when a player whose main attraction is hitting threes suddenly can't reliably hit threes, it becomes a problem. Only JP has been worse among players with more than 11 attempts.

JP did great driving to the hoop again, if he could add a reliable outside shot he could be dangerous on offense. But he was 100% responsible for several wide open looks for EMU last night.

This game was almost exactly like Akron. Get buried behind a big run middle/end of 1st half and can't ever claw back as opponent just buries shot after shot. But Akron is obviously a much stronger team.

Hopefully Friday against Kent becomes our new signature win and not our 6th loss as favorites. We've gotta get these next 2 at home if we still want to be in the mix at the top.

Dont worry, help is on the way. Boals has his eye on a 5'11 power forward from Reynoldsburg class of 2030.

As someone who posted a ton during this game I feel like this post here is perfect. I was extremely down on this team last night and should have taken a step back. A few Jackie O's and the desire for Boals to become elite (which I just haven't seen yet) caused me to overreact. I struggle with the "effort" part which is crazy. Vic Searls is giving effort. It's just hard to see him have zero boards in an entire half. Sheldon plays hard but he is missing his swagger. We don't know about Clayton yet or Elmore which is crazy to me. I know these are amateurs but with NIL they are closer to pros then they used to be.

This team can make a run but I have a strange feeling. But I also have to remind myself that after the game at Miami in football I walked to my car with my family and was saying how OUr season was done and I was finished watching games. Look what happened! Thanks Ruck for the reality check!

I think this is something he should have done yesterday. No, this isn't a doomsday post but rather a reality as to where things stand currently under Boals.

We're in year 4 removed from the VA win. The roster deficiencies that have plagued us the last few years remain the same and there hasn't been any adjustments schematic-wise to fit the personnel that has been brought in.

This was supposed to be the season to take a step forward and to date -- we haven't. This year has the same feel as the previous. We'll go on a streak of wins that get us all optimistic heading into March with somewhere between a 3-5 seed and likely fall in the MAC semi's.

Barring changes to philosophy around recruiting and in-game strategy, this might just be how it is with Boals. A lot of neutral and not moving one way or the other. Then hoping to catch lightning in a bottle come March.

This is a one bid league. Period! Win three games in Cleveland and all will be forgotten. The bottom of the league is bad. The Bobcats will be one of the eight schools in Cleveland. After that, it is play well for three straight games.

I'm staring to feel this way, myself.

Boals won in the tournament with #1 and #2 guys who were holdovers from the previous coach. He just hasn't recruited consistently enough to keep up with the best teams in the MAC.

I think if you take away three of Akron's six best players, the Zips wouldn't have fared any better against a middle MAC team on the road. Given the circumstances, I'm not sure what anyone would have expected.

Certainly Ohio has flaws even at full health. So does every other team in the MAC. I don't think backup center is anywhere close to the biggest problem. Ohio probably compares pretty favorably in that category against most MAC teams.

If the Bobcats can get healthy and hot, they stand as good a chance as anybody at winning the MAC title. Ultimately, this game meant very little toward that goal.

He lived two rooms over from me my sophomore year. He was from Michigan. He was an awkward guy but he seemed nice. He got a chance at redemption a few years later on Tosh.0.

No, it's the fact that the only center on our roster is a backup. The roster is not constructed well and we just don't have the size and strength to defend the paint or rebound well-enough to beat decent teams.

As I've said, I have no problem with Searls in a vacuum. But he doesn't do the things this team needed. Thats on Boals, not Searls, but that doesn't make it any less of a problem.

While I mostly agree that this roster has limitations, I can't help but assume NIL is a big reason why. Boals has publicly complained about the price of bigs so I tend to believe that's true. You can no longer sell a recruit/transfer on campus life, education, facilities, etc. Its all that plus a fat pay check.

Look at the roster as it stands, lot of guards and a lack of depth of bigs.

Our frontcourt's as bad as any in the MAC. The rest of the league's not swimming NIL cash.

So maybe they budget their cash for bigs? We can only speculate what the NIL funds looks like at other schools. I just refuse to believe Boals is that bad of a recruiter.

Until he shows effort on the defensive end absolutely bench his ass.

Not budgeting properly to get the bigs needed is bad recruiting, no?

Yea, I agree with BLSS on this. If we’re going to cry poor on bigs, then that needs to lead to an adjustment of in-game strategy.

I also don’t know if you can believe Boals is that good of a recruiter, either.

I’d invite anyone to check out JUCO’s top 100 -> https://www.jucorecruiting.com/2025-junior-college-basket...

Schools like BG and Utah Valley have commitments from guys in the top 30 who are 6’9 and 6’10.

EMU just offered a 6’6 JUCO averaging 18ppg and 9rpg (a la, someone who plays bigger). Boals just doesn’t seem to turn over every rock and neglects this channel specifically to supplement the roster. I mean, Searls fell into our lap via personal connection. The other bigs we’ve ever been connected are typically p5 castoffs who are out of reach and I’ll admit — likely costing more.

Do you really want to believe schools like EMU, BG, and Utah Valley can outspend us? Or are they just recruiting more strategically? All four of us have similar limitations.

If that's the case then we should just forfeit until he "shows effort."

Got absolutely smoked with him available Friday and last night. Everyone can see he has no interest in playing defense or rebounding. Absent an injury, or off-the-court issue we are not privy to, it's inexcusable.

Until you can point to the NIL dollars these schools have access to and how they are distributed, its all speculation. On3 doesn't seems to have much info on MAC schools but this site does: https://nil-ncaa.com/mac /

According to nil-ncaa.com, it would be easy to believe other schools have more dollars to work with. Now, I'll admit I don't have time to do a deep dive into their methodology so I'm taking this data at face value.

If anybody has a better source of this type of data, feel free to share.