Hot Flashes

OK, I know. I stole that from Elton Alexander a The PD. Corny...

But true. Let's flash back to Late January, as the decidedly cold Flashes limped off the court having lost by 14 to their arch-rival Akron Zips. At 8-11, it was looking like the Flashes might have trouble having a winning season...much less getting yet another 20 win season in their streak.

Since then, things have returned to normal for KSU, with an eight game winning streak and a 16-11 record overall. They are playing as well as any team in the conference. Depending on how they do in the tourney, 20 wins is still in play, as is a return to the NCAA tourney. They have as good a shot as anyone, in fact.

If you believe college basketball is a guard's game, then you must really like this Kent team. They are lead by Al Fisher, (last year's POY), along with Chris Singletary and Tyree Evans. The last two players are averaging 12 points or so in only 28 minutes played. Further, those players combined for 44 points when BG played Kent at the MAC earlier in the year, as Kent cruised to a 72-48 victory, the worst defeat this season for us, by far.

The first half was close, but Kent simply blew us away in the second half. The Falcons scored 15 second half points.

Kent leads the MAC in scoring and defense, as well as in FG% and FG% against. They are 4th in rebounding, both ways. They take care of the ball pretty well, and their only real weakness is that they don't seem to get to the line very much. They are the fourth best team in the MAC from beyond the arc, as well.

I guess the best news about this match up is that Kent is a guard oriented team, and our shortness on the inside might not be too exposed. (I have no idea if Chris Knight will play, but I am guessing he won't be 100%).

The other good news is that when this team has had its back to the wall (@OU, @Buffalo), we have found something and gotten the job done. Now we need to show (oddly) that we can do it in front of the home crowd. If it is going to happen, we're going to have to play some killer D....if Kent hits 46% like they did earlier this year, we'll be hard pressed to compete.

I know that Coach feels like sometimes you just happen to shoot well. I hope one of those days is tomorrow. We were 2-20 from 3FG range in the first game, and even allowing for some desperation as we tried to climb back into the game, that is going to be a hard way to win.

Each team in the East has two home games and two road games left. A team that losses one of its home games this week faces a really, really tough road. You will be playing the teams you are chasing, but it is still tough with to win when 2 of your last 3 games are on the road.

This is a pretty big game, against a team that is playing pretty well. On the other hand, winning streaks don't last forever, and teams don't always keep playing well night in and night out. Let's hope the Falcons can slow down the Hot Flashes.....