I am sure there were equally if not more disappointing seasons in our history (02-03 comes to mind), and it could be recency bias but it sure feels like this was the most disappointing season in my time as a Bobcat fan. We finished 16-16, but really 15-16 when you consider Muskingum was on the schedule. Not awful but you have to consider the conference is very weak right now, and our out of conference schedule was not especially challenging. No one could have imagined we would drop 16 games this season.

I think making it about the injuries is a stretch. Missed games:

Hadaway - 14
Mitchell - 8
Clayton - 4
James - 3
Brown - 3

I don't see that as a prolific loss of production over the course of an entire season. Our underachievement and disappointment was so consistent throughout the season no matter who we had out there. There is nothing worse than losing games you are favored to win, it is the true kick in the nuts as a sports fan. We were given that experience 11 times!

Illinois State
Middle Tenn
Texas State
Marshall
Eastern Mich
Toledo
App State
Western Mich
Eastern Mich
Toledo
Toledo

Has anyone ever in NCAA history lost to the same team 3 times in a season despite being favored in all 3?

Conversely, winning games as an underdog is euphoric. The Bobcats gave us that experience ONCE - Akron at home. They followed that with our worst loss of the season, WMU (294). (Some may also include Kent at home as an underdog victory, that line hovered around 0). Our results away from Athens were awful - 3 road wins were CMU (201), BG (290), & Buffalo (340).

We could get into the individual players regression...

-Sheldon going from 46.3% to 28.4% from 3, and more importantly that causing him to not even shoot much the 2nd half of the season.
-Clayton a slight decline in FG %.
-Elmore came in with beautiful touch around the rim and it is fading with time. His 2 point % has went from 56% to 50% to 40% this season.
-Reef had a similar transformation, his 2 pointers fell from 54% to 46%.
-Not to be all negative, AJ Brown had the most positive trends in his stat line with much improved shooting across the board.
-It is harder to quantify defensive regression, but I think a lot of our guys experienced it.

I'm not really making any grand statement, just venting my frustration to wrap up this damn season. I tend to be optimistic, and if we can return Pav, Brown, Hadaway, & Elliott I think it is a great start to a MAC championship caliber roster. I just hope we see our guys grow and get better, because we certainly did not see that this season.

Andrew: That's a good summation of the season. I'll only add that this was the most frustrating season that I can remember as Ohio Bobcat basketball fan, and my fandom start in 1960, in my junior year in high school. I paid scant attention to any college athletics prior to that. For a little while today when we had that late lead in regulation, I thought that this season might have new life, but that was not to be. I can't remember a season that started with such great expectation and ended with such a thud. This team was composed of nice guys who try to play team ball, but never totally jelled as a team. They were a work-in-progress from the opening tip-off in the first game until today. In my mind, this was worst than the Hunter Era Wilderness Campaign because then I went to every game with a clear realization that we were likely to lose. This year, I thought we should win practically every game we played, and at home that was for the most part true -- but we could not win on the road and weren't that good on neutral courts. I guess it's just a matter of expectations. While mine weren't exceedingly high. I never believed the preseason hype that we were destine to win the MAC regular season, but I thought we'd have a good team that would win at least 20 games, and maybe have a fighting chance for an NIT birth. But, as a Cub fan, I know the mantra well -- wait until next year! So, when will our 2016 come?

P.S. Is it football season yet?

We were a thoroughly mediocre team all season long.

I'm much less optimistic about next season, and have trouble seeing the case for how the roster -- based on what we know right now at least -- dramatically improves.

We had an undersized front court that was basically a 3 man rotation. We lose 2 of those three, and they're the two biggest. We have A LOT of frontcourt minutes to replace.

We also lose our leading scorer and our best perimeter defender.

Barring a lot of turnover and subsequent portal success, it's hard to see the path. And an awful lot of people here seem convinced it's not possible for us to do well in the portal (for bigs) and Boals should get a pass.

So where's that leave us, exactly?

I’ve picked us to win the MAC the last 3 years — yes, even Dwight’s last year of all things broke right. I tend lean towards the side of optimism, but realistically figured this season was the best shot of given the plethora of experience returning.

This season was rough from the start and it was apparent we weren’t as good as we thought after just a few games into our non-conference schedule.

I don’t think you can look at Pavs, Hadaway, AJB, and Elliot returning as a foundation to a MAC championship caliber team. All it tells me is we have might have some good expedience — which we is what we (and pundits) viewed as the reasoning behind being preseason MAC favorites.

Barring a serious roster overhaul and change to recruiting strategy, we might be a few years away from the next championship caliber team in the MAC. I mean, we just offered another project big last week when we couldn’t even get meaningful minutes out of the one currently on our roster.

Does that raise a flag to anyone else or is the plan to aim for 2027?

We can assume one or more players with eligibility are leaving. What remains to be seen is what happens with those openings. The right pickup or two would dynamically alter how the team looks.

The biggest thing for me was our glaring lack of physicality. I'm not specifically talking about our big men either, or lack thereof once Hadaway went down with injury. Kind of a microcosm today that as soon as he's back in the lineup, he has the most rebounds. Why? Because he's not afraid to get in there and mix it up a little bit. But the whole team, we lacked just outright physical strength. There were numerous times where we just flat out weren't strong with the basketball, which led to either a turnover or wild shot late in clock. I cant pick on one guy here either, as it was all across the roster. Part of that is strength and conditioning and another part of that has to fall on the coaching staff. Be strong with the ball!

And its super frustrating to see because if this team was doing those things, they would have won a helluva lot more games. This team was tied with Kent State for the best FT shooting at 76%, which is an insane number for a team. But they were 4th in total attempts - not bad, but pretty eye opening when you consider #1 Ball State was ahead of them by ~150 shots. If there were more opportunities at the line, they probably win more games. They just weren't physical enough at attacking the paint and drawing contact, IMO.

A lot of shooters on this team, not a lot of makers. Our outside shooting has to get more consistent.

It's hard to fathom that our NIL situation is so hopeless that a D-1 newcomer like UNA can get a 6-10 center that at one time was ranked the #50 center in the nation in high school and originally committed to LSU and the best we can do is offer some obscure project. I can't believe that North Alabama who pays their coach like $110,000/year can outbid us in the NIL/portal.

**And their "arena" looks like THIS:
https://i.imgur.com/ncu7yPn.jpg

Something is wrong with this picture.

Most disappointing team? Nah. 2008 (Srs. Leon and Bubba, Jr Tillman) and 2015 (Srs. Mo, Bean and Stevie, up and coming Campbell) take the cake. Those teams had star power, depth, and health.

I'm a little bitter about the injuries and what could have been than Ruck is. It's getting old going into games with only 7-8 that can realistically contribute. While it was a little rusty and dialed back, Hadaway's minutes today brought a different dynamic - someone with size who can create his own shot from anywhere on the court and finds a way to make positive things happen. If we have him and Clayton, do we win at Miami? or EMU? at Kent? Take one of the Toledo matchups? Maybe, and maybe we have a better seed and matchup in the first round.

The injuries also put a spotlight on other personnel issues, or vice versa. In football, when the first three running backs go down, the true freshman starts. In basketball, when Hadaway goes down, Ben Nicol or Ayden Evans don't just get slotted in. And the fact that Kuany missed summer workouts due to visa reasons makes that situation worse. Not that anyone is at "fault" there, but that's what happened. Not to mention Burris missed the year.

My hope for next year is that we can start with a full deck or close to it. That means 13 scholarships full, at least 12 fully available (healthy, eligible, not designated a redshirt), and at least 10 legitimately rotation ready. As I've mentioned before it's priority that we retain Pavaletzke, Brown, Hadaway, and Elliott. I don't actively want anyone else to transfer, but I can live with it if they decide that's in their best interest.

We may be in for two or three months of roster construction, so it's hard to make a projection, but while I don't think we'll be bottom third bad, I would expect some growing pains early on next year.

So he was rated in high school. But is he any good?

15-16 vs Division I teams. 10-9 vs the MAC. 5-7 non-conference record vs division I teams. We were 5th place in the MAC. Overtime loss in the quarterfinals. They 0-4 vs the Sun Belt this year and looked bad in all four of those loses. The injuries hurt. Thanks to the players that stayed with this program for multiple years. It isn't a guarantee players return this days. They battled injuries. They played to the last second. They didn't win, but they competed.

Even if we didn't have injuries, does anyone truly believe we would have won the conference this season? Our 3-point defense was terrible all season long and we were too small and got pushed around. Our half-court offense was atrocious. Dribble...dribble....dribble...and hope hero ball works.

There have been a million posts about this, but Boals can't go three years in a row without having a legitimate big man in the paint play at least 25-30 minutes per game. If he doesn't find a starting big in the portal for next season and we struggle again, the seat should get very warm for Boals. His career record alone against Toledo (1-11) and the big three of Akron, Toledo, and Kent are alarming enough.

Let's see. In the ASun championship game the other day he was 6-7 shooting for 15 points and 7 boards in 25 minutes vs the highly touted league MVP Jacob Ognacevic.

But YMMV. Maybe we DON'T want a post player who looks like this....

https://images.sidearmdev.com/convert?url=https%3A%2F%2Fd...

It’s way too premature to make any projections about next year before we know what the roster looks like. The NIL era has changed everything. We don’t know what type of additions or subtractions we’ll see in the portal or how the rest of the conference will be impacted.

The issue hasn’t been Boals being able to attract quality recruits. It’s been his lack of ability to build a team properly due to the market price of experienced forwards. He might need to go all-in on a talented big man while going cheap on guards if he wants to change the makeup of the team.

Did you see the movie "Air" about the history of Nike?

Sonnny Vaccaro wanted to use their entire allotment for new endorsee guys on one guy...Michael Jordan... while the CEO wanted to spread it out between three late first round draft picks.

Spoiler alert: guess who was right by a bunch?

With a season like this, there are a lot of things that didn't go according to plan. My biggest frustration of the season is our inability to rebound when on defense.

I cannot stand when we give up second (and sometimes third) opportunities for the opposing team to score. Happened last night in the Toledo game, especially the first 5-10 minutes. They scored at least 6 points with those additional opportunities. Completely changes the makeup of the game, and to me, is one reason why we had trouble maintaining leads.

You could probably say the same when we are on offense too. How many one-and-done possessions did we have? How many times did we seemingly take a shot with nobody there to crash the boards? We were ranked 327 in D1 for offensive rebounds per game (just over 8). Limited second chance opportunities, ugh.

I'm not as concerned with our offensive efficiency, or the lack of an alpha on the team...yet. I think Jackson Paveletzki is turning into that player. Maybe even AJ Brown too, if he stays healthy. As others have stated, we need to get some help with recruiting a big who can give us a strong presence in the paint, or at least change our strategy to prioritize rebounding more. Our defensive efficiency wasn't too bad (150th in the nation), and our offensive efficiency was even better (100th). Shore up some rebounding and we might be ok.

I agree. I've mentioned it a half dozen times before, but we bring in high-level guards constantly. And I don't fault him. He has the top recruiting class damn near every year. Maybe it's time for a philosophy shift. Now that AJC is gone, we really need to re-create what the offense has been. I love him and all he has done, but we can't compete with good teams game in and game out when your 5 man is playing 2-guard all night long. Only two players had fewer rebounds than AJC in an OT tournament game. Sheldon with 0 and Elijah with 1. He had only had TWO games of more than 8 rebounds all season. His final 10 games, 7 he had 4 or less rebounds. Multiple games of 1 rebound. From your 5 man, that's just not a good recipe.

I still have high hopes for Evans. His size and athleticism could be a HUGE asset to this team of guards. Put together a great offseason. Big opportunity in front of you. 35 mins a night. SNATCH IT. Next to Hadaway - who I think will have an incredible year next season - you don't have to be an offensive powerhouse right away. Get rebounds. Adjust shots. Block shots. Put in bunnies.

We also need to make sure we develop a bench. Even if Kuany 'isn't ready' get him ready. By playing. A 7 man rotation is lovely, when you have no injuries and those 7 play their role well together. We had neither this season.

So assume this:
PG: Pavs
SG: Elliott
SF: AJB
PF: Hadaway
C: Transfer

PG Bench: Transfer
SG Bench: Burris
SF Bench: Kelly
PF Bench: Mosley
C Bench: Evans
Bench: Kuany, Fisher

Portal: EJ4, Sheldon, Nichol (although I'd be ok if Sheldon and EJ4 stayed around under the following conditions: less minutes and promise from Boals that Evans AND Kuany are being developed. We can't have anymore years where a dude like Nichol shows zero player development or coaching confidence in him).

But what are the odds all the dudes above stay? If I were Elliott I would leave just based on the gross negligence of being left out the last key minutes of regulation and OT in the tourney game. How about AJB? Has he done enough to get a high major or major shot? Evans if we get a transfer big? This will be an interesting offseason. I didn't anticipate Pavs coming so who knows. But I do know what we definitely need, an Isaiah Adams type of player.

Have always considered AJB to be a flight risk, but injuries have always held him back. At this point, I think he has enough tape and it really wouldn't take much for another coach to say, hey man we think you're a great player, how about a change of scenery? They have 75 guards. You're 6'4" so you have to play out of position every game. Come here and play 2. Just get buckets. You don't have to play the 4 man anymore. You dont have to guard 6'8" dudes trying to back you into the paint.

That's the problem we face. Hell, UCF, Miami or something could come in and say we'll give you an 'opportunity' for minutes. And that might be enough.

I've thought about this strategy a lot. I feel like this can potentially work, assuming the HS recruits being brought in are lower cost acquisitions instead of transfers at the guard/wing position.

+1. I personally don't care if the big we bring in isn't an offensive prowess - just be a threat when needed. This team will find points, it always has.

Give me a guy like you said, with a strong paint presence whose primary contributions are boards and being disruptive defensively.

My biggest issue with this season was the team never felt like they gelled together.

+1 JWBobcat. I could not have said that any better. During a four possession stretch, we had terrible, out of control drives down the middle of the paint. These 4 possessions yielded ZERO points for us. Toldeo converted in transition 3 of the possessions. There is your game. We were rolling and killed our own momentum. NIL and Portal suck. I knew this would happen to us. It was just a matter of time.

As we sit right now, do any of us believe AJB and Elliott will not be looking? You just cannot count on any roster continuity anymore and we (MAC) cannot do jack about it. Something seems wrong to me. It cannot last.

I think you all are both making a mistake in assuming it requires a major/high major for a guy like AJB to leave. Hell, Toledo and Akron could make a very compelling case to him that we can't right now.

This. Most everyone agrees the regular season has limited value (certainly the OOC portion) - just get to Cleveland. So why not expand the rotation and give players opportunities to develop. Maybe it is damned if you do damned if you don't. If you do, you risk losing games and get on the hot seat (while exposing a players potential). If you don't you risk losing players to the portal who want playing time. And then you have players like Elliot who are half in half out. I get the impression Boals has not figured out how he wants to navigate in this new era. Or maybe he has....I also get the impression he is giving playing time based on who he thinks he can best retain. Does recruiting three guys from the same high school incorporate the same perspective?

Random Thoughts & Questions from the various comments throughout BA since last night:
*What is our NIL budget compared to the other MAC schools? That would be telling?
*I love Boals and his background suggested, now granted before NIL, that we we're going to be bringing some higher end talent to Athens. I'll be honest, I've been grossly disappointed and I'll be honest again, Groce appears to recruit WAY better. He reloads in a heartbeat and when we did go head-to-head on one recruit in particular this offseason, Groce got the guy. Again, back to point number one--is he just better at finding and getting them in, or does he just have more $$$ to work with?
*I will say, Boals & Company appear to get the most out of what they have in my opinion and the culture seems strong in guys for the most part appear to want to stay--but Akron again, just seems to have next level athletes.
*I sit behind the visitors bench, not our bench--but does Boals complain to refs on literally every, or every other, possession? Is that status quo for all coaches? If you asked MAC refs behind the curtain, would they say Boals is one of their favorites, or just a constant complainer? I just wonder if you complain every game, all game long, if your voice goes deaf? The refs impacted last nights game big time and Boals seemed PO'ed from the first whistle.
*In regards to Boals' salary, if NIL was our biggest hinderance to being better, I 100% would consider giving back some salary if I couldn't raise more resources, just like the top players in the NFL do. In the NFL, when a QB for instance takes top dollar, they don't often have enough cash for the players around them. On the other hand, guys like Brady were known for having team friendly contracts and having money to get better guys and in turn would win more, which leads to more endorsements, more winning and a better legacy. I wonder if in fact our NIL pot is something like $200,000 (just guessing) and another $100,000 gets you a center and PF you cant currently afford, if that money will pay itself back 10x with contract extensions, raises and maybe a better job down the road? If you decide to keep every dime and this trajectory continues, you could lose your job and go down a level after that. If a good center costs $35,000 per year and I was making $800,000 all in--I'd invest it to win as it will pay for itself if I believe in my other players and coaching.
*But yes, early in the season with everyone healthy, everyone in my section was under the belief that we were over rated, a bunch of mismatched parts, too reliant on 3 pointers and 1-on-1 play and way less athletic than what Akron, Kent, Toledo and even EMU appeared to be bringing in. Don't get me wrong--I came to every game, I went to Cleveland and I'm bummed tonight-I grew to like them, but it felt all along that we just weren't very good with or without everyone healthy.

I don't post these days...but last night and this entire season was a real buzz kills with some concerning trends.