Kentucky Wesleyan Basketball

[Lawson]

Walsh did the same to us. The final score was closer than that but that's because Walsh stopped trying to score and was playing 'run the clock' starting with about 10 minutes to play, which allowed us to close the gap some.

Meanwhile, last night, we obliterated Trevecca 101-50 and it could have been worse but we played our bench players quite a few minutes in the second half. Trevecca is in a world of hurt with their program right now.

The crazy thing is that as mediocre as we have been, we actually still have a legit shot at hosting a first round conference tournament game. We'd have to win our last two games on the road, though, not to mention beating Malone in our last home game tomorrow. After they set a new record for 3 pointers made when we played them at their place, I'm hoping our guys play with a chip on their shoulders. But we have yet to prove that we have that much situational awareness so far, so I'm not holding my breath.

I know the entire landscape of D2 is different now, but I just can't stop thinking about those teams Ray Harper fielded. I mean most, if not all of those teams would wipe the court with our current team worse than we beat Trevecca last night. I don't know, maybe I'm just over-romanticizing that era and how good those guys were but in my mind there's just no comparison between them and today's guys. The best player on our current team wouldn't have even had bench minutes on some of those teams. If Cooper's going to stick around any longer he's going to have to sign a couple of elite players. He's brought in some decent guys...maybe even some that rise to the level of "good" ... but he's never come close to anyone elite.

No, you’re not overromanticizing….not a single guy on the current team would start on any of the 1998-2003 teams….some would be quality bench players…but none would start.

[pantherfan]

Walsh has some players. Outside of a one night breakdown from either, I'd expect a Hillsdale/Walsh GMAC tourney championship. And would expect it to be a great game.

Trevecca is bad...I'm not sure they could compete with many D3 teams at this point. Hopefully they make some moves in the offseason to get a hungry young coach in to rebuild. The interim guy may be a great dude, but he hardly coached at all last night.

I'd LOVE to see the boys host a quarterfinal. But at this point, given their resume, I'm not sure they could be Owensboro Catholic on the road. I've never seen a team so inconsistent with road play. I get that they like playing at home but come on. It's a tough road over the next week or so, but they do seem to be playing well right now and also seem to be gel-ing really well as a group.

This team would get mopped by Harper's squads, and Lee's squads, and Happy's squads. Ken-Jah, Jacks, and Foster would have scored 70 in the first half last night and laughed the entire time. I do always get a bit of a chuckle at the Harper romanticism. I get the guy was a STUD, but he was a cheater. Not just a rumored one, a proven cheater. I just always chuckle when long time fans swoon over a guy that was playing ineligible guys. I agree Cooper has had a couple of "good" players. Like Jo Griffin. He had enough grit to earn bench time on some of those teams of old. But I could maybe stretch to say Tre Cobbs was an elite D2 player. I often forget about him because he was only there one season, it was a Covid season, and he got hurt. But that guy could do anything he wanted on the court. He blew by every team in the GMAC. Unfortunately he didn't have enough "good" players around him to offset good double team defenses. Honestly, I'm not even sure how we got the kid. He was D1, came to KWC for a year, then left and went back D1 and started for Georgia Southern.

[kdubnation]

Walsh did the same to us. The final score was closer than that but that's because Walsh stopped trying to score and was playing 'run the clock' starting with about 10 minutes to play, which allowed us to close the gap some.

Meanwhile, last night, we obliterated Trevecca 101-50 and it could have been worse but we played our bench players quite a few minutes in the second half. Trevecca is in a world of hurt with their program right now.

The crazy thing is that as mediocre as we have been, we actually still have a legit shot at hosting a first round conference tournament game. We'd have to win our last two games on the road, though, not to mention beating Malone in our last home game tomorrow. After they set a new record for 3 pointers made when we played them at their place, I'm hoping our guys play with a chip on their shoulders. But we have yet to prove that we have that much situational awareness so far, so I'm not holding my breath.

I know the entire landscape of D2 is different now, but I just can't stop thinking about those teams Ray Harper fielded. I mean most, if not all of those teams would wipe the court with our current team worse than we beat Trevecca last night. I don't know, maybe I'm just over-romanticizing that era and how good those guys were but in my mind there's just no comparison between them and today's guys. The best player on our current team wouldn't have even had bench minutes on some of those teams. If Cooper's going to stick around any longer he's going to have to sign a couple of elite players. He's brought in some decent guys...maybe even some that rise to the level of "good" ... but he's never come close to anyone elite.

[UFOILERFAN]

Walsh 76
Findlay 49

Walsh jumped out to a 29-9 lead on OUR court and it didn't get much better. I think we came within 16, maybe 14 and that was that. Cedarville comes to town Saturday and next week at Tiffin and at home to Hillsdale. SOOO...

[kdubnation]

KWC must be really good. "They beat Findlay. " ;D

We won the 2023 Mediocrity Classic! Big props to us! 😂

[WKYDave]

For first 5 years Cooper's record against D2 schools is 49-63. Only winning record was 9-6 in COVID season. Massey and Talismanred have had KWC ranked in bottom half of D2 every year except COVID year. This year Massey has KWC at 177 out of 297 and Talismanred has KWC at 222 out of 296.

"Good" news is, given Findlay's schedule, KWC will make conference tournament as 7th or 8th seed. But as was posted earlier, when was KWC's men's basketball goal making conference tournament, not the NCAA tournament. Heck most of my life the goal was Elite 8 or Championship!!!

[Lawson]

The best 12-12 team of all times

[UFOILERFAN]

KWC must be really good. "They beat Findlay. " ;D

[kdubnation]

Agreed and like I said I didn't mean any disrespect towards Findlay by that comment, I just wanted to highlight that some years (most years) that is a great benchmark, but this year it isn't and our coach hasn't figured that out yet.

The big difference between Findlay's situation vs. KWC's right now is that your coach is proven and I would expect him to right the ship again soon. Ours, on the other hand, has never proven that he can win at this level and nothing is getting better so you guys have much more to be optimistic about at this point, IMO. I hope Coach Ernst hasn't been giving interviews lauding teams for beating KWC, that might change my mind about his perspectives LOL

[UFOILERFAN]

Been wanting to comment about Findlay but since KWC has been suffering even more I didn't want to sound spoiled. YES, beating Findlay is nothing to brag about. The Oilers are currently 12-9 and it's going to get worse. They will soon be coming to Owensboro and you will see for yourself. It seems like we have good talent coming in every year but nothing seems to gel. Perhaps Ernst has been here too long, I don't know. Anyway, glad you haven't bought in to the "They beat Findlay" crap. Good luck hope things improve for you.

[kdubnation]

Got the win last night. It's weird how every team in the G-MAC - even the ones with 1-18 or in Ohio Dominican's case 7-13 records are "good teams" when Cooper's on the radio after the games. It's almost like he doesn't understand what a good team actually is. And the benchmark always seems to be "they beat Findlay the other night" ... well, no disrespect to them intended but let's face it, a lot of teams are beating Findlay this year. Yes, they have historically been one of the best in the conference, if not the nation, but they're having a down year this year. Beating them isn't a good benchmark for who's good or not at this time.

At this point in the season the concern has shifted - for the radio team and based on his comments Cooper as well - to trying to secure the #8 spot so we actually make the playoffs. Imagine during the Todd Lee or even Happy Osborne - or lord knows the Ray Harper - eras having to wonder if we're going to make the conference tournament. That wasn't even given a second thought. Will we make the national tournament was sometimes, but never the conference. If anything it was "will we WIN the conference tournament or not" - not will we even make it in. It's just pitiful.

At a recent game my wife and I ran into the president of the college and since we had not met the current president before we talked with him a few minutes. He made it sound like they're happy with Cooper's accomplishments to date. Said something along the lines of how the team seems to be up and coming (it's not) and this is Cooper's first season with all his own recruits (it's not). So he's evidently not watching the same team I am. Or at the very least he hasn't seen anything except our home record. I truly, TRULY hope the athletic director is paying closer attention. But hey, if the college president thinks things are going great, who am I to argue?

[kdubnation]

The radio broadcast did mention that Fernandez had been out last week with Covid.

[kdubnation]

Losing to a 1-win Trevecca team by 8 at halftime? I’ve seen a lot of bad in recent years, but this holds the spot for worst.

Trevecca started 5 freshmen and reached a new high fir 1st half points. Yikes.

And they did it the day after their coach resigned. I wonder what we could do if OURS resigned.

[Lawson]

Pulled it out, at least

[pantherfan]

Losing to a 1-win Trevecca team by 8 at halftime? I’ve seen a lot of bad in recent years, but this holds the spot for worst.

Trevecca started 5 freshmen and reached a new high fir 1st half points. Yikes.