Here's what Kent State men's basketball coach Rob Senderoff noticed after watching the tape of Wednesday's 70-58 home loss to Toledo in the 2012-13 Mid-American Conference season opener, which snapped a 31-game winning streak against MAC West Division opponents:
WHAT STOOD OUT: "We started out the game with a lot of energy and we did a really good job early offensively, but as the game wore on we got very stagnant. It became a little bit too much one-on-one play and not enough ball movement, not enough assisted baskets. I think that's the reason for the low (shooting) percentage. Defensively our effort was good, but not as good as it needed to be. (We gave up) way too many transition points for us to be successful, way too many. We had our chances. We cut it to three a couple times, and just really couldn't get a stop or make the play offensively when we needed to."
ON THE STRUGGLES OF SENIOR GUARD RANDAL HOLT (KSU's only returning starter, who underwent knee surgery in June and was sidelined four months, is shooting 32.6 percent from the field for the season and 24.5 percent in the last eight games): "I think he's pressing a little bit. What I think is happening, and I know he'd probably never say this, but he's not finishing as well as he's normally finished. Because of that, when he's not shooting a 3, there's some indecision -- should I try to get to the rim, should I pull up, should I try a floater? He's shooting a pretty good percentage from 3, but inside the arc is really where he's struggling. I just think there's some indecision. He is lacking some of the explosion that he had last year. For the past two years he's one of the best finishers that we've had. The thing that we're gonna talk about over the next couple days is to just get engrossed on the defensive end. Maybe try to get an easy basket on a steal in transition. Just find a way to get yourself going by getting something easy, to take a little bit of the pressure off."
NEXT GAME: The Flashes (9-6, 0-1) will visit Ball State (7-6, 1-0) Saturday at 2 p.m.
— ALLEN MOFF/R-C
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