Clay @ Eastern 1/23

[Eaglesnest]

Your thoughts?

My thought is Eastern better be focused on New Boston first or they might get beat!

[beaverlover]

Your thoughts?

My thought is Eastern better be focused on New Boston first or they might get beat!

My thoughts exactly

[live4sport]

I say Eastern tops the Panthers 65-45. Fitch has his team playing pretty good basketball and should overwhelm a mediocre Clay team. I am not for either team but I watch as many different games as I can and I have seen these two teams each play twice now. Clay gets outcoached and outplayed in a lop-sided win.

[claypantherfan]

I say it will be a close game or it will be a blow out for either team to get the win but I think CLay has a good chance they're going to be good matchups int this one

[J-Bird]

The youth of Clay may hurt them in this one. Eastern has to much experience for the Panthers. The Eagles have been on a hot streak lately, since the game is at the nest, I'll take Eastern by 14. They almost let one slip away at New Boston, I'm sure Coach Fitch will keep that in their heads and they won't want it to happen again Friday.

[Crazy Legs]

I say it will be a close game or it will be a blow out for either team to get the win but I think CLay has a good chance they're going to be good matchups int this one

Really (close or blowout) good call........


Eastern wins this by 15 they are playing good ball right now.

[beaverlover]

I'm taking the Eagles in this one.......It is Homecoming and the boys should be fired up.....Hopefully Helton is back in the line up Friday.........I'll take the Eagles by 12.........70-58.

[Eaglesnest]

Sounds like the Eagles dodged a bullet at New Boston on Tuesday. This fact will hurt Clays chances for the upset. I say the Eagles come out fired up and ready to play and take down the Panthers by 15 (70-55).

[OSU Alumni 2000]

I say your right eaglesnest..
Eastern by 15

[callingtheshots]

I will take Clay over Eastern. If the coach can ever figure out the right combination Clay could win this one. I have been to alot of the Clay games and I see alot of the comments on this site. I also hear comments from the stands. I'm really disturbed at how the same people on here can say such different things, depending on the hour. Watch the bench just one time. do the players really respect their coach? you have players that r out for making their mom, dad and theirselves "proud" over the amount of points scored that game, or (attempts to score). I agree with some of the postings on here. Why aren't we playing the tall guys. my question is, Why do we have players wide open and not having the ball passed to them? All I see on here is Mershon, Puckett, Valentine, and Bussler. I am not discrediting these boys whatsoever, but what about Graham, Burchett, Lawson, Caseman and Ratcliff. Without their assist and "team effort" clay would of been blown out in all the games. It's a team sport. Until they realize that and the coach enforces that, they will never win. And don't forget about the other players that dress for varisty. If you r going to dress them and your starters mess up, Put Them In!!!

[BALLER1]

I think Eastern wins this one easily. Although I can see it being close in the beginning with Clay trying to spoil Homecoming, but in the end, the Eagles win!

[HoundsAre4Real]

Clay by 3..........

[yabbadabbadoo]

THis will be a tough game for Clay, seeing that it is at Eastern. If they struggle shooting the ball like they have the last two games, then it could be a long night. Would like to see Mershon continue to take the ball to the hole like he did in the second half the other night. When he does that he has the ability to make the shot or look for the open man. A driving PG that has the capapbilities to also score can cause a lot of havoc on a defense. He causes other players to get open because of the defense collapsing to cover him. Would like to see Valentine shoot the ball more. He turned down quite a few good looks at the basket and did not shoot a three in the game against SV. To good of a shooter to pass shots up. Heard someone say he had a rough shooting night in the game before against Western. That game is over and you have to put it behind you and focus on the game at hand. You can't make every basket everytime you shoot, but every good shooter will tell you, you keep shooting until you get that confidence back up. Hard to build your confidence back up if you don't even try to shoot. Keep shooting them 22, it will come back to you.



First off, you can't have a player come down on a for sure fastbreak layup, stop and pop a three. I've seen it a couple of times this year in the few games I've watched and if I was the coach, that player would not have seen the floor the rest of the game until he adjusted his attitude. If he quits the team, then that is his choice, albeit a bad one. Basketball is a team game. There are five guys on the floor that when they work together nothing but good things can happen. If just one of those wheels gets out of line and makes the game about himself, then you will have a problem. The other night Clay was down 4 late in the game and a player comes down and chucks up a three. They then cut it to 2 and the same player comes down and chucks up another three. Then they are down 2 again very late in the game and this time this same player comes down and tries to drive the baseline when it wasn't open, jumps in the air while behind the basket and with nowhere to go or nothing to do with the ball, throws it away. This player tried to do to much everytime he was on the court and IMO he played way to many minutes, while the two big men sat on the bench.

Secondly is the coach. If the coach isn't communictaing to his players, then that will be a problem. Take for example in the game against SV the other night. SV's best player by far, Tibbs, picked up his third foul with 3:58 left in the 3rd qtr. SV went to a zone to try and protect him. The coach never told one player for Clay to try and take the ball at him and also neither big man for Clay was on the floor posting up down low on the side Tibbs was playing underneath on defense. IMO, if they would have gotten his 4th foul on him in the 3rd qtr., Clay wins this game going away. He killed them down the stretch, not only by scoring, but his rebounding as well. From the type of player he looked to be, very aggressive, I guarantee you that after having been scored on 2-3 times down the floor because he couldn't do anything to stop it, his ego would have kicked in and he would have tried to block a shot, possibly picking up the foul. With him sitting, SV would have struggled. By the way, he didn't pick up another foul the rest of the game and finished the game with 24 points on the night, scoring at least 6-8 down the stretch. Then another move I didn't understand that the coach did was when he called timeout, his last with 10.9 seconds left on the clock and the SV player with one FT left to shoot. He made the FT which put Clay down by four and even if they would have scored, they would have had to done it in 5.9 seconds or less, because with no timeouts left, SV would not have had to inbounds the ball if there was 5 seconds or left. Unless wait until the SV player shoots the FT to se if he will make it or miss. If he misses it, then you call timeout and set up play for a three point shot. By calling the timeout when he did, he gave Clay no chance at all of maybe tying or winning the game by stealing the inbounds pass after the timeout, if Clay would have hit a shot.

[osubuckeye]

I'll take Eastern by atleast 10.

[live4sport]

Clay gets outcoached and outplayed--Eastern by 15.

[voiceofreason]

IVE WATCHED COACH T ALOT THE LAST 2 YRS / THE MAN KNOWS THE GAME