Bobcats Basketball Bits- NC A&T

The opponents have not been too difficult yet but the Bobcats are taking care of business in the early going. Tuesday night it was a 93-82 win over NC A&T. My thoughts:

Positives
- Each game it is a different freshman stepping up. Sunday it was Ivo Baltic. Tuesday night he wasn't at his best but it was Jay Kinney who took over. Kinney scored a game-high 23 points. This kid is a scorer. Sometimes you watch a player and you can just see a look in his eyes that he wants to be the one to score. Kinney has that. He's also got a sweet touch from beyond the arc, where he was 5-9 in this one. It was only his second game and Kinney's performance gave Bobcats fans something to be excited about.

- Four Bobcats, including Kinney, scored in double-digits. They are not facing defensive juggernauts but the offense is looking good. Ohio can run the ball up the court and is putting up big point numbers.

- K.V.K. didn't particularly impress me in his 22 minutes on the floor but the big man ended up with a quiet 11 rebounds. If he can provide the Bobcats with something productive in his minutes in the floor, it will be a definite improvement.

- Free throw shooting. Once again, the Bobcats were very good from the line. They hit 80.8% of their free throws. Converting those opportunities at the line often set apart middle of the pack from contending teams.

Negatives
- While the Bobcats came out on fire and controlled the first half, the same cannot be said for the second. Ohio was outscored 52-45 but NC A&T and again got sloppy when faced with the press. Teams will see this on film and keep testing Ohio, so the young guards have to adjust.

On a basketball-related note, not to this particular game, John Groce appears to have brought in another stellar recruiting class. He inked four more to the Bobcats today.

Look at the rankings (from ESPN.com) for the 2010 and 2009 (this year's freshmen) classes:

2010
Ricardo Johnson, 6-4 SG, #46 SG, 90 RTG
Ethan Jacobs, 6-10 C, #55 C, 86 RTG
Nick Kellogg, 6-2 G, #62 PG, 87 RTG
T.J. Hall, 6-6 SF, #78 SF, 85 RTG

2009
Ivo Baltic, 6-7 PF, #59 PF, 88 RTG
D.J. Cooper, 6-0 PG, #39 PG, 87 RTG
Reggie Keely, 6-7 PF, #107 PF, 85 RTG
Jay Kinney, 6-1 SG, #97 SG, 85 RTG

Man, talk about building a talented young core in Athens. That's eight well-rated players in just two recruiting classes and we are already seeing the talent of this year's freshmen. Groce has been a great recruiter in other places and he's establishing that here too. Bobcat fans can only hope he doesn't get swooped away too soon, as women's coach Sylvia Crawley did.