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Speaking of rewatching - I went back and watched the last five minutes. Evans block with a couple minutes left is my unheralded play of the game. Unreal hustle and athleticism on that one

I was excited when Groce came to Akron, but if I'm to be honest I had doubts he would live up to Dambrot. Not because I didn't think he would do well, but because it's hard to expect anyone to make 9 MAC finals and then win 3 of those. Not only has Groce lived up to those standards, he has surpassed them by making the tournament 4 times in 5 years.

Groce was on 92.3 with Baskin and Phelps today. As always, he said all of the right things. He is such a professional. We are so blessed to have him.

Seth Greenberg told Pat McAfee he likes Akron as one of 2 or 3 mid majors to win their 1st round matchup.

Agreed on all fronts. Unless he found the secret sauce at Clemson, he'll likely lengthen the MAC, keep EMU around 17 wins and sniff 20 every so often, while never truly threatening the top third. NIU hired a solid D2 coach from Northern Michigan and that's more the direction I thought EMU would go.

I've seen celebration highlights from Saturday night and Josh Henderson stood out as someone who looked really happy. Cody Head also looked like he was enjoying himself. I'm not saying others didn't, just that these two stood out. If Sharron returns to lead the backcourt, we'll be in good hands I think.

Well we all know there's only one choice here.

💯

I think Groce is the best coach in program history. The culture, the MAC Tournament success, all of it. With that said, he doesn't take the job in the first place if KD - who I also consider an all-time great - doesn't build it into a program with a winning tradition. Sometimes I take a step back and think about how fortunate we have been to have 13 seasons of KD followed by 9 seasons of Groce.

I found out when I went to the game in Pittsburgh a couple years back, that you can buy the gear they sell at the Tournament games online through the company that handles the sales. For example, you can get the March Madness shirt that will be sold at the arena here: https://www.event1teamstore.com/d-i-m-basketball-single-team-shirt-champion-jersey-short-sleeve-tee-fgdca151467a-fw1001024-fgdca151467a.html#color=187 They also have shirts for each site (e.g., there will be a shirt specific to the Tampa site) but they don't all seem to be added yet: https://www.event1teamstore.com/basketball-0/division-i-9/mens-44/1st-2nd-rounds.html Plus, they appear to offer free shipping! EDIT: They appear to have now added the Tampa site shirts but don't have the actual artwork yet, just conceptual artwork. Maybe check back tomorrow.

Tavari was on IG live with the redshirt freshmen after the championship and was saying, "These guys are going to get #4 next year!"

Honestly, a better hire then I expected for them. He had 2 stints as a D1 head coach and finished better than .500 in conference play in both. Still not all that concerned. He might be able to build EMU into a respectable program, but I don't see them contending.

It's great hearing the merchandise is moving well and people are excited about Zips athletics. I wonder if this will cause a delay in shipping as I'm not sure how many they had on hand to start to start with.

That was fun with Bud as a full episode guest. The story about the hats being made prior to the season makes that even more special as it becomes a symbol for "mission complete." 1000+ hats being sold is fantastic; imagine if they produced 3Peat shirts, too.

Apparently they have sold a thousand so far…got mine!

He probably believes everything he reads on the internet, which is why he thinks Auburn deserve to be in the tournament.

Oh my. Bruce bought it lol

I enjoyed this blurb at the end.

~40% from 3P and we win this game. Maintain an up-tempo pace - run these guys out of the gym. They're not deep, they're not tall, and Akron is due. Play with confidence.

When looking back at the Zips season, they had 5 losses and three of those losses were away losses to teams that made the NCAA tourney including Purdue, Miami, and Troy. The Yale loss was on a neutral court and one of the best games all season and that game went back and forth till the very end. Yale is in the NIT and lost out on an NCAA bid in overtime. The away loss to Murray State was our only bad loss of the season.

Man, wish it wasn't like pulling teeth to get ~1/2 of our fans to turn out to the JAR for MAC regular season games. I know the JAR's not easy to get to and is a sh!thole... but it's our inconveniently located sh!thole.

Normally, but I'll take what I can get. She and her younger sister know the fight song words almost as well as the Lord's Prayer. I think I'm allowed to be proud of that. It's funny, she reads basic kids books and I'm half expecting a grad school brochure from Kent to appear in the mail any day now.