Let'sGoZips94

Big game today. Al Davis said it best: "Just win baby win."

This is a hilarious Wentz Financial Group promo. https://www.instagram.com/reel/DRNi583ku8Y/?igsh=MWRzaWt5YW41OHZ5dA==

5th in the country in assists coming into tonight.

Akron shot 65% from the field and 52% from 3 (again). Akron's 3P% is absurd, yes, but their FG efficiency is sustainable. Why? Akron's 2PA are largely aggressive drives or cuts to rhe basket, meaning we're either laying the ball up or dunking the ball. Most teams have a chunk of their 2PAs come from hook shots or bigs trying to get the ball around/over a defender. The only weakness this team has is interior size and I'm not sure too many teams will have the athleticism, size, or talent to limit our versatility.

Balls with 37 pts against Lafayette - in the entire game. Wow.

Milwaukee is a 200+ KenPom team, sure, but Akron is demolishing DI teams like P4s do. This is such an impressive start to the season.

Scary what this team is capable of.

MMK's athleticism and offensive progress this year is fantastic to see.

Whenever Sharron is the floor general, he tries to do too much. He needs to learn to play within himself at all times, not just when there's another guard on the floor to keep him in check. What a night for Amani.

Refs suck. There have been some that we've certainly been dumb on, but the refs have absolutely screwed us this year for playing good defense.

Barre's FT shooting is excellent for a big man.

Camera guy sucks. Getting motion sickness. Up by 25 is ridiculous btw.

3rd worst SOS belongs to Miami OH. That's pathetic.

NIU just choked vs Kent. Kent finishes ahead of Akron. Joe. Has. To. Go.

I think Akron will be top 80 or 90 to start.

This guy is a true Princeton genius. Sitting out this season to preserve eligibility while finishing his Princeton degree. He'll then get paid 6 figures minimum to finish his final season of eligibility next year.

Correct but I'll have a better idea based on their ability to handle adversity on the road. It's a lot easier to stay in and/or pull away in close games at home than it is on the road. They have 6 guys who are offensive threats - 4 are double digit scorers and a 5th is averaging 9 ppg - and the 6th is a freshman sniper from St. Iggy. They have 3 more guys who play decent minutes but are not threats offensively. Based on what I've seen when I've watched their games, they are not as defensively focused this year compared to previous Kent teams, meaning they rely on hot shooting to win games. They've given up 100+ points twice and nearly a third time to 299th KenPom Cleveland State (95 pts in their 1st meeting on a neutral court). They're also quite small. Gillespie is 6'8" and Whaley is 6'7". Those are their top 2 post players by far. Whaley is also built like a North Pole Left Tackle - short and half the weight in the buttocks. Morgan Safford is their next tallest contributor at 6'4" and the rest of their guards are 6'2" or shorter. Without a lot of versatility and size, from what I've seen, they have 2 ways to win - hot shooting night or an off night from the opponent. Both are much easier to accomplish at home vs. on the road, so that stretch in late December will give us a decent idea of this analysis of them is accurate.

I don't quite know how good Kent is. They haven't played a true road game, they haven't played a top 100 KenPom team, and 3 of their games have come against two teams ranked 268 or worse in KenPom (2 of those were Gillespie's best games). I'm going to reserve any (dead) flowers I may have for Kent until their @ Portland/ @ UMass/@ Purdue stretch (their only true road games).

EMU currently up by 13 vs Cincy. Toledo got smoked by Belmont. Buffalo stayed undefeated by beating Bucknell by 2. BUGS beat VMI. Miami OH came back to comfortably beat UNCG.

Me at the Thanksgiving table praying for UConn to hire JoeMo.

Ohio loses another one, this time 70-58 to LMU. Darn.

Ohio lost by 23 to George Mason. If anyone is sad about the loss to Yale, go get a pick-me-up by reading BobcatAttack. They're in shambles. Rumor has it Athens isn't sure if it has enough beer to endure the season. Buffalo beat VMI to remain undefeated. Bowling Green beat our future opponent Bucknell 71-66. EMU got plastered by Louisville.

Oddly enough, the half court adjustment is what cost us the game. It took us most of the first half to figure out how to play in a half court offense, and that's where we saw the 4 turnover differential decide the game. We ultimately could never fully recover, although a large part of all of this is Yale never missing to allow for Akron runouts. Ce la vie. Just an incredible basketball game.

We gave up the wide open 3s because the game plan was to go with a zone that especially focused on doubling Townsend. Yale was smart enough to go baseline and find the open man in the corner. They made 75% of those 3s as a result which is absurd. Virtually the only fault of Groce this offseason was not finding a true big to backfill Okonkwo's spot. We will essentially always have matchup problems in the paint with teams that have athletic bigs and/or can drive to the basket. Yale was flawless in exploiting the matchup down low and always having a guy slashing to the basket when the double came on Townsend. The defensive game plan and execution gave up 97 points, but I'm really not sure there was a legitimate solution. We needed Yale to shoot 55% from the field instead of 63% or shoot 42% from 3 instead of 47% or make 80% of their free throws instead of 100% or turn it over a couple more times like we did; they didn't do any of those things. Groce, as a coach, has to harp on the defense - I get it - but his failure to bring in a legit big for games like this is why we ultimately had to rely on Yale to be imperfect. He didn't have the right game plan or the right pieces to truly stop Yale defensively. Credit to Yale for essentially getting a basketball 4.0 - nerds. Akron proved yesterday that no matter the interior matchup advantage an opponent may have (aside from Purdue who builds their entire front court with fully grown redwood trees they chopped down themselves in California and hauled to West Lafayette, IN), the opponent still has to be nearly perfect to beat Akron (as long as Akron doesn't have a historically bad shooting night). Our system works. This team has an incredibly high ceiling. I've never felt this good after a loss to an unranked team.

Which is fine and expected, but Yale still had to make their shots and they did. Easy to fault Akron's defense and as a coach he should, but it was just one of those nights where the opponent was perfect.