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PCCC @ Zips, Friday 2/17


clarkwgriswold

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1 minute ago, kreed5120 said:

It's one game. We will get our chance for revenge in 2 weeks.

 

In other news has anyone gone to the micro brew on Sherman called Aqueduct? The brew wasn't that great, but its worth going to to check out the basement.

 

Recommending alcohol consumption to anyone who attended that basketball game tonight is a good suggestion.  :thumb:

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1 hour ago, zippy_ua_00 said:

Terrible terrible terrible. This team each game is convincing me they aren't as good as their record may indicate. Can't put these terrible Mac teams away and especially Kent on your home court. 3 terrible losses, 0 good wins. I've seen this story before and know how it plays out. We win at BG by a couple go to Canada and lose, beat Miami by a couple after blowing a big 2nd half lead like we do in most games, lose at Kent. Get knocked out in Cleveland and go to some P5 school and lose in the 1st round of the NIT. It's so frustrating watching this team. Why is a guy who is ice cold from 3 and pretty cold for the last few games taking a 28 ft 3 at the end of the game to tie it? 

Careful!!!!  Only kook aid fans can post here.   The scenario you presented will never happen cause we're Akron. 

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7 minutes ago, kreed5120 said:

For what its worth I brought 3 friends, all Akron grads, and they haven't been to the JAR in years. They had a good time despite Akron losing. I wish we could get the JAR rocking like that more often.

 

For me, that was the worst part about tonight.  We had finally gotten to the point where the win streak, the national notoriety, and the rivalry game came together as a perfect storm to get a big crowd on the bandwagon.  Students were lined up to get those wristbands at the student entrance long before the game.  

 

So, this was our big chance to get those people locked in, and it sucks that we couldn't deliver them a big win.  

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2 minutes ago, skip-zip said:

 

For me, that was the worst part about tonight.  We had finally gotten to the point where the win streak, the national notoriety, and the rivalry game came together as a perfect storm to get a big crowd on the bandwagon.  Students were lined up to get those wristbands at the student entrance long before the game.  

 

So, this was our big chance to get those people locked in, and it sucks that we couldn't deliver them a big win.  

I think anyone that attended tonight and didn't have a good time has some problems. If they aren't hardcore fans, they saw a great rivalry game in a packed house. Nothing small time about it

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4 minutes ago, zippy5 said:

I think anyone that attended tonight and didn't have a good time has some problems. If they aren't hardcore fans, they saw a great rivalry game in a packed house. Nothing small time about it

 

Ok, then I have some problems, I guess.  I didn't leave there thinking "wow...I had such a great time...that was a great rivalry game"   Heck no.  I walked out of there pissed off because we lost.    

 

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1 minute ago, zippy5 said:

I meant that towards casual fans when I said if they aren't hardcore fans. I was pissed, myself :lol:

 

I'd be disappointed if you weren't.  

 

Ok, I can see how maybe someone who was just looking for an entertaining basketball game, and wasn't emotionally invested like the rest of us, would have had an enjoyable time.  

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If your truly a fan you will take the good with the ugly. This game was a game we should of won and we didn't. We can say it was this or that , but don't you think they are beating themselves up for losing. I'm proud of what they've  accomplished so far and the season isn't over. I believe they will win in Cleveland and win some rounds in the NCCA tournament. 

 

Edited by ZIPSMOM2
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Honestly, I didn't think Kent played all that special. They played good enough to win on a night that outside of Utomi we couldn't buy an outside shot. That will happen over the course of the season. We managed to scratch out a win earlier in the season against Ball State with an equally as bad shooting night. Tonight we fell a tad short.

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Now I've had time to get over it. My takeaways:

 

Our two losses took the opposition's A+ game while we shot pretty terribly each game. If that's what it takes, so be it. We played bad. Dumb shots in that KSU run out of the half.. I think we had 4 straight possessions taking a jumper in transition before a pass. Not a good way to end a run. 

 

That said, maybe we needed this. Preferably it wouldn't have been to Kent.. But maybe they needed to take a punch before the MAC tourney. We'll see.

 

Also - Utomi needs 20 minutes a night. Maybe Josh needs a little more run too, hope he's healthy. I think his shot is coming around, and he is looking like one of our better defenders.

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1 hour ago, ZIPSMOM2 said:

If your truly a fan you will take the good with the ugly. This game was a game we should of won and we didn't. We can it was this or that , but don't you think these they are beating themselves up for losing. I'm proud of what they've  accomplished so far and the season isn't over. I believe they will win in Cleveland and win some rounds in the NCCA tournament. 

 

Thanks for the perspective. We all get caught up in our passion for the team. 

 

"Mama said there'd be days like this..."

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14 minutes ago, zippy5 said:

That said, maybe we needed this. Preferably it wouldn't have been to Kent.. But maybe they needed to take a punch before the MAC tourney. We'll see.

 

And preferably, it wouldn't have happened at home in front of a sellout crowd :(  That's what make the OU loss much easier to take than this one.  I had to scamper out of the JAR quickly so I didn't have to watch a celebration on our floor.  No way could I have watched that.  

 

26 minutes ago, kreed5120 said:

Honestly, I didn't think Kent played all that special.

 

That's very true.  This was all about our own poor play.  And it was mostly on the offensive end, which has been our strength all year.  

 

Watch the game and look at the stat line.  The only thing that really sticks out at you is that Kent maximized their offensive possessions last night by having an impressively low number of turnovers.  

Edited by skip-zip
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http://www.ohio.com/sports/zips/kent-state-70-akron-67-flashes-end-zips-30-game-home-winning-streak-delay-regular-season-mac-title-1.748201#

 

And in the latest chapter of our ABJ writer giving us an insightful analysis of game results, he makes special mention of the fact that Kent "outshot" the Zips by highlighting that their Field Goal percentage was 1% higher than ours.   I'm not kidding.  

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26 minutes ago, skip-zip said:

 

This was the difference IMHO:

The Flashes outshot the Zips 43 percent to 42 percent, with the primary difference coming from behind the 3-point line where Kent State made 7-of-19 to the Zips’ 5-of-22. The Zips came in averaging close to 11 3-pointers per game.

 

GT also address the horrendous start to the 2nd half.

During the course of Kent State’s run, UA shot 1-of-11 from the floor and at one point didn’t score for more than a seven-minute stretch.

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I had already commented earlier that I counted through the play-by-play, and Kent had a 15-2 run.  But I didn't realize that we didn't score for 7 minutes.  I guess I have to credit him for pointing out that fact.  

 

But yes, the 3-point percentage shooting difference was significant, not the 43 to 42 FG percentage.  

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I think it is safe to say from George's last two columns, that he wasn't a statistics major in college. 

 

I would also say the statistics don't need to be rehashed to tell the tale of last night's game. Kent simply wanted it more. 

 

They hustled down the floor after every missed shot. Their double-teams on Big Dog were lightning quick. They disrupted what the Zips like to do offensively, and we obviously struggled.

 

What a joy it would have been for me to see Hall frustrated, sulking at the end of Kent's bench. Instead it was our all-MAC candidate. If you aren't mentally tough in the Akron-Kent game, you're no help. Thankfully Utomi stepped up, or we'd have been blown out.

 

Who showed up? Ivey was rock-solid yet again. Big Dog played tough. Utomi, of course. And although Dunn Martin (9 minutes) didn't score, he had 4 assists compared to Robotham's 0 in  33 minutes.

 

Robotham continues to offensively rival Carmelo Betancourt. If your point guard that's playing 30+ minutes per night is repeatedly putting up goose eggs in the points column, and not offsetting it with a bucket full of assists, it's a problem.

 

As we entered the arena I said to my friend "The book on Kent is they're tough, aggressive, and they can't shoot." I received a pretty good scouting report. 

 

Joe Akron got a good show last night. A riveting game...packed house...electric atmosphere...even if he was underneath the heat lamp on a wooden bleacher he couldn't have complained he didn't get his money's worth.

 

All our goals remain in front of us. Wins against BG and Miami will give us another regular season MAC Championship.

 

But our road, and post-season nemesis Buffalo is getting hot. Kent's dangerous and confident. We need to get our swagger back soon. 

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One other thing that may have been forgotten last night is that Josh left the floor with assistance, and never returned.  Keith said afterwards that it's an ankle injury that's caused previous problems for him?  I don't recall a previous problem.  

 

I said previously that the odds are nearly insurmountable that we don't win the MAC outright.  A home loss against a .500 team certainly puts that a little more in doubt, for right now.  But those BG and Miami games mentioned above should still certainly be the clinchers, even if we play no better than we played last.

 

Beyond that, if we recover and get on our "A" game, we can still max out at 29 wins.  That should be enough to get us a higher-than-usual Seed as a MAC champ.  But if we were to lose both games at Buffalo and Kent, I think we're in the Usual Place if we win the MAC title game.  And if we don't win in Cleveland, we're probably getting sent on the road in the NIT again.  I'd like to win both of those games, but I especially think that we will be extra-motivated for the road game at Kent.  

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22 minutes ago, bigzipguy said:

Big Dog has been great all year as I'm sure we all agree. What may cost us a trip back to the Dance is that Big Dog has no real back up. Hughes not be able to play extended minutes, means Johnson plays more. At the Q, Dog playing on consecutive nights could be a huge problem!!!

 

Keith has even talked about this a little bit.  A 300 lb. workhorse kind of player could struggle a bit playing Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.  Thank God for the 12pm game on Thursday.  That will maximize his rest.  

 

I'm still puzzled about the Hughes situation myself.  I'm guessing that "not being able to play extended minutes" is not the issue when he comes in for 1-2 minutes per game.  I'll say it has far more to do with his ineffectiveness than having post-injury stamina issues, as some people have suggested.  He should be more than capable of playing more than a minute.  

 

The staff appears sold on Poke, and have even commented about his defense.  Last night, he didn't match up well.  But I think if we can get him to about 10 minutes, and get a couple of baskets, a couple of rebounds, and a couple of blocks, that would be fantastic.  And he's been able to do something similar to that in many of the games he's played so far.  

 

Remember that Big Dog has also been able to get some rest at times with a Kwan/Utomi combo on the front line too.  So, it's not all on Poke to get rest for Johnson.  

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KD indicated post game that he was not too worried about the loss since his main goal was preparing the team for Cleveland.  However, if I were the coach, I would be worried. Home game, Rival game, winning streak on the line, national TV, full house, and we have a terrible offensive night with our 3 point shooters with the exception of Utomi, go 1 for 18.  Further, we played against an athletic team that always seems to give us troubles. 


KD indicated all season long that he was not happy with the defense and that he wanted more intensity on defense.  Further, to increase the intensity he was going to play more bench so that the players would stay fresh.  I thought the defense against Kent was good but they are quicker than us and we got burnt on some back cuts.  But KD did not use his bench.  Kent slowed the ball down and had long possessions where we had to defend for the entire shot clock.  Noah, Big Dog, Antino each played more than 30 minutes with Jimond playing 29.  Big Dog was amazing but our outside shooters were bad except for Utomi, who did not play big minutes last night or the entire season.  There is a possibility that these guys are wearing down playing more intense defense on 2 days rest towards the end of a grinding MAC schedule and averaging 30 minutes per game in the MAC season.  Does anybody remember when we used to complain that KD used his bench too much and players did not stay in the game more than 5 minutes no matter how well they were playing? 

 

 As somebody mentioned earlier, Dunn Martin had 4 assist in 9 minutes.  Dunn Martin needs more playing time. He reminds me of Antino his freshman year, small, quick, and can attack the basket.  I am hoping that we will see more Dunn Martin, Utomi, Poke and yes, even some Aron Jackson.  I think we need to spread out the minutes more if this team is going to win 3 games in 3 days in Cleveland.  Go Zips!    

 

 

 

 

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21 minutes ago, zippy5 said:

People are asking for Hughes but I think he has about 9 shot attempts this year and 7 of them have been blocked. He needs work on his post moves. Redshirt probably would have been for the best in hindsight.

Definitely seems like a completely lost season for Hughes.

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42 minutes ago, 1981 grad said:

KD indicated post game that he was not too worried about the loss since his main goal was preparing the team for Cleveland. 

 

Whoa.  That's not what I heard.  You're making it sound like we were intentionally resting people, or sacrificing our best play.  Our starters all played 30 minutes or more, except Kwan.  And there were minimal bench minutes beyond Utomi and Josh.  

 

What I heard him say is that: If we were going to lose a game, he'd rather it be now, instead of later when it had greater consequence.  That was it.  

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