I am a long time Zip fan and and about halfway through the season when we were undefeated in MAC play and I heard Freeman and Tribble indicate that this team had another gear that they had not played their best basketball. I believed them and thought we were going to have a special season going undefeated in the MAC or at most 1 or 2 losses because the MAC was having a down year. I thought we would would win the MAC tourney and finally have a good shot at winning our first NCAA game.
Then we played a tier one team, James Madison, and our bench scored a total of 4 points. I thought that this team lacks the bench talent to beat a tier one team in the NCAA tournament. And then we started losing to some really bad MAC teams. And there was one consistent weakness the entire season, we did not have a player who could knock down 3 points shooter and as a team we were really bad at hitting outside shots. We ranked 262 in the country in 3 point percentage and had the 2nd worst 3 point shooting Akron team in the past 10 year.
And Groce knew going into the season he had a stud inside player, Freeman, who could dominate the middle. He had 3 players, Ali, Tribble, and Hunter who could score in different ways. He had 3 guys that had showed potential, Tavari, Nate, and Dawson. All he had to do was to bring in 2 guards that could knock down the 3 so that teams could not double and triple team Freeman. In football terms, if you have a stud quarterback, you search the portal for offensive lineman to protect your stud. In basketball terms, you bring in a shooter that if they double and triple team Freeman he can play inside out and have a shooter make the 3 ball. Instead, he brought in Thornton and Scott who could not shoot the 3 ball and could not create their own shot. Groce, who brought us X and LCJ, picked the worst year to strike out when using the transfer pool to bring in 2 guards. In the latter part of the season teams just double and triple teamed Freeman and we struggled to shoot the 3 ball.
I think Groce is a great coach and brings in quality student athletes. I know we won in Cleveland and got to the tourney and should be happy with that achievement. However, I would ask everyone on this board one question, did this team meet or exceed your expectations when we started this season.