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At least he’s getting paid.

I say play Eric more. He seems to make plays in all facets of the game.

Nate played 31 minutes and had zero points and four turnovers? 😳

Neither team hitting 3s so far.

Even doing a nice job on Suder.

Steele thought Amani pushed the defender away with his left forearm.

Like to see Eric M get a little more aggressive end. He had the ball down low a few times with some height advantage.

Fun game. Good defense so far.

Steele is for sure John's brother. I've seen that exact technical with the same mannerism so many times from Groce.

I couldn't quite tell. Did coach Steele let a few f-bombs fly?

Not sure what Travis is all so worked up about.

Not a fan of Amani leaving his feet on the 3 point line against their big or Young's foul on the 3 pointer. Otherwise okay so far.

Like the defensive effort in the opening minutes. We just need to do a better job of securing rebounds after misses. Miami is too good offensively to give 2nd chance point opportunities.

Kansas State is currently playing BYU on CBS for anyone who might want to watch some Nate Johnson.

Portal commit Christian Young deleted his commitment tweet and is now visiting Southern Miss.

reminder - afternoon game - 3 or 3:30 on espn+

Yes, Tribble was great last year.

Lets face facts, we are just not as good defensively as we were last year. Tribble was a great defender and very tough who could get around picks. Tavari, Scott, and Young are undersized at guards and have progressed more offensively than defensively. Evan Mahaffey is probably our best defender. I think Barre showed some promise before he got hurt. When Halligan came into the game I immediately commented that his defense made him stand out. He then started the next game. We are undersized in the forward and center position leading to double teams in the post and then open perimeter shooters at the 3 line. We miss the defense of Okonkwo and Grey. Our offense is great but our defense will determine how strong we will be this season.

I think @Let'sGoZips94 and @kreed5120 are both right to some extent. The Zips defense this season, including the Yale and Murray State games, has been inadequate, especially om the perimeter. Groce has referenced it repeatedly in the post-games and I'll take his work for it. At the same time, those two teams were unconscious in their shooting. Poor perimeter defense + hot shooting = 97 and 115 points. This team's pace is always going to result in more points by the opponents. More opportunities for the offense results in more opportunities for opponent. Also, the team plays help defense. Watch how they sag on the off ball side of the court. If they're a little slow to recover, there's an open shot. They'll tighten it up but they'll never be the 19-20 team that gave up 66 points a game.

On Twitter/X, I'd post them but there's 20+

Where can you see those offers?

Zips are favored by 2.5 points according to DraftKings. O/U is 177.5

What is a high percentage on a 3P attempt? Miami is the best 3P shooting team in the country at 43.88%. Yale is #2 at 43.07%. That's considered a VERY high percentage based on only 8 teams in the country shooting 40%+ from 3P. Murray State is 47th at a 37.53% clip. Open opportunities might lead to a bump by a few percentage points, but shooting 20% better than your average is an absurd anomaly attributed more to hot shooting than anything else. Yale's 3P performance was probably more indicative of open opportunities (47% that game vs. 43.88% average) than the Murray State game (56% vs. 37.53%). The Yale game was lost in the paint because we didn't have an answer for their inside game and they made darn near every floater and mid range shot imaginable; that's more the byproduct of slanted roster construction (Barre wasn't ramped up yet), not pissing the bed. In addition, I saw both Yale and Murray State make contested shots from all over the court. When a team is on, they're on. Of course both offense and defense matter in basketball, but the statistics show that offense is superseding defense as the primary cause of a game's result. That's where's a shift across college basketball in recent years to gear towards better offense. We've seen this with Akron teams in the past. Teams that struggle to score will almost always struggle to score. I posted this in one of the other threads, but Houston doesn't have any national championships despite being one of the top defensive teams in recent years. Why? They've struggled to score more than their opponents despite superior defensive efforts. It's no secret Groce wants the defense to be better and he should, but if you zoom out from your 2 game scenario vs. EMU & Concord, Groce has spent the last 2 years reconstructing the roster to be offensively focused and dominant. Sending a message in 2 games we should win going away is great and what good coaches should do, but it doesn't mean Groce doesn't realize offense is still the ultimate key to our success. If defense mattered as much, we wouldn't be playing a more run n gun, chaotic style of offense that is prone to open opportunities and doesn't conserve energy for the defensive side of the ball. We can play the what if game until we're Akron Blue & Gold in the face. It's possible a hand in their face on their made shots lowers their shooting percentage. It's also possible it doesn't. Fact is, both Yale & Murray State had mismatches that put the ball in the hoop at an insanely higher percentage than normal. In no way, shape, or form do I believe Akron pissed down their legs in those games. Hats off to both teams for incredible shooting performances. I expect two things to be true tomorrow. 1) Akron's defense will be improved with the recent messages that have been sent. 2) Miami will either be on or they won't; our defense tomorrow won't have much of an effect on their 3P%. This game will be won or lost based on Akron's scoring abilities and turnovers.

Kenpom has the Zips at 57 and Miami at 107. Tomorrow should be interesting.

The staff has a ton of offers out there, some more impressive at face value than others. Go Zips!!