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Whatever happens, Stan Heath will have a comfortable retirement.

Congrats to the degenerates that took the over.

💯

Zips put up 100 on Murray State. Definitely will be looked upon as a good loss by the tournament committee. We were 2 points away from scoring 102!

Ohio with an incredible win vs St. Bonnie.

To summarize: Bad defense + good team shooting lights out = 115 points On to EMU.

Ignoring the problems isn't going to make them magically go away. Even in our wins we've consistently seen breakdowns defensively with many wide open looks. The competition just wasn't good enough to capitalize off of them. Murray State and Yale were good enough to carve us up. As will any 4 or 5 seed we encounter if the tournament if we make it that far. Giving up offensive rebounds because you're not boxing out and leaving 3-pt shooters wide open because you're slow in rotation isn't a winning formula against quality teams. We should constantly be evaluating ourselves and looking for ways to improve. Other teams will be doing the same.

The women had a better showing.

I understand defense is going to be a point of conversation, but it's really hard to get mad when our only 2 mid major losses have statistically ridiculous box scores. Yale and Murray State could run simulated games in practice with zero defenders, take the same shots they did vs us, and not shoot nearly as well as they ended up shooting vs us. 56% from 3 on 32 attempts is unbelievably absurd. That's 54 pts from 3P alone. If Murray State shoots an above-average 40%, that's 13 3P which is 15 less points; Murray State won by 15, and they're a 36.1% 3P shooting team on the season. Murray State committed 18 turnovers; I know some of those are probably self-inflicted, but Akron was doing something right on defense as well. Yet again, a team needed to have a historic night to beat Akron and they did. Akron wasn't nearly as efficient offensively as they were vs. Yale, hence the 15 pt deficit, but they still put up 100 pts. If we start seeing MAC teams shoot ~50%+ from 3P vs us, then I'll be concerned. Until then, hats off to Murray State for an incredible shooting performance. Regroup and beat the feathers off EMU.

Didn’t last long…

When Halligan came in, he stood out defensively and the Zips went on an 8-0 run. And nobody else stood out defensively today. He deserved the time.

And maybe directing some looks toward the north east…

I will try…Halligan brings defensive understanding and effort. We have plenty of offense right now. We need to figure out how to stop teams. Or maybe Groce is sending the team a message???

Is Stank in the witness protection program? Can someone try to explain 0 minutes vs 8 for Halligan?

Darlington Nagbe is joining Ohio Premier Soccer Club as a Staff Coach. https://www.instagram.com/p/DSOLS9HEWz8/?igsh=b2R6Zm12a2M4cTl3 I’m certain Darlington will be excellent at helping develop soccer talent. 👏👏👏

Stan Heath brings his 6-5 EMU Eagles to the JAR Friday night to face the Zips, coming off of exam week. Like many other teams, EMU had to completely rebuild, returning only 7.9% of their minutes from last year. 6'9" redshirt Central Michigan transfer Mohammad Habnad leads the Eagles with 14.9 ppg and 8.1 rpg. 6'7" redshirt senior guard Addison Peterson, who's on his 5th college team, averages 11.5 rpg and 5.1 rpg. They have wins over Georgia State, Cincinnati, Detroit Mercy, Oakland, NJIT and Cleary. Their losses are to Pitt, UPFW, Louisville, Butler and and IU Indy. Stan Heath, the John Wooden of Ypsilanti, will have them ready.

Murray State is a quality mid major. Akron isn't going to beat anyone worthwhile without effort and intelligence on D. That's just a fact. Giving up 97 to Yale was a red flag. Allowing Murray State to put up 115 in 40 minutes is flat out embarrassing.

I didn’t see the live action, but it sounds like Barre is improving which would help with drives to the hoop. But the wide open perimeter, poor free throw shooting and rebounding (second chance points) are whole team issues. The good news is we still have time to figure it out. The bad news is we are now likely to get another lousy seed if we make the Tourney.

Groce has said again and again that the way this team gets being just being good is by improving defensively. Clearly, they're still just good.

Zips women lose 85-59. They may be able to take some solace in the fact that it's one of the smaller margins of victory Michigan has had so far. Heck, they beat Notre Dame and Purdue by a lot more. Not sure how the Wolverines worked their lineups today.

That Kent State MAC home opener should be electric at UMass, Dec. 20th. Frank Martin will likely look to curb stomp the Golden Flashes to send a loud and clear message to the rest of the league!!!

Shooting 50-percent from the field, 40-percent behind the arc ... and losing by 15 to fellow mid-major is a head-scratcher. Would love to run this one back tomorrow if we could just to see if this sticks. Problem is, in two quality mid-major losses Zips have let Yale and Murray State shoot 60-percet and win. The positive is ... that's what it's going to take to get the job done against the Zips! The negative is ... it's already happened twice with 2/3rd of the season still to play.

I think we were around #16 in kenpom offensive rating and moved up to #14 after the game. We were around #150 in defense heading into the game. Now we're at #206. You have to go back to 2018 to find a year our defense was rated this low.

Our offensive rating goes up, but our defensive rating goes way down. 🤦‍♂️

Thank you!! I haven’t laughed that hard in such a long time.