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You notice when we went to the zone that's when they extended the lead? We also tried using zone in the first half a bit, but they hit a couple of 3s so we switched back to man.

Yes, because our man to man defense was so effective today. We went to zone to try and mix it up to get a stop AND to try to limit the fouls to our front court players who were in danger of getting in bad foul trouble. It didn’t work, but it’s not like our man defense was working either.

Which is why I wanted Miami OH snubbed. Let the conversation be "what if" and save the at large for a legitimately good team.

Much better showing for Akron, who at least pushed Texas Tech. This isn't great for the MAC, though. I'm sure Miami will try to pump up their "tournament win", but the actual tournament saw both teams lose by 20. They will absolutely hold that against the MAC in future years.

Miami OH even faced a worse team. Really pathetic effort.

Well at least our game was competitive 80% of the time unlike Miami.

I don't want anything I've said to be misconstrued as pessimistic. There was a lot to be proud of this season. Even without a tournament win it was an enjoyable ride. There will naturally be a lot of new faces, but I'm looking forward to seeing what next year brings. As long as we have Groce and Bud we should be MAC contenders.

I personally didn't like the zone defense in the limited time we played it or trapping. I didn't feel this was an opponent that it was needed for since without Toppin they had no low post threat and Lyles and Mahaffey matched up to them fairly well size wise. I would have preferred to play man, fight through screens instead of switching, and limit any help defense (particularly not abandon Atwell). Those are the things you can control defensively as they're schematic changes.

I can't really weigh in right now. Not certain what production is expected from the redshirts or true freshmen. There will certainly be plenty of opportunities for anyone to earn minutes. We will certainly have to supplement some gaps by utilizing the portal.

Akron isn't sneaking up on anyone like those teams do. Akron is respected, and actually needs to show up for one of these. Probably a result of the MAC being overvalued, yes, and Akron being on top of the MAC. Until they do, this is as good as it gets.

Today is sad. But thanks to this wonderful team and coach

They are who we thought they were. At least Akron was competitive.

Miami down by 20 at halftime. Alabama beats Hofstra bigly.

Assuming Groce stays and we don't have core players leave, we have a lot of work to do in the portal to contend next season. We have two openings right now, but three questions marks that could increase the number of spots available. Barre - he lost trust to the point where he played behind MMK most of the season. Did his injuries prevent him from ever getting comfortable here, or is he simply not a fit? He seems like a great young man, but I wouldn't be surprised to see him move on. Stankovic - Part of the rotation for the first part of the season, he fell behind Halligan and barely played down the stretch. I doubt that was his expectation when he came here - I wouldn't be shocked to see him leave. Brisco - Seems like a high character young man and you never like to give up on bigs, but he just doesn't look like someone you can count on to play next year, even 10-12 minutes per night. I can definitely see him moving to a lower division team.

I'm not saying you can't impact the game defensively, nor am I saying Akron's 3P defense is anything to be proud of. Akron's key to success this year was shot making. We weren't built to play the lockdown defensive style you, Zippy87, and some others wanted us to play. Miami OH was shooting borderline logo 3s the other night and making them. High Point's #99 hit a logo 3 to get them back in the game vs. Wisconsin yesterday. You either make your shots or you don't and Akron didn't make enough; the opponents did.

You say that as though you can't run a shooter off the 3-point line. There are two sides of a basketball game. You can impact a game defensively despite what you may think. Edit: Go look at the boxscore. Tavari attempted 0 3PA. They ran him off the line and then forced him to drive where they had defensive help. Great defensive teams can take away what you do best.

And yet despite that, we were in that game for 80% of it. If we make our shots, we possibly win. Way too much focus on what we can't control as much.

Regardless of how you feel about perimeter defense I don't think there is no denying the fact that leaving someone who shoots 8.5 3s a game and knocks them down at 45%+ clip wide open isn't a winning strategy.

The bottom line is perimeter defense was a problem all season. Bad teams will have trouble exposing that, good teams will not. The 5th best 3-point shooting offense in the country certainly will not.

Much better than the list Toledo is on.

The % margin that separates most teams on that list is miniscule. Toledo is in the 200s for 3P defense and only .6% better than Akron. Troy shot 18% from 3P vs. Toledo in a loss. Cornell is 349th in 3P defense - Yale shot 35% vs. them in a loss. The best teams in the country shoot the 3-ball at 40% at best on average. Ultimately, teams either make their shots or they don't. Akron had a couple wide open 3s today that they missed. Open isn't automatic.

kind of a mixed bag i guess. we may be on the list tomorrow after Gemini gets today's results. on the plus side, Iona will be hard to catch. kind of surprised to see Boise and eku.

Groce will certainly have some tempting offers. Butler is the one to watch, IMO.

Tough day for sure. But the memories of last Saturday night will never disappear. Can’t take that away.

Akron ranked 259th in the country in 3-point defense. Perimeter defense was a weakness most of the year. Bad or average teams couldn't take advantage of that. Better teams could, which is why we didn't beat any of them. They made shots at absurd rates because we consistently gave opponents great looks...we saw it throughout the game today. That's not bad luck for us or good luck for them, that's a team's weakness getting exposed.