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Thankfully Jalin Billingsley who made that game winning put back dunk is no longer on the roster. He is also part of the EMU gambling investigation

Unfortunately, I do.

Akron's last home loss was against Eastern Michigan. Anyone remember?

All those things are true, but I wouldn't advertise regression to the mean as something we have going for us because by its very definition in our case, it highlights that we have traditionally been one of the worst programs in FBS/D1-A.

Yet it's challenging to dispute any of them.

This is what I'm banking on too. I still believe it will happen even though there's no sign of it yet. But also, the defense will look better when we're playing CMU and WMU than it did against Yale and Murray. 😆

There is a silver lining: Akron has the best facilities in the MAC, a great FBS opportunity for players to showcase their talent, and a competent president/ athletic director. Under Nemer and Goodrich, those advantages will pay dividends sooner rather than later and the only direction to go is up!!

Well stated TennZip. UW has traveled an impressive road to the championship. Still, they did not face us. I think we are that good and would have given them the best test of all.

Teams can take all the open 3s they want; they still have to make them. When Oakland beat Kentucky in the 2024 NCAA Tournament, nobody was talking about Kentucky's defense. The focus of that game was Jack Gohlke's unconcious shooting performance, making 10 of 20 3P. Oh, and the other point of conversation was Kentucky's awful shooting performance - 9/28 (32%) from 3P and 43% from the field. Earlier that day, in the same arena, Akron lost by 17 to Creighton. That Akron team was VERY defensive minded, but struggled to score. How did Akron's top notch defense do vs. Creighton? Creighton shot 57% from the field and 59% from 3P. How did Akron's offense counter? 38% from the field and 21% from 3P. A team that struggled all year offensively ultimately continued to struggle in the NCAA tournament; a team that was offensively superior all season continued to be offensive superior in the NCAA tournament. Through yesterday's games, there are... 9 teams with a higher FG% in the country than Akron - one of those is Yale (8th). 39 teams have more 3PA per game than Akron - one of those is Murray State (29th). 9 teams that make more 3P per game than Akron - Murray State is only 5 spots back and .2 less 3P made per game. 14 teams have a higher 3P% than Akron - 1 of those is Yale (2nd) and Murray State is not far back at 38th. 3 teams have a higher scoring offense than Akron - 1 of those is PCCC (3rd; puke), while Murray State (16th) and Yale (42nd) are not too far behind. My point is superior offensive teams are able to put the ball in the hoop no matter the defense to a large extent. Did Akron's defense leave open looks for Yale and Murray State? Sure, but I guarantee Akron's defense wasn't worse than some other opponents whom Yale and Murray State played and shot worse than they did vs. Akron. Yale vs. Akron 11/24: Yale shot 64% from the field and 47% from 3P Murray State vs. Akron 12/13: Murray State shot 58% from the field and 56% from 3P Yale vs. UIC (213 NET) on 12/7: Yale scored 80, shooting 43% from the field and 45% from 3P. Yale vs. Brandeis Judges (not DI) on 12/3: Yale shot 51% from the field and 30% from 3P. Yale vs. Green Bay (225 NET) 11/21: Yale shot 51% from the field and 44% from 3P. Murray State vs. Bellarmine (276 NET) 12/6: Murray State shot 53% from the field and 37% from 3P. Murray State vs. Morehead State (298 NET) 12/2: Murray State shot 43% from the field and 32% from 3P. Murray State vs. Little Rock (349 NET) 11/18: Murray State shot 51% from the field and 47% from 3P. I trust in Groce & his staff to get the defense tweaked enough to limit some of the open looks we've seen opponents have. However, we also need the opponent to miss the shots they take - no matter the defense - and both Yale & Murray State didn't miss much.

I think the spanking Murray State gave us is a blessing in disguise and yes it was a spanking. They could have easily beaten us by 25 if they didn't get called for so many moving screens. When we're beating Nobody U by 30 it's tough for Groce to convey to the team that the level of defensive play is unacceptable if you want to make noise come March. Now he has this game to point to as a reality check. Personally, I think our "havoc" or whatever defense you want to call it simply just doesn't work against teams that have quality perimeter play. It works against the cupcakes that have either inexperienced guards who are prone to turnovers or teams with poor perimeter shooters. When we play teams that can disect a defense all it does is leave an open shot at the basket or in the weak corner. If there is no defender within 8 feet of a 3-pt shooter those are pretty much practice shots. An elite 3-pt shooter, like Tavari, can probably knock down those specific wide open looks at or around a 65% clip.

It is sad that so many negative articles around college football - we are named. Worst head coaching positions, game day atmosphere, academics, worst teams.

Omitted is Groce's "putrid defense" explanation - opponents aren't "feeling" the Zips defense. We are undersized, soft, and disorganized. It's easy to shoot three's when you have zero fear of getting one swatted back in your face...when your opponent is sagging off and not respecting your range, when defenders are unnecessarily double-teaming and leaving great shooters wide open for corner three's. The Zips can phone-it-in on defense and out-shoot a lot of mediocre-to-bad teams. If that's our defensive MO I still think we're 16-2, or better, in the MAC. But we can't beat a high mid-major or decent P4 program with the pedestrian defensive efforts we've seen so far. That's a recipe for an NCAA Tournament 13-seed, and a 21 point round 1 loss. It was a gift to get Yale and Murray State on a neutral court, free from biased referees and raucous opposing crowds. And we didn't take advantage of it.

I contend that, since 1891 when James Naismith first nailed a peach basket to the wall of the YMCA Training School in Springfield MA, every basketball team who's lost their final game of the season did so because they didn't score as many points as their opponent.

Washington is a very deserving national Champion. They are the best team that I have watched this year. 6 wins.......none of them at home win at Oregon State in round of 64 win at #5 SMU win at #12 Stanford win at #4 Maryland win over #16 Furman in college cup semis win over #15 NC State in finals has any team defeated 5 seeds and won all of their matches on the road on the way to the title?

Offense wins. Houston is the one of the top defensive teams in the country and has been for several years. They have zero national championships in that span because in their final game of the season, they couldn't score more than their opponent. Akron isn't ignoring defense. Every single post game interview this season has included Groce harping that the defense needs to get better. However, if our opponent isn't shooting nearly 60%, we're winning by 20+. Akron has 3 losses, one of them to easily one of the best teams in the country. The other 2 losses, our opponent had to nearly set shooting records to outscore us; in fact, I'm not so sure they didn't. Those other 2 losses have been to some of the top mid majors in the country on neutral courts as well. I'm not so sure we lose to Yale if Barre is up to speed and playing significant minutes in that game, either. Defense is one of those things that takes longer to pull together with so many new pieces every single year in today's landscape. Shot making doesn't require chemistry and communication with rotations, help defense, etc. Maybe that's why we're seeing a shift at Akron and Kent. That being said, there aren't going to be many teams that will beat us this year without historic offensive performances because Akron's offense is legitimately that good. We've all seen Akron teams struggle to shoot 30% from 3. Didn't matter how good their defense was, they fell short plenty of times against competition that they shouldn't have because they couldn't put the ball in the hoop. The offense never came with those teams because teams can either score or they can't. Give me a team that can score at will with a coach who keeps defense a priority over a team that keeps defense a priority but struggles to score. I'm quite confident the defense will get better, but the blessing with this team is we don't have to pray for the offense to get better because history has proven that's not something that truly improves.

Just imagine if he had disallowed the winning goal - after waiting that long. Sheesh! He otherwise reffed a good game.

I know/understand coaching goes through cycles, but it is a puzzle to me why two of the better most consistent and successful MAC programs the last decade or so -- built on a foundation of strong/solid defense (Akron and Kent) -- suddenly seem to turn into almost exclusively offensive programs with defense becoming clearly secondary. I don't get it. One look at Toledo, or Miami, should prove that is not the way to true success. Defense travels. Offense comes and goes.

Lamest end to a national championship ever. UW wins in OT, a good minute after they start to celebrate the ref goes to VAR. UW hands the trophy BACK. He goes to check whether a player that didn’t touch the ball was offsides 4 passes before the final pass to goal. 2-3 minute review “call stands good goal”

Neither Shammah, nor either of the Mahaffey brothers had strong games vs. Murray St. Yeah, we still put up 100 points but our defense is concerning. And Murray St. looked very good.

It was pretty damn cold when we were there in 2009 as well. 1-0 Washington just before the half. They just mentioned that NC State does not have a single come from behind victory this season.

Reminds me of the old Jerry Tarkanian line: "The NCAA is so mad at Kentucky they'll probably put Cleveland State on probation for an additional two years."

https://www.instagram.com/p/DRNvhpwiSWg/?img_index=1 defender from Indy 11

Josh Hardin was a starter in 2024 and he transferred out. I highly suspcet that was due to Pittsburgh poaching him with huge NIL dollars.

It's a balmy 34 °F in NC currently.

A bit old (before semifinals were played) but interesting read about potential future of Men’s Soccer / College Cup. https://www.sportico.com/leagues/soccer/2025/ncaa-college-cup-soccer-schedule-1234878902/