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There is an AO Akron Fantasy League, I imagine there would be a lot of overlap in personnel, so it would be great if everyone just joined our league! Code is 10309-2268

I understand the league itself has been down this season, but to lose Cassell, Guyton, Luburgh, Tecca, and Young when they had the #3 seed, and still have the #3 seed this season?!!??!!?! That would be a successful season in my eyes. I feel the WNIT is not a long shot, or at least a trip to the WBI again. They will be in the postseason again. This is starting to sound like a broken record, but another great recruiting class coming in. It's only two players, but they're top notch. Our bench is so deep, I think they may start losing some to transferring out for more playing times. Scipio, Ricketts, and a couple others would be starters or one of the first ones off the bench on most teams in the MAC. Instead, they're in the second, sometimes third unit right now on the team. This is the breakdown right now after this season: PG - McMahan(SO), Barilla(SR), Scipio(JR), Flowers(SO) Wing - Brown(SR), Ricketts(JR), Piper(FR) Wing - Plybon(JR), Hung(SO), Sefcik(R-FR) Forward - Gibson(SR), Ball(SO), Walker(FR), Simone(JR) Center - Nunan(SR), Burry(SO), Dunnigan(SR) *A couple more interesting facts. It's nice to see them break the most home victories in a season record two seasons in a row. Hopefully next year will be three Also, Lilli Piper will not only play for Coach Kest and the women's basketball program, but she will also play for Coach Jones and the softball program as well. That's how great of an athlete she is.

Lost in the excitement of the Zips possibly reaching the 20-win plateau yet again (and boy is it a plateau) is the fact that our 17-0 streak remains intact!! The Zips didn't lose the lead versus Miami until the 5:23 point in the 2nd period, so we're STILL 17-0 when we've had the lead at the 5-minute mark in 2014-15! No one finishes like the Zips!

Very exciting to see the Lady Zips doing so well. They are a nice alternative to the Men during a down year.

The Dials/Joyce/Middleton/Roberts era was arguably the best of Dambrot's tenure. We should have similar quality and depth at guard next season, so maybe that gets us back to when we could beat a Florida State or Temple in the NIT. Can anyone step up and take the #3 spot next year? If we are a combined 4-deep at the #1 and #2, we're 0-deep at the #3. We have 4 bodies, but none took hold of the position in 2014-15.

I'm disappointed but not surprised by some of the sarcasm and negativity. For one, everyone is frustrated - we've had a lot of ups and downs, but it's been a long time since we've lost like this. It's still difficult to see though - I guess you find out more about folks when things are bad than when things are good. It's interesting to me that time and time again, we've heard recruits talk about how much the stability of the coaching staff has factored into their decisions to commit. And time and time again, we've seen how the 20 wins streak catches a recruits attention when deciding where to commit. That doesn't mean that the coaches are beyond criticism - every coach in America is - but I think sometimes we get spoiled by what we've had. I wouldn't trade our coaching staff for anyone else's in the conference. As frustrating as this year has been (and it's been really bad at times), I have to take a step back sometimes and look at the situation. Our MAC POY candidate got suspended after 2 games, forcing a sophomore (Cheatham) who played 9 minutes per game last season into the starting five. Treadwell being out has severely limited the impact of Kretzer/McAdams, who relied on Tree down low to get good looks. All three of our point guards are true freshman - one a walk-on - and the best one tore his ACL, forcing a the backup who was used to 15 minutes per game to go 30+. Of our 12 players that play, 7 of them are freshmen or sophomores. As someone else pointed out, everything that could go wrong has and it appears our young team has simply run out of gas. With that said, I'm excited for next season. Noah was a steal of a recruit, and pairing him with Josh Williams should give us one of the best (and youngest) backcourts in the league. The other possible play-right-away recruit - Peter Agba - has been compared to Tree when Tree was his age. Kwan, Antino, Aaron, B.J., Malcolm, and Isaiah will get another offseason in the weight room. And, with apologies to Nyles, we're really only losing Deji's impact on the court. This sucks, no way to change that, but it's still damn good to be an Akron Zip. Here's to a miracle this coming week and, if not, getting back to Saturday night at The Q in 2016. Go Zips!

After the first 6 team personals in each half, all fouls are shooting fouls. So that does narrow it down a little. I agree with zippy5 that the big number (116) is less meaningful than the average difference per game. Let's look at this in more detail to try to gain a better understanding of what's going on. Personal fouls per game: Zips are averaging ~18.5 and their opponents ~17.0, so in raw personals the Zips are being whistled just 1.5 times more per game (~9%) than their opponents. A number of factors could be contributing to this difference. But it doesn't seem like the kind of huge difference some may think exists due to the Zips shooting a large number of 3s where there's a much smaller chance of drawing a personal than driving the basket. Free throw attempts per game: Zips are averaging ~17.5 per game and their opponents ~21. So the Zips are getting an average of ~3.5 fewer free throw attempts (~17%) per game than their opponents while drawing 1.5 fewer personals. You might say that some of that difference is from the Zips missing the front end of many 1 and 1s due to their poor team free throw shooting percentage (65.2%). But at 67.9% Zips opponents are averaging only slightly better from the free throw line, a negligible difference. So at least part of the 3.5 fewer free throw attempts per game could indeed be related to the Zips taking a higher percentage of shots that typically don't draw personals, i.e. 3-pointers. Total impact on the game: When you crunch the numbers on opponents drawing 1.5 more fouls and getting 3.5 more free throw attempts per game with a 67.9% free throw shooting percentage, the Zips are losing about .679 x 3.5 = ~2.4 points per game at the free throw line to their opponents. Since free throw points generally represent ~20% of all points scored in a typical college game compared with ~50% for 2-point field goals and ~30% on 3-pointers, the Zips have that other 80% of total points scored to make up the extra 2.4 points per game they give up to their opponents at the free throw line. Conclusion: The final scores of college basketball games are determined by the combined performance in all areas of both the offensive and defensive games, not just one or two obvious ones. Giving up an average of 2.4 points per game at the free throw line is just one area of the game, one that could be more than offset by averaging 2 more field goals or 1 more 3-pointer per game. The Zips' below average 2-point and 3-point field goal shooting percentages are as important an issue as their free throw shooting deficit. Likewise the inability of the Zips defense to stop defenders from driving to the basket without fouling (remember Zeke?) is yet another area where a small improvement could pay big dividends. It's up to the coaching staff to determine the areas of performance where improvement is likely to pay the biggest dividends based on the abilities of the players they have to work with.

Zac Portillos' late goal is match winner for Tampa Bay Rowdies. https://twitter.com/TampaBayRowdies/status/572021022804738050