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There are a lot of empty seats in front of me now. They were all Dambrot supporters who bailed on the team when he left. This includes the guy who would yell "3 seconds" every time an opposing player stood in the paint. If you are so enamored with Dambrot more than you are U of A, it's a 2 hour drive to see him coach. This is when the team needs our support. And I do enjoy my unobstructed view.

It's part of the process of rebuilding a gutted team/Program. You lose, and the crowds shrink. You win, and everyone wants to be a part of it. Those of us who lived through Crawford and Hipsher know the crowds return once winning begins. Until then, enjoy your unobstructed view, stretch your legs out and hopefully watch some exciting young talent develop. It's a different Zips basketball mindset for both players and fans. But only for a season or two.

Confession, you wouldn't know it because of my worldly and sophisticated nature but I'm also a graduate of Northwestern. My dad rode the bench when they one the single "A" state championship in 1959, and I had an uncle who played for Roy Bates on the 1965 state championship team. However, it didn't pass to the next generation as I was cut from the no-cut 7th grade team and never returned.

I think there was a lack of effort and bad attitude in the first half. The first half effort issue was magnified by the obvious effort given in the second half. The attitude was shown by body language and expressions in the heat of the first half slaughter. All that being said, I'm tired of hearing about how much better they are in the second half. It's much easier to be better after the other team knows the game is over.

Quote from the Beacon article this morning concerns me- “I thought our effort and attitude were atrocious,” Zips coach John Groce said. Quite simply, this team on most nights for the rest of the season will play teams with more talent. That's the reality of the situation in which the program was placed by Dambrot's departure. As such, they can't ever afford bad attitudes and efforts in any game as out-hustling and out-efforting the other team is their only chance in many games.

Depending on the weather predicted for Saturday, there could be an influx of some WCAL (and I don't mean Keener or myself) fans as BG starts true freshman Derek Koch from Northwestern in the post. I never really got to watch the kid but am surprised he is starting his freshman year. This is a big game for the mental psyche of this team. A win and I think we have a punchers chance at 6 or 8 MAC wins this years. A loss, and I think it will be a very rough year that some had predicted. I think we come out and get the W!

Yeah...I do. Quit it. Who thought this was going to something easy with all that happened and what/who is left. C’mon dre you are smarter than that. Bashing Groce after less than half a season?

Looking forward to (hopefully) a solid QB competition. And that's nothing against Kato...Alex seems to have a lot of potential.

Due to our recent losing streak and the fact that @clarkwgriswold has started the game threads for the first 3 MAC games, I figured I'd start the thread for Bowling Green to shake things up. BGSU is 11-5 with a 2-1 record in the MAC. They also lost to Abilene Christian. We need a strong response in this game due to our losing streak and the embarrassment that was the Buffalo game. Thus concludes my pre-game analysis. Carry on.

If they'd have just seen how you can take a t-shirt from a t-shirt cannon, they'd have kept you!

Just be aware that you will now become if the scapegoat if they lose...

Only 68 and a wakeup to the first Spring practice (but who's counting)... EDIT - this is not an official date for practice. I'm just basing it off of what they did last year.

Towards the end of the Hipsher area I purchased my upper reserved Zips basketball seats. I remain in them almost 15 years later. At the time of purchase, the options were WIDE open. I would be shocked if there were 20 TOTAL seats that were reserved at the time of my purchase. In Dambrot's hey day, upper reserved were sold out. Lower reserved too. People seem to think, because Dambrot's teams didn't sell out every game, the attendance was bad. It was pretty damn good, and leaps and bounds beyond the Crawford and late-Hipsher eras.

Last night, it would have been ok if someone obstructed my view. The fans will come back when we start winning, and I'm confident we'll start winning.

I hope not because as of now its the AD who needs to go first.

I guess I don't see a guy who based upon his success moved on to the Big 10 as a "leftover." It's not like they hired Louis Orr, Billy Taylor or John Cooper.

In 4 seasons Groce was 34–30 in the MAC at Ohio U And so far his "prior experience" has us below .500 and getting our ass kicked on our home floor

Yeah....hiring a coach who has had prior experience in the MAC, by far the most postseason success in the conference the last decade, great recruiting ties, and also had the recent benefit of a learning opportunity on one of the biggest stages just has "disaster written all over it".

Have at it lilroodude!

In a game in which Utomi & Duvivier went a combined 2/15 for 8 points, it's no surprise we got curb stomped. We just don't have enough on this roster to overcome that. Heading into this season I knew we'd have nights like this. I just hope the minutes the young players are getting exposed to now pays dividends in the future.

You realize when the Zips beat BG you will need to start the game threads until they lose? Big responsibility. ?

How many floor burns did you see from the Zips last night? Did you see frustration by the upperclassman that resulted in leadership? Did they try and pick the youngsters up by the scruff of their necks? Or did they hang their heads? Did you see endless uncontested lay-ups by Buffalo, or did we defend hard? To date, I felt this team was "lovable," "plucky" and fun to watch regardless of the outcome. That wasn't the case last night. Overall, we didn't compete. We have 9 scholarship players. 5 are freshman. A walk-on from the rec center was forced to play 8 minutes against the defending 2017 MAC champs. So I get the fact that we are not at Buffalo's level. But our Big 3 need to be engaged and lead, night-in-night-out. If they aren't, we could match Hipsher's inaugural 0-18 MAC record. There's no team we can beat. Buffalo can coast for 10 minutes every game, and still go 13-3 in conference. They have seniors and talent. The Zips can't coast for a minute. A kid like Duvivier has played on a team that knocked off the #7 team in the nation (Arizona). He's used to playing in front of 10k+ fans. Now he's taking bus rides to Toledo and starring for a losing team with no center and no point guard (we'll see if Cotton can build off last night's performance). That reality takes a toll. Ivey and Utomi are in similar situations, where they've gone from expectations of championship banners, to mentoring a slew of kids that were playing HS or even rec ball last season. I think the reality of the Zips season sunk in for the team last night. The early season honeymoon is over. They need to adjust their goals from winning a championship to competing and improving every night. They need to take some pride in building a program from the post-Dambrot ruins. Once that happens, then we'll have that puncher's chance @ The Q. The alternative - If we continue competing as hard as we did last light....the few remaining fans will hold an 0-18 parade around the JAR at season's end. The Buffalo game was a learning experience for all involved. Throw it in the garbage and move forward. I expect a rebound game by the Big 3 on Saturday.

Are you saying that talent isn't being utilized? Please elaborate.

Bingo. Down 21 at the half, and despite "better effort" we still lost the 2nd half. Say what you will about our former staff, but they maximized every drop of talent. Let's hope the recruiting ability of the current staff makes up for that deficit in upcoming years.

Look, when a game starts off with a quick lay-up, and on the ensuing inbounds pass, a steal and another layup, you know it could be a bad night. The lack of effort, intimidation, etc., was very obvious from the tip. There is a huge lack of discipline among our leaders - Duvivier, Ivey, and Utomi. Duvivier is out of position, so I can't fault him as much. Ivey is a head case at times and can play out of control. Utomi makes some bone-headed mistakes; I think he has double dribbled twice in the past two games. I have a hard time putting their lack of discipline all on coaching, as Ivey is a junior and Duvivier is a graduate student; not sure if "it's hard to teach an old dog new tricks" applies here or not. The rest of the team obviously seems to feed off of these three players. Ivey committed the ridiculous turnover to start the game and grew increasingly frustrated. Duvivier was pressing and seemed rattled by Buffalo's suffocating defense. Utomi's presence was non-existent, aside from his double-dribble violation. This set the tone for the game and the underclassmen followed suit. Groce needs to focus on the underclassmen separate from Ivey/Duvivier. They need to learn how to play without them - run offensive sets without Duvivier/Ivey at PG, set up correctly on defense without Ivey/Duvivier, etc. There will be lumps, but we can still turn it around. I wasn't entirely impressed by Buffalo last night. Definitely the cream of the crop in the MAC, definitely athletic, but to me it says something that they weren't able to put the game away within the first 10 minutes. I still think Akron can put it together and make a run in Cleveland, not necessarily at the title, but I wouldn't mind being a bull in a china shop, surprising teams and eliminating some of our unsuspecting rivals.

I was never Zeke's greatest fan, but lets be real here. Zeke was nearly to 1,000 points by the end of his Jr. year, and had already surpassed 500 rebounds. Maybe you consider that "underwhelming". That's your opinion. But, to even remotely hope that this guy might follow a similar path is crazy. What we saw from Zeke as a freshman is light years different than what you're seeing with Kostelac. The fact that he plays only a few minutes per game to give a "Center" of Poke's quality a breather is very telling. That should tell you everything about what the coaches see right now too. And remember, he's also had one year of post high school development. This isn't the first post I've seen that appears to be hoping for Kostelac's development to save Akron basketball. And again, I will respond by saying that we better hope that other big men are on the horizon for us that have far greater ability.

It is what it is, Skip. Just have to deal with this season. 3 returning players from last year's team, which are made up of 1 starter and 2 bench players. Some KD defenders like to point out that he only took "2 bench players"...well there is no denying that we sure could use them and that they would probably start on this years team...and our bench player from last year is our best player. Lack of depth and an overabundance of youth.

Loved the defensive intensity displayed by Buffalo. I truly appreciated that effort and hustle. The quick, relentless, swarming defense Buffalo displayed against us on the hardwood reminded me of what Stanford did to us on the pitch. Totally took us out of our game & we weren't able to adapt/respond. Haven't had a beatdown like that since VCU. I think we're athletic (at least relative to past Akron squads), but Buffalo looked much quicker to a man. Loved the game & attitude Cotton displayed. He's the only one who didn't look frustrated & rattled. There was one point where we had four freshmen and a sophomore on the floor last night. Earlier in the season I said I just didn't appreciate E-man's game. Then he had, what, 3 good games in a row (and even made basketball moves a couple of times)? Looks like that was clearly an aberration; he's just not worth much -v- quality competition. Kostelac looks to have potential, but remember how underwhelming even Zeke Marshall was his first 3 years? I guess most bigs are like that. Kostelac's got a ways to go. I wasn't able to make the game last night, but this team definitely needs our support. I'm going to be there cheering for & encouraging the fellas on Saturday, win or lose.

For me, it's just sad to see the distance between Akron and the upper tier of the MAC grow so large in just one year. The even sadder part is that I felt that Buffalo could have probably held us to under 20 points tonight, if they wanted to do so. When they were really locked in, there were no shots, no passing lanes, and no uncontested dribbles. To watch us look like that against another MAC team was a nightmare.

This game reminded me of the early Hipsher era Zips, except Utomi, Ivey and Duvivier have way more talent than Ali Kart, Scott Gooden and George Phillips. No excuse for such a lackluster performance by our Big 3 tonight. Cotton really showed up...I didn't think he had that type of game in him. Other than him though...bad things, man...bad things. it will be very revealing to see what Zips team shows up to defend the JAR on Saturday. The one that is unmotivated and beaten down by the current losing streak. Or the one that's sick and tired of losing and plays some smart, hard-nosed basketball.

I think that is the worst display of basketball I have seen on the offensive end. Buffalo was shooting only 10% from the three ball on wide open looks so it could have been a lot worse. I heard the post game where Groce indicated that there was a complete lack of effort. Not sure about the effort but it looked like we were outmanned, frosh against seniors. The one thing that stood out on the offensive end is that their center doesn't play defense against our center. He keeps his eye on the ball and when we drove the lane he double teamed the ball and stopped our penetration. Their center was big, muscular and quick and we could not finish around the basket. We got killed in points in the paint. Our center comes out 30 feet gets the ball and then looks to pass without any intent to penetrate to the basket. Our center sets picks and then that is about it. No post up, he just clogs the middle. Kostallac points were fade aways. When our center did get some nice passes they hesitate, bounce the ball and by that time they have 3 guys on them. Groce needs to get our center away from the paint to open up lanes to the basket. The picks and rolls are not there. Other teams realize that our centers do nothing and it is killing this team. Finally, Utomi started like he was going to be a star. Tonight had to be his worst game. His defense is suspect and he seems to disappear. He did not score his first points until the end of the second half. Patton cannot make a foul shot. I did not expect this team to be blown out in our own building. There is no place but up with this team.

That's true, but most of us expected the team to suck this year. Its only due to weak home schedule (before tonight) that we managed to get our 7 wins. Still even though this is a down year, hopefully we can start laying the foundation for future successful years.

6 or 7 minutes into the second half a Buffalo guard went down the middle of the lane for an uncontested dunk. Groce called timeout and as he steamed out onto the floor he spun around, pointed his the glasses in his hand at Sayles and emphatically asked "what the f*** is wrong with you?" Pretty much the highlight of the night and a summary of what I just saw. Buffalo is very good, So many athletic interchangeable parts. Cotton should get a start Saturday. Parrish can get comfy on the bench for a while.

Well, at least in the Taekwondo is entertaining. LeBron really blew it by not showing up for this.

Just put these karate kids in for 2nd half.

The RPI going into tonight game: Buffalo - #30 (best in the MAC), Akron - 265 (worst in the MAC). UB is doing what they're supposed to to a team 200+ spots below them. We used to do the same thing to BG or whomever in the past. Sucks being on the receiving end.

Not sure I've ever seen an uglier start to a basketball game in my life.

Yeah but....Victor is a former Zip and Victor does play in the pros and this is not Jared's webpage nor the team's it is ours. How does it disrespect the staff if we list him as a former Zip playing in the pros? Maybe in the official Media Guide is the place to worry about that stuff, but here? We don't need to be...nor are we ever....politically correct.