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Great post @Let'sGoZips94. Groce was a fairly obvious hire and though that first team he had in 2017-2018 was downright hard to watch most of the time, they showed some tremendous flashes that made me very excited for the future, especially knowing that short little guard sitting out is supposed to be pretty good. Fast forward to 2018-2019, Cheese and LCJ lead the back court along with Ivey, nearly beating a ranked Clemson team in an early season tournament. Unfortunately, that team couldn't win a close game to save its life. But high-level defense and loads of back court potential led to a blowout win against Kent and a home MAC tournament game before a destruction against Buffalo. Believe it or not, this team was rated #2 in the MAC in KenPom at something like 108. Then Team 119. What a special team. My favorite Akron team ever, quite possibly. Sure, they could have blown the QF game in Cleveland, but the fact that they didn't even get the chance to compete while programs like Buffalo skated losing to the 12-seed in the first round makes it all more painful. That team was nearly perfectly put together. Then COVID nukes nonconference play and the preseason and despite that, Akron started MAC play 12-3 before a bit of a collapse and then coming within a bucket of playing in the MAC title. And coming into this year, they should've beat Ohio State and outside of two clunkers that could've in hindsight been the result of a broken locker room caused by Whitford's Saboteur KJ Walton (I'm joking...or am I?), they've played some really nice basketball even with a big interruption after they began to play their best basketball. Yes, I am biased. Yes, I am a homer. No, I am not making excuses for the shortcomings. But there's been a lot of adversity thrown at the program over 5 years, and Groce & Co. have pretty much stayed the course and trusted the process all the way. I admire him a great deal, and I'm very happy to have him leading the program. What I like the most about Groce is the type of culture he has instilled. The teamism stuff can be annoying and seem silly, but we saw what true teamism is in that championship team. It was next man up, hard-nosed defense, high effort, good attitude in every game, they were so easy to love. Also, the general emphasis on conditioning and defense is something I love and has been important in getting the edge on teams late in games and competing with the big boys like Louisville, WVU, Ohio State when we do play them. It's almost like the obnoxious Heat Culture in the NBA. You love it when you have it, and hate it when you compete against it. I have said it before, Akron fans are very lucky and very spoiled. There will come a time where the program doesn't have these kinds of expectations that we've had for nearly 20 years now, at a traditionally lousy Mid-Major program. I'd love to have Groce here for the long-run, at least a couple more years maybe. I'm sure his thoughts on the "Akron job" have changed since he took it. He probably thought of it as a three-year rental until the next pay day, but maybe, just maybe, he's gotten comfortable at Akron and has pulled a Moorhead, realizing that it's a bit more fun to coach when the bright lights aren't on you and you don't have to compete with the best programs in the country every year. At the end of the day, Dambrot has proven you can build a winning program at Akron. John Groce has proven you can build a winning program at Akron. That's a great selling point on the job as a whole for when it comes time to bring in a new leader again. But until then, in Groce We Trust! Go Zips!

It looks like Akron has a QB in this weekend's big game

I think we should start a gofundme to send me to the bahamas so i can be stuck there as well

I can't speak for Rowdy, but my expectation is that I think this Zips team is good enough that they're capable of beating any team in the MAC when they're playing at their best, but not consistent enough to string 3 of those games in a row. His assessment is spot on about Akron looking better than it is because the MAC is down. We have another month of basketball so one just hopes we keep finding ways to improve and that we're playing our best ball in March.

I think Walton was basically our LCJ replacement. And not that we could ever just replace him, but he was the one to make up a bulk of what we could replace there. So you go all offseason prepping for one guy to be your leader and he goes kaput. I'm not saying it's a lost season, but anything we end up accomplishing is really gravy to me this year. That's a big loss to overcome, even though he only played a couple games for us.

I think we should start a GoFundMe to rescue Hilltopper from the Bahamas.

Was perusing the web on my lunch break and thought I'd update these: MAC Breakdown: 2 teams in Quad 1: OU/UT 3 teams in Q2: UB, UA, Kent 3 teams in Q3: BG, BSU, UM 4 teams in Q4: EMU, NIU, CMU, WMU (Directionals....yikes!) Akron Non-Conference Opponents: O$U: 17 Fordham: 180 App State: 151 Evansville: 319 Marshall: 249 Southern: 185 Florida A&M: 310 Wright State: 210 Radford (ppd): 308 Yikes. Our marquee non-conference win in this awful schedule is #185 Southern. The Zips lone top-half win was vs UB. The above information has tempered my expectations for Cleveland. I think we are a mediocre team this year in a bad, bad MAC.

ESPN is showing an 8:00 PM start.

An early start at NIU will cut the crowd by 25%, taking it down to double digits.

You could certainly tell that Miami had scouted and figured out how Ali pounds the ball and leans in with his shoulder.

I think it's the eye test for me. The quality of basketball in the MAC isn't very strong this year (heck, college basketball in general is harder to watch than usual). I don't look at Buffalo like I did a few years ago - capable of consistently beating teams outside of the Top 10. Toledo and OU aren't on that level either. The bottom of the MAC is as bad as I can ever remember, too.

Having 4 bench players that can play meaningful minutes does a lot. When at least one of them has a good game, it is huge

I'm excited for this one. They're a different team when Wynn is in the lineup.

I may be in the minority, but i dont think the MAC is as down this year as most here believe it is. Year in and year out, with the random years where a certain team is better than other years, most the teams are right around what they are now. Akron, Kent, Toledo, OU, and Canada are at the top of the MAC which they are this year. They are all ranked in the NET right around where they are now. We may not be ranked as high as we typically are but its not a significant difference. There is 5 teams in the top 165 in college basketball which is about where the MAC normally is. Overall, the MAC in general is about where it is every year, some good teams at the top, garbage at the bottom.

Well said everyone. This team could still pull something off we don't expect, as we were a miracle buzzer beater away from beating OSU at their place (though we had a bit of a miracle ourselves the play before). While I hope we can exceed expectations as we wrap up the season, I also believe we are one piece away from having one of those DJ Cooper/LCJ magical teams. Unfortunately its a pretty big piece. Lets hope we can retain who we want heading into next season and one of these 4 young guards can turn into the next LCJ or Cooper. I also am kind of disappointed that COVID has somewhat took away from the John Groce experience - not just for us, but for him. The JAR was so much fun with those Zeke, Big Dog, Tree, etc teams. And I believe the atmosphere was finally starting to get back where it should be at that Kent St game to close out the regular season in 2020, then boom, COVID.

I didn't know where to post this, but this is somewhat of a "where do I expect Akron to be" thread... Caris LaVert just got traded to the Cavaliers. The 6'6" Columbus, OH, product will be a home-team player in Ohio for what was almost the 3rd time in his career. I say almost, because he signed his NLI to play for Groce's OU team before decommitting when Groce left for Illinois. Groce, at OU, had 3 NCAA tournament wins in 4 seasons. Following the 3rd win (which resulted in a trip to the Sweet Sixteen), Groce was hired by Illinois. That Sweet Sixteen team returned in 2012-13, and was poised to add Mr. LaVert to that already-successful squad. When he was hired away, I told my dad, "Thank goodness. Groce was about to build a dynasty at OU." COVID killed the quick momentum Groce had rebuilt at Akron. We were poised to make a run in the 2020 NCAA tournament (assuming we would've won the MAC tourney) with that incredible squad led by LCJ, Cheese, Banks, and X1.0. We had the guard last season in LCJ, but lost the supporting pieces (I'm assuming COVID put a damper on the recruiting process as well). Now we have some nice pieces, but are young and lack that killer guard. I think this upcoming recruiting class fixes that issue, and we'll have this same team for a couple years because of the COVID eligibility rules. Given this information and what we're seeing this season, "progress" to me looks like getting back to what we were building with the 2019-2020 team, which was similar to what Groce had built with his DJ Cooper-led squad at OU. That squad was able to land a commitment from a player of Caris LaVert's caliber. I want to see that here (plus the NCAA Tourney wins).

This. I actually like the JAR from an atmosphere standpoint. The low ceilings and closer crowd create a LOUD environment when the JAR is hopping. The upper level seats on the sidelines could easily be brought in, connecting them with the lower level seats. I'd be interested to see how they bring the endzone seats closer in the upper level. One of the even bigger questions is how do they work around the support columns in the corners? Is it as simple as not including corner seating? Can the support be re-engineered? Ditching the awful bench seating in the upper level would certainly reduce capacity from 5500. However, how many of those seats can be regained with connecting both levels, especially in the endzones and maybe corners? Can we get to 6-6.5k with the JAR's footprint? I'd love to talk to a stadium engineer to see what they think is possible. Keeping the JAR means the city loses out on some events, similar to what Canton is able to host. But that's the city's problem. Long story short - I like the JAR for a college atmosphere. Just make it better (if possible).

The City hasn't had an arena since the Akron Armory. At the time the Armory met the wrecking ball in the early 80's, the flourishing Coliseum was in nearby Richfield and gave those in the area a false sense of security relative to a nearby arena. When Infocision was built, the leaders should have seized on the opportunity to fund a new arena or a revamped JAR. I'd have much preferred a scaled down Infocision with some monies directed at basketball. I think this one of Dambrot's frustrations, him thinking that he built a good program to play in an outhouse while football was able to produce crap in a castle. I think the JAR could be okay with some modifications, primarily in reconfiguring the seating. Most importantly, they need to get rid of the damn track and bring the upstairs seating towards the floor. There are some decent basketball arenas on worse footprints than the JAR. A good college arena is about sightlines and crowd enthusiasm and involvement not about pretty lounges and technology.

Every league needs to have one school that believes it is academically superior to the rest of the league, even though athletically average or poor in most sports. The SEC has Vanderbilt, the Big Ten has Northwestern, the ACC has maybe Duke minus the basketball? 🤔 We have Miami. 😁

I'm really excited about this kid!