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We just won a game that S Dak St shot 52% from the field, made more FTs than us (+4) and out rebounded us. I'd call that a damn gutty effort.

Just watched the replay & I LOVE how the entire team immediately went over & patted Tribble on the back & said ain’t no thing & shake it off after he blew the layup.

Johnson plays bigger than 6'3" and they will need that as they get really small when Enrique or Hunter go out. Also, Hankerson> KJ Walton.

Props to students last night too, really showed up and rocked all game.

Guthrie has told Jared that he will not insist they stay in the MAC, unlike previous AD's. He realizes the MAC is s**t in soccer, changes year to year and has no solution for the future. To that end Akron has been voted in by the coaches in the Big East. The next step is to get the AD's to vote them in. If the AD's vote Akron in for soccer the presidents are likely to follow. The problem is that college athletics are changing so fast the AD's want to adopt a wait and see attitude as akron will only be coming in for soccer. The assistant commissioner of the Big East in charge of supervising soccer is all in favor of adding Akron. He has argued that Akron can be invited in on a yearly conditional basis for now. Akron would be OK to go that way also. The Big East could then ditch Akron if the shifting scene of college athletics dictated that they dissolve the relationship. If there are no changes that affect a Big East membership for Akron the Zips would then stay in the Big East for soccer only. Our addition helps the Big East in soccer. Possible win-win. Stay tuned. The ball's in the AD's court.

Yikes

Read your post again real slowly. Like maybe stopping after the first word

Anyone who wants to be mad at Tribble instead of fist bumping him and telling him don't worry about it is gonna have to fight me.

Hankersons got some Tyler Cheese to his game

The Zips head off to Philly Friday to face Mississippi State in the Barstool Sports Invitational. Last year, the Bulldogs were 18-16 (8-10 SEC) and finished 10th in the SEC. Their top returning players are: Tolu Smith, Senior, Forward, 14.2 ppg, 6.5 rpg, 1.0 apg D.J. Jeffries, Senior, Forward, 8.9 ppg, 4.2 rpg, 1.9 apg Shakeel Moore, Junior, Guard, 8.7 ppg, 3.0 rpg, 2.2 apg Cameron Matthews, Junior, Guard, 2.9 ppg, 3.9 rpg, 1.2 apg Through the portal, they added point guard Dashawn Davis from Oregon State and forward Will McNair Jr. from New Mexico State. Tolu Smith is a very good interior player and led the SEC in rebounding two years ago but was sidelined quite a bit last year due to injuries. Davis led the Pac-12 in assists (5.5) last season. Chris Jans has taken over the program after 122-32 stint at New Mexico State over the last five years, winning or sharing the WAC title four times and making three NCAA Tournaments. SI predicts them to finish 9th in the SEC while the media poll had them as 10th.

Barstool is great, controversies or not I love that we are aligning ourselves with up and coming media companies. We can only benefit from this! I will be there with about 6 other students, we are pumped to go in person! I am also worried about their size vs our pseudo-bigs. I have faith in Groce ball tho. Pumped to watch.

Groce told me several weeks ago that he recruits players that will buy into our culture, not ones who we have to buy into what they are. He went to say " We don't change who we are, you change to be part of who we are." Last night showed that in spades.

Bush league of the other MAC members not sponsoring Men's Soccer. The World's Sport. Nowadays that's almost as bad as us formerly not sponsoring a freaking baseball team. There should be four staples: football, basketball, baseball, and soccer.

Lots of new faces in the lineup - Johnson, Hunter, Lyles, Hankerson, etc. What didn't change was the effort on both ends of the floor, on the boards, and at the free throw line. I don't know if SDSU made more than 1 3 pointer in the 2nd half/overtime. They finished 4-15 for the game according to ESPN, and I thought they were over 50% with 5 attempts in the first half. We only missed 2 free throw the entire game - 83.3% for us, 82.4% for them on 5 more attempts (17 to 12). We were out-rebounded by 2. Their entire starting lineup finished with double digit points. I mean this is one of the better wins I've ever seen for Akron, especially from a game script standpoint. We gutted this one out because the team is already buying into Groce ball.

And he made the free throw that mattered. I look to Tribble for defense, rebounds as a guard, and attacking the basket. He stole the ball when it mattered, and at the same time attacked/rebounded when it mattered. Love Tribble and he's been fun to watch in an Akron uniform. He was HUGE tonight.

Best game of the season thus far!!! (LOL) For those people that are mad at Tribble for missing the layup, you have to remember he was trying to beat the clock and was trucking down the court at full speed. Because of the speed he put the ball off the backboard too hard. He made up for it making the foul shot that won the game. By far the best non-conference game we have had in years. I hope they come back.

To any South Dakota State fans lurking - Thank you Jackrabbits for coming to Akron. Seriously. That was the best non-conference game at the JAR since your neighbors to the north paid a visit. Good luck the rest of the season. Your non-conference schedule is awesome, and I would not be surprised to see y'all make some noise and run the table in your conference. 5 straight weeks with top 25 votes to finish last season, and it showed tonight. Could not ask for a better season-opener. Wow. What a win! Go Zips!

AKRON WINS! AKRON WINS! AKRON WINS! TRIBBLE MADE THE FREE THROW TO WIN IT!

Somewhere, a UCLA fan is watching this game thinking, "Thank you refs for getting Freeman out of the game against us."

If you're a basketball purist, you gotta like SDSU's style of play. Good shot selection, high percentage passes, nothing too cute, no big mistakes, good teamwork. Little wonder SDSU ran the Summit League regular season and tourney. If Akron can pull this off, it's a good-ass win.

I will update this chart hopefully this week. Been away from my desktop computer for awhile. Sorry for the delay. Go Zips!!

Combination. My guess is they had a post-season meeting, and Groce told him the system worked better with a smaller, quicker lineup. Probably told him he'd be a great asset off the bench, but couldn't guarantee significant minutes. Aziz probably took that information and did what he needed to do. Wouldn't surprise me if Groce helped him to Utah Valley via some sort of connection. Groce's OU squads never had true "bigs". They always had a shorter (6'7"-6'9"), athletic front court with athletic guards that could shoot. Fast forward to Groce at Akron: he recruited true bigs the first couple of years because it's easier to protect the rim with a 7 footer than it is to establish your system. LCJ/Cheese/Banks/X1.0 established the system, with X1.0 often being the tallest player on the court for us. Once LCJ left, there was a lot of uncertainty with the direction of the program. Would it take a few years for the system to be re-established? Groce again brought in multiple 7 footers, potentially to help buy time. The system was re-established late last year with the emergence of X2.0, and the 7 footers left the program. Groce then filled the open front court spots with Amani Lyles (6'7"), Sammy Hunter (6'9"), and Prince Mosengo (6'8"). Hankerson and Nate Johnson are the supporting cast scoring threats to X2.0, and Groce has now re-built the formula that saw so much success at OU. Hopefully we reap the same benefits (we almost did last year, and probably would have in 2020...). RE: Groce's OU squads. They ate Dambrot's lunch. We didn't find success against Groce's squad until he left and Jim Christian took over the same group of guys. Dambrot had Harney and Treadwell, which evened out the athletic deficit in the front court, and took the pressure off of Zeke. Jim Christian also didn't know how to get the most out of Groce's squad, but that didn't matter to Boston College when they made him the captain of the ship that brought up the rear in the ACC fleet for nearly a decade.

Mitchell Budler is a beast!!! He is improving right before our eyes. He is both technically gifted and physically fearless, providing true presence in the box.

Pet peeve for me. If you go to the roster section on the website, there are no pictures of the players yet (except for Enrique F). Cmon

I lean the other way and Groce told him he may not fit into their long term plans. When we started winning it was with a smaller lineup and more quickness on defense. I think Groce believes that quickness beats having a rim protector that does not have quick feet. That is why Freeman is so good because of his quickness to the ball.

I just searched Akron Zips on Hulu and the game came up. I have had that same issue in the past though, but at game time when I've gone to live events I was able to find it.

For those that are going, it is a straight shot on Pa turnpike, exit Valley Forge, to Blue Route, 476, to route 95 south, and get off at stadium exits which are well marked. For a taste of Philly, get there early and go to Pats Steaks about 10 minutes from the arena. (I grew up in Philly and used to sell beer at the Vet)

Could've been either, but I lean on that one being player decision out of pure speculation. My guess is Aziz wanted starter minutes and knew he wouldn't get that for 2 more years behind Freeman.

Thank you. Please look one post above to show the game starts at 7 p.m. Maybe I should have said 1900. One my way to the game. Go Zips!!!

I have Spectrum, and the game is showing up on the list of channels guide at 7 p.m. on CBSSNHD. For me, this is channel 322. I have the DVR set to record the game so that I can watch the Zips victory again tomorrow, after I return from the game tonight. Go Zips!!!!

Here is the "controversies" section on their Wikipedia page, which gives a good summation on why I'm not crazy about having to give them clicks to watch the stream. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barstool_Sports#Controversies

I'm working on getting more answers about the stream via Twitter. I'll share my findings as they come.

I don't want this Greg. You are one of us and we have your back. Just play as hard as you can, trust your teammates and follow the coaches. The rest will take care of itself. We are Zips and we are family. I'm glad you are in the family. On to Miss State!

Big East has nine D1 soccer teams in Top 100 RPI, and 11 current member schools. That would be quite the impressive conference, with Akron being a natural geographic fit in the west of the conference, alongside Xavier, Butler, DePaul, Marquette, and Creighton. I bet that the MVC or Horizon League would be happy to welcome NIU, Chicago St, WMU and BGSU. Western and Bowling Green both would likely win either one of those conferences. The only independents this year the MAC could pick up is UIW and Hartford, neither of which make much sense for the conference - this year more than most others is probably the right year to dissolve MAC Men's soccer.

Agreed. He’s much bulkier than I was expecting. I don’t see any reason he can’t play some impactful minutes in MAC play. How about Kyle for SDSU? That was his first college game! He played like a seasoned veteran, and played better than Freeman a lot of the game. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a freshman big finish at the rim with so much success like that. What a team, what a game.

Are you certain about that if we’re only moving the Mens Soccer team?

He showed some promise but he was lost on defense. He'll come around.

https://www.keloland.com/sports/sdsu-men-fall-in-overtime-to-akron/ “What a basketball game,” South Dakota State head coach Eric Henderson said. “We certainly had chances. I loved the energy we played with. We played extremely together, we played our butts off and we were physical. But the Castaneda kid was terrific. He had a heck of a game.”

Let's beat Miss St now Friday. Would be a great start to the season

Blocked Dre long time ago. He has nothing positive to offer.

Finally a shot within his range...

Has a chance to be the best Zip Nate since Lindhart.

Man this game is so frustrating. Feel like every time the Zips cut the deficit down to a few points, or tie it up, SD goes on a huge run.

Their big white guys punking Zips underneath

He's no longer in the studio for pre/post game for the Cavs. I'm guessing he had availability.

Let ESPN+ feed not working this karma for moving Joe Dunn upstairs.

Just in case, I'm on support chat with ESPN+ (I'm a subscriber). I'm 16th in line! If this is a matter of someone simply forgetting to flip a switch, and Michael Reghi and Jackie Windon are blissfully unaware, commentating into a void, I'ma be mad.

1st step achieved.

I don't follow the high school recruits or the transfer portal in any sport, although the scouting reports are exciting. With Coach Beals, I get the impression he looks at this program as one he can build from the ground up his way, with his type of players. And the transfer portal is a big kick in the butt to build the team quicker and better. Possibly there were too many cooks in the tOSU kitchen, too many contributors to appease, too many "suggestions" from the huge athletics department. His string of conference tournament appearances came to an end and I bet tOSU turned the heat up.