Leaderboard

I am really hoping the neutral court makes a difference in Cleveland. We have struggled since Miami and JMU showed everyone how to beat us. Double and triple team Freeman. Pack the paint and play extra physical. We have some mentally tough guys, but we are not physically tough at all. And except for Scott hitting 3 threes in garbage time we can’t buy a bucket. All of our loses except for Eastern (who really did play well), were on the road - including Miami. A neutral court will at least keep teams from hacking and hopefully keep Freeman out of foul trouble. I am as frustrated as everyone that we have not been able to overcome these shortcomings and as a result failed on some of our goals. But if Freeman is able to play at his best, we make a few outside shots and limit the mental lapses we can still take the MAC Tournament. I am grateful that Freeman survived the MAC regular season without injury because the guy got the crap beat out of him. You would never know it because of his good nature. Go Zips!!

I don't think he got the joke.

Stan Heath gets my vote. He led a team he didn't recruit to the Elite 8 two decades ago.

Miami is the only team in the MAC that Akron did not defeat this season.

Groce needs to have one of these kinds of rants at the team-

Including a heavy favorite in a ML parlay is always terrible value.

Not saying Groce is a problem but how do you let a SR laden team collapse like that.

This team is LOST. Groce and staff have until Thursday to help them be found.

Lost 5 of our final 8. I can live with JMU, Toledo and Ohio. But EMU WMU? 🤮

One week to figure it out. Win 3 in Cleveland and nobody remembers these losses.

Of course I'm thrilled! It's actually about a hour but almost the first 20 minutes was waiting. Talks started in September, they talk about faculty, academics, academic and leadership consortium and our Chancellor jumped in as he was a product of the academic consortium. About building the next department head, deans, chairs, provost etc while Javier Reyes was at Arkansas in the SEC. Seemed very thoughtful, covering athletics, facility, students, campus vision. Not really much rahrahrah. Commissioner Steinbrecher was quietly on campus during a game in November and disappointed did not seem him. The investment in athletics will accelerate with 8 to 10 times the conference revenue growth. As our AD said, we are hitting the gas, no brakes. Frank Martin is a real team player, his wife ran track at UMass, football helps raise all programs and their budgets all went up from his career. Don Brown and Frank Martin had offices next to each other at Northeastern. They both recruit in programs that were at the bottom with no bells and whistles. You recruit players that believe in your vision, the school and not the conference. Looking forward to playing you guys, especially in basketball.

Done, and done. 🍺🍺🍺

I feel you guys are overlooking the fundamental problems of this team. We didn't lose to WMU and EMU because of poor shooting. We shot over 50% from the field and 41% from 3 against WMU. We shot 48% against EMU. Those are percentage you can and should win with. We're losing because of lack of effort and fundamentals. Outside of Freeman, nobody is boxing out and fighting for 50/50 balls. We're losing because We're giving up too many second chance points. We need to play better defense and secure rebounds once we force a miss. Giving more minutes to players that don't give up their body to make plays at the defensive end won't fix anything.

My biggest worry is they are in their own heads now. They need to find their mojo and that will only come if they play well and win Thursday. They know teams are gonna pack it in on D because of the shooting problems. I like Ali elbow to elbow and let him get inside the zone that they know they’re gonna see. He can drive, shoot, drop it down to Freeman or kick it and hope some 3s go in. But it’s not rocket science, it comes down to making shots. They’re gonna have to shoot at a higher % than we’ve seen recently. It’s the only way Freeman and Ali will have any room to operate. The recent struggles don’t change the fact that the MAC stinks. OU is hot but they’re still mediocre at best. Toledo is good but they haven’t won this tourney since Reagan’s first term. Go Zips!

Zips close the season with a 65-57 win led by Mobley with 23 points and 8 rebounds.

Groce told us before the season started that this team would be different than any other Zips team because the offense would be initiated through the best player on the team in the post. As a result we have often had wide open looks from deep. It’s up to our guys to make a fair share of them. It would have been nice if Nate was playing better going into Cleveland and it would have been nice if one of the point guards developed into a legit threat during the course of the season, but that didn’t happen. So as unfortunate as it is to say, this team peaked early and everyone else has closed the gap on us. That said, there is more than enough in that locker room to get it done.

The share of blame I'd pin on coaches is primarily the roster and recruiting. No frontcourt depth and Thornton/Scott were portal misses.

If it's his fault, then maybe you should blame Dr. Miller also. And if you blame Miller, then you're blaming the Board of Trustees. If you're blaming the BoT, then you are blaming the Ohio public education system. If you're blaming the public university system, isn't last night's loss an indictment of our national education system? I for one am not going to sit here and listen to anyone bad mouth the United States of America. You should be ashamed.

Our give a crap rating is worse

PCCC has 3 bonafide shooters that, on any given night, can each go off for 20+. Not to mention the stench from their fans in the stands being a 6th man for them. Miami is not good offensively. We have not been good defensively, and this is the perfect team to "get right" against in the quarterfinals.

I think I'd rather be playing KSUcks. We've beaten them twice this year & now Payton is hurt. Miami beat us earlier in the year (when we were playing much better than we are now). Big 6'8" 305-pound (probably closer to 350 than 305) Anderson Mirambeaux has surprisingly quick feet, can hit outside shots, & gave Enrique trouble in our first meeting... in fact I'd go as far as to say he outplayed Enrique in their first meeting. It's the only time this season a P has outplayed 'Rique. And our guards cannot throw it in the ocean. WTH?? This is supposed to be D-1 basketball!!! 😡

I don’t remember much, but I think he said if it was obvious what buttons to push he would have done it weeks ago. He said he has been waiting for any of the other guys not named, Freeman, Ali or Tribble to step up and separate themselves as a starter. They all have different strengths and weaknesses which he is trying to manage. For example, this wasn’t a favorable matchup for Tavari so he didn’t play at all.

We're 6-6 over our past 12 games. We've pretty much lost every "measuring stick" game this season. We are strongly heading in the wrong direction, at the wrong time. We started the season as the MAC favorites. Now we're relegated to a puncher's chance in Cleveland...if a couple of our guards decide to play as hard as the WMU guards competed in the second half last night. And we really haven't had any bad luck...were just Freeman at center, with a mediocre assembly of talent milling about him. I've never seen a team shoot as poorly as this one. When Freeman exits the game, we are a complete sh!tshow. We'd need to improve exponentially just to reach the level of "sieve" on the defensive side of the ball. That's just the way it is. See you Thursday night.

I was just excited to be back on campus and watching Toledo fans act like dumbasses. It’s been too long (for me).

So we shouldn't be panicking. We should be applauding the team's genius in missing just the right amount of shots these last 2 games.

How the hell did we avoid PCCC - or how the hell did they avoid us? Give me Miami & Ohio all day over PCCC & Ohio. Miami could very well be a get right game that propels us. That's much easier (on paper) than your arch rival in round 1.

Everyone shares a little blame. The coach isn't above it.

Miami it is.

The way I look at it - if you don't beat Miami in R1, you were never going to make a run anyhow.

Hey Captain....please delete this thread. It's no longer relevant.

Hey, if being a Zip fan was easy, everyone would be one. Football sucks, soccer sucks, and now basketball, you guessed it, sucks. I just feel bad for Freeman, Ali, and Tribble. If one of them has a bad night we are hurting. As somebody indicated earlier, we play best when someone other than these three has a big night. Hunter started out hot in the first half then lost it in the 2nd half.

Nope, Tavari sat the entire game. Still think he has more talent than what Groce puts out there but Groce knows best.

This is almost the same trajectory the soccer team had this year. Not a good thing to follow

What a disaster

And with how the refs have no idea how to officiate a relatively sound fundamental defensive player.

How did refs every survive without being able to go to the video.

What a terrible lineup. Glad to see Thornton making a jumper. Scott went up in the air with nowhere to go. Nobody being aggressive and picking up the ball under the defensive basket.

another meltdown in the making

Lighten up Francis.

Nope

Again

They gave up 59 points in the second half to an 11-19 team.

That would be a no. 😔