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Omitted is Groce's "putrid defense" explanation - opponents aren't "feeling" the Zips defense. We are undersized, soft, and disorganized. It's easy to shoot three's when you have zero fear of getting one swatted back in your face...when your opponent is sagging off and not respecting your range, when defenders are unnecessarily double-teaming and leaving great shooters wide open for corner three's. The Zips can phone-it-in on defense and out-shoot a lot of mediocre-to-bad teams. If that's our defensive MO I still think we're 16-2, or better, in the MAC. But we can't beat a high mid-major or decent P4 program with the pedestrian defensive efforts we've seen so far. That's a recipe for an NCAA Tournament 13-seed, and a 21 point round 1 loss. It was a gift to get Yale and Murray State on a neutral court, free from biased referees and raucous opposing crowds. And we didn't take advantage of it.

Washington is a very deserving national Champion. They are the best team that I have watched this year. 6 wins.......none of them at home win at Oregon State in round of 64 win at #5 SMU win at #12 Stanford win at #4 Maryland win over #16 Furman in college cup semis win over #15 NC State in finals has any team defeated 5 seeds and won all of their matches on the road on the way to the title?

There is a silver lining: Akron has the best facilities in the MAC, a great FBS opportunity for players to showcase their talent, and a competent president/ athletic director. Under Nemer and Goodrich, those advantages will pay dividends sooner rather than later and the only direction to go is up!!

Neither Shammah, nor either of the Mahaffey brothers had strong games vs. Murray St. Yeah, we still put up 100 points but our defense is concerning. And Murray St. looked very good.

Well stated TennZip. UW has traveled an impressive road to the championship. Still, they did not face us. I think we are that good and would have given them the best test of all.

It is sad that so many negative articles around college football - we are named. Worst head coaching positions, game day atmosphere, academics, worst teams.

Offense wins. Houston is the one of the top defensive teams in the country and has been for several years. They have zero national championships in that span because in their final game of the season, they couldn't score more than their opponent. Akron isn't ignoring defense. Every single post game interview this season has included Groce harping that the defense needs to get better. However, if our opponent isn't shooting nearly 60%, we're winning by 20+. Akron has 3 losses, one of them to easily one of the best teams in the country. The other 2 losses, our opponent had to nearly set shooting records to outscore us; in fact, I'm not so sure they didn't. Those other 2 losses have been to some of the top mid majors in the country on neutral courts as well. I'm not so sure we lose to Yale if Barre is up to speed and playing significant minutes in that game, either. Defense is one of those things that takes longer to pull together with so many new pieces every single year in today's landscape. Shot making doesn't require chemistry and communication with rotations, help defense, etc. Maybe that's why we're seeing a shift at Akron and Kent. That being said, there aren't going to be many teams that will beat us this year without historic offensive performances because Akron's offense is legitimately that good. We've all seen Akron teams struggle to shoot 30% from 3. Didn't matter how good their defense was, they fell short plenty of times against competition that they shouldn't have because they couldn't put the ball in the hoop. The offense never came with those teams because teams can either score or they can't. Give me a team that can score at will with a coach who keeps defense a priority over a team that keeps defense a priority but struggles to score. I'm quite confident the defense will get better, but the blessing with this team is we don't have to pray for the offense to get better because history has proven that's not something that truly improves.

The last memorable EMU game for me was a couple of years ago when Emoni Bates was 1-12 from the field and I think we were beating them by 50 points at some point in the 2nd half.

I just remember being shocked at not only the dunk but the game as whole. I felt much better a week later when we won the MAC Tournament. 😆

All those things are true, but I wouldn't advertise regression to the mean as something we have going for us because by its very definition in our case, it highlights that we have traditionally been one of the worst programs in FBS/D1-A.

I think the spanking Murray State gave us is a blessing in disguise and yes it was a spanking. They could have easily beaten us by 25 if they didn't get called for so many moving screens. When we're beating Nobody U by 30 it's tough for Groce to convey to the team that the level of defensive play is unacceptable if you want to make noise come March. Now he has this game to point to as a reality check. Personally, I think our "havoc" or whatever defense you want to call it simply just doesn't work against teams that have quality perimeter play. It works against the cupcakes that have either inexperienced guards who are prone to turnovers or teams with poor perimeter shooters. When we play teams that can disect a defense all it does is leave an open shot at the basket or in the weak corner. If there is no defender within 8 feet of a 3-pt shooter those are pretty much practice shots. An elite 3-pt shooter, like Tavari, can probably knock down those specific wide open looks at or around a 65% clip.

I know/understand coaching goes through cycles, but it is a puzzle to me why two of the better most consistent and successful MAC programs the last decade or so -- built on a foundation of strong/solid defense (Akron and Kent) -- suddenly seem to turn into almost exclusively offensive programs with defense becoming clearly secondary. I don't get it. One look at Toledo, or Miami, should prove that is not the way to true success. Defense travels. Offense comes and goes.

Akron's last home loss was against Eastern Michigan. Anyone remember?