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The Ohio Supreme Court kept their stay of the Court of Appeals decision in place today, which allows Evan to play. That could change after they consider the memorandum in support of jurisdiction but he's good for now.

But I'm left to wonder if Mount Union could beat Hoban? 🤔

Situation has been dealt with. Sorry it got to this point. Genuinely sorry.

What a great career he has had.

LOL.... That was quite entertaining... I usually don't come on this thread but glad I checked it out this morning.... Kreed you still with us? That fool didn't find you did he?

I really want him to get a nasty dunk so I can do my best Austin Carr impression and say "Hammer just threw the hammer down!!!!

2/3 of G6 coaches stated they would be in favor of a separate playoff for G6 schools. Would love to read the article, but it's behind a paywall. https://x.com/On3/status/2115796200750190908?a=irFWmqVBvDlzxO2U2PE&s=19

Evan Bush has announced that he will be retiring at the end of this season.

I do have to say though, there are a lot of "personal" attacks on individuals on here and people take offense to it, rightfully so, but there are a lot of personal attacks on the players as well. I am sure I am going to get hammered and that's ok cause I fall into that old man category and I have been called many things, but not all of these players are "idiots" or here because they had no where else to go or are losers or anything like that. They simply made a decision that they thought was best for them and their families. Several of them did have many other offers and still chose Akron. We may never know why. MAYBE it was so they could stay close to home so they could be close to their mother who was extremely ill and not in good health and they still wanted to pursue their dream? Maybe it was because they were sold that fantasy by a car salesman of a coach that promised them the opportunity to come in a compete for playing time and possibly a starting position? Maybe it was for the opportunity to show that they COULD compete at a D1 level for the chance to move up to a bigger program? Maybe it was all of the above?? There are players on this team that were SOLD an opportunity to come here and show the world what they can do, and have never gotten the chance for one reason or another and they are seniors and this is the way their college careers are going to end. It's messed up, but I guess they are learning a harsh lesson. In my opinion it is very wrong and they were done dirty and they will have no recourse. But they came here believing in a dream that they were SOLD.... Certainly there are those that are of very poor character and should not be playing football at any college anywhere in the country but every program has that. There are players that are going to walk away after this season and never play football again that is life. But I can assure you Akron is not a program that players came to simply to get rich, everyone on this site knows that. If a player came to Akron to try and show the world what they can do and they get the opportunity to go somewhere else and get paid then more power to them. Every program in the country has players doing that. Every single college team has players entering the portal not just Akron. That is the type of program that was built at Akron long before any of these players got here. I know the coaches even sell Akron to the players as a stepping stone when they are recruiting them so you cannot fault the players for coming here with the intention of playing to get out. There is a HUGE disconnect between the coaching staff and the players. I have no clue how to answer the undisciplined penalties and play, but when it is the same players over and over and over again the obvious answer is to make a change. Even if it is for one game, the coach can sit a player. Sometimes a player just has an off day. What was happening against Kent was abysmal on many levels but a lot of it has been happening all year. When a coach is putting the same players out over and over and over again, game after game and that player is making the same mistakes and the same penalties, that is the coaches fault and it goes beyond being undisciplined. If you aren't going to punish your child for stealing the cookies out of the cookie jar, they are not going to stop stealing the cookies... it's simple. I guess I'm just venting because I have gotten to know several of these players personally and I know that certainly when they are referred to as idiots it isn't meant as though the whole team is, but I just wanted to remind you that these are young men 18-25 still trying to find their way who trusted Moorehead and the coaches, some of the coaches that have left are the ones that sold these dreams. Those coaches that sold the dreams left for greener pastures for themselves, but the players they recruited were stuck... Most of the time we only see the product on the field but they are for the most part very good young men that people don't get to know. For example, at least five or six have gotten Baptized since May. That may not be a big deal to a lot of people but to me it is. It does show character. I know that a LARGE group of them have bible study every Friday even at away games. To me that shows character and who they are. I know the ones who care are still putting in the long hours for their grades, still putting in the long hours on the practice field and in the facilities, and come game day they are trying their best to win. None of the players want to lose... I know that I have bitched a lot about the program and A LOT about the coaching staff this year and that I have no right to ever tell anyone on here what to say or how to feel. I just wanted to say my peace about how there are some really good men on this team and there are some very talented athletes on this team that can play at other Division 1 schools but they chose Akron for a variety of reasons. We will see come portal time if any of the athletes are talented enough to play at other schools. Please don't me too mean to me....

After hours of thoughtful consideration and extensive research- beats the hell out of me! Tahj, Evan and Pence, and for now Chabi, in that five.

Oriol makes a lot of sense off the bench. They probably want him to fill the Shammah Scott role in the same way Tahj is sort of filling the Tavari role. Ending the game with both of them in the backcourt makes a lot of sense and prevents double teams from happening.

There is A LOT of frustration to be had regarding Akron football, but I don't see any reason to personally attack anyone who shares my love for UA and its athletics programs. Let's save that energy for Kent and its fans!

Akron aint destroying crap right now. And again i know you clearly don't watch all football because you are a sheep idiot.

I think for some they always come up with excuses for their shortcomings. MAC used to give byes to semifinals, but stopped that because they felt it was too OP and didn't provide enough madness to March Madness. Now that we had 2 1 seeds eliminated early in a 10 year span they want to complain about the Madness. You can't have your cake and eat it too.

I found the full Big East table (12 teams, through Oct 24), which makes a real comparison possible. The national ranks I still have are the ones from Oct 23: shots per game 9th, corners 2nd, goals allowed 33rd, scoring 53rd. Akron vs. the Big East Metric Akron Conf. avg Rank (of 12) Shots/game 17.4 13.5 1st Corners/game 8.0 5.4 1st Shots on goal/game 7.07 6.0 3rd Shots on goal faced/game 3.43 4.98 2nd fewest Goals allowed/game 1.00 1.31 4th Goals/game 1.86 1.83 6th Shots on goal % 40.7% 44.2% 8th Conversion (goals/shot) 10.7% 13.6% 9th Goals per shot on goal 26.3% 30.7% 9th Goal differential/game +0.86 +0.52 5th The main problem is finishing, not creating chances. Akron takes about 29% more shots than the average Big East team yet scores only an average number of goals. With average finishing, its 243 shots would have produced about 33 goals, and its 99 shots on goal about 30. It has 26, so it is roughly 4 to 7 goals short. At 2.2 to 2.4 goals per game it would rank 3rd or 4th in the conference. Quality gap. Georgetown (3.13 goals/game), Creighton (2.94), and Marquette (2.33) convert 20% of their shots, nearly double Akron's rate. Georgetown gets more shots on goal per game (7.8) than Akron from 2 fewer shots. Part of Akron's gap is probably shot quality, since a volume style produces more low-value attempts. Its main shooters (Roman, Sullivan, Morck, Dreas) have taken 92 shots for 4 goals. The defense works by suppressing shots. Opponents get only 3.4 shots on goal per game, second-fewest in the conference behind Georgetown. Kaminski's .708 team save percentage is below the .736 conference average, so the defense is not riding on goalkeeping. Average goalkeeping would have saved about 1 more goal. Akron's four draws all came in games where it scored one goal or none. Offense is by committee. No Akron player is in the conference's top 10 for goals or points. Agunbiade (5 goals) and O'Rourke (6 assists) lead with 12 points each, while Georgetown's Baker and Van Horn have 25 and 26. That depth makes the attack hard to defend but caps the top-end production. Next: Akron plays at Villanova on Oct 31. Villanova's goalkeeper has a .844 save percentage and faces about 9.5 shots on goal per game, so the first game tests whether Akron's volume can beat a busy keeper. Akron then plays at Marquette (conversion 19.8%) on Nov 6. These averages include non-conference games, so they are rough benchmarks. I still couldn't get national ranks for shots on goal %, conversion, or saves.

He had a huge family turnout on Tuesday

Agreed. I was only joking. These stats are from a few years ago but are probably still pretty accurate in that only 7% of high school athletes will play college ball on any level. Less than 1% are good enough to go D1… but even at the D3 level you’re still watching the top 7% of athletes the country has to offer.

Roster was constructed and played like this vs YSU. There are “3 positions” PG wing, Center we have 3 PGs: Staveskie Perkins, X. Wilson we have 8 wings: Mahaffey, Pence, Oriol, Halligan, White, MMK, Head, Henderson we have 3 centers: Barre, Burton, Hammer. the key will be finding combos and rotations of those 8 wings that give us offense and defense. The crazy part is there are 56 different combos you could have. my favorite right now would be Oriol, Mahaffey and MMK.

By all accounts Evan is a great guy. If he wants it I believe he would make a great coach one day, perhaps at his alma mater.

Oriol was also the last guy added to the mix, so he may still be in the "fitting in" process.

Scott is part of a different high school graduating class. He graduated in 2021 while Lyles and Evan geaduated in 2022. He already played 5 years. 1 year of JUCO and 4 years of D1. Evan and Lyles only played 4.

This is an interesting take. I missed the first 4 minutes of the game and likely his 1st rotation, so admittedly my observation may be partially skewed. Regardless, I was going to give props to Buddy for being the "toughest" Zip on the court throughout the time I was watching. While not scoring much, he rebounded well, fought intensely for loose balls and displayed fearlessness on defense. You might say, Buddy Hammer Jr was tough as nails 🤣 Seriously, every good team needs a tireless, selfless worker (Nate Linhart, Channel Banks, etc.) and, in my opinion, Buddy is the early candidate to fill this role for this season's Zip squad.

I do like the idea of all teams making the tournament. The 2019 tournament with the bottom 8 teams having a campus site game was fun. That has the opportunity to appease the last person with drumming up excitement

Finally, the 12-man rotation.

Like one of the coaches said in their response - it's not like the 1 & 2 seeds were consistently losing early, or even missing the Finals. It was only Miami OH & Toledo that struggled. Criminal that we're being robbed of MACT Thursdays because 2 of the more unlikeable coaches in the league failed at their jobs.

I think it will be the same lineup we saw during the exhibition. The one change I could see maybe happening is Halligan starting instead of White. I'm interested in hearing what Burton's timeline for injury return will be. I know he's been out 6 weeks, but not sure if he's weeks away from returning or has months to go.

Kidding aside, I don't think people always respect how good D3 football is. Could Mount beat an FBS team? No, obviously not especially in the days of NIL and the portal. But how many Hoban players even make it to D3 college football every year? A HS player has to be pretty darn good to get on even a D3 roster.

Damn it, take my upvote

I admittedly shouldn't have brought family into it. I had a long day and I was annoyed by his behavior both this time and from his behavior previously that led to his ban so I lashed out a bit. I actually hit him with an ignore as soon as I posted. I didn't bother reading whatever he wrote nor do I plan to.

IIRC it was kinda rough playing your first game in the cavernous Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse against a team that already had a game under their belts. But on Saturday, if you happened to be a team playing your 3rd game in 3 days against a team playing only their 2nd game in 2 days that was also tough. So IMHO they should have just left well enough alone. Plus the Thursday of the MACT used to be one of the best days on the yearly calendar, especially in March when you're itching to find things to do.

I can see why your son decided to go to college far away from you. You're a what 40, 50 year old man and behave like this. Any normal person would be embarrassed to call you their father. I hope you get the help you desperately need.

https://www.instagram.com/p/DfCx01iETGF/?img_index=2&psln=ZWI4aXp0eGhpOWw3 Some additional highlights for Tahj. He is SMOOTH.

It's not even worth getting into a discussion about skill position players. An FBS program would dominate the game in the trenches. Edit: Arth had a lot of success coaching D3 at John Carroll. He finished his tenure at 40-8. Despite having more resources and access to better players he was way over his head at Akron going 3-24. Comparing FBS to D3 is comparing apples to oranges. The best D3 team would get dog walked by Sacramento State (who must assume to be the worst FBS team).

Not to mention you don't necessarily always want your best 5 starting the game. There is only 1 basketball and sometimes a player provides more value being the 1st guy off the bench and providing a fresh set of legs to help lead the 2nd unit. At the end of the day minutes played and who finished out games is more telling then who starts.

Now why would you go and do that haha

That last one...wouldn't it be better to only have a couple days to help avoid rust?

And that's why Eric was in at the end of games. He was better in that role while Zack was apparently better in the mix of the starters. You could aways tell who Groce trusted by who had in at the end of games, not the start.

Come on, how can you not love a guy who dives on the floor for the opening tip? I believe it was our home game against Can’t State.

I'm going to take the word of John Groce and Dustin Ford as to what role Zack plays. The Zips weren't great and seemed to be missing something early last year, though the OOC schedule, and Groce mixed it up starting Zack against EMU in the home opener and it added a gritty element to the team to open the games thereafter. Zack's never going to a star, but good teams need gritty role players lie Kurt Rambis, Craig Ehlo, John Paxson.....that do the dirty work and keep up the intensity.

The Toledo Blade actually published an article today where they interviewed MAC basketball coaches. People who are far more knowledgeable on the subject than any of us keyboard warriors. This was one of the questions followed by the response. How has the free-agency era changed the way you coach? “Give you an example: If somebody didn't go to class, we used to make them do all these things that were miserable. That was all part of the accountability process. Now, you do that to a player, you lose him for a week or two — I mean, mentally, they disengage — because no one has ever held them accountable, and.the season might be in the toilet. So I just don’t do that anymore. I do more counseling, with a lot less accountability, for lack of a better word.”

You’re probably right. I didn’t watch the whole thing as I was trying to post on here during the timeout 😂

My way-too-early take on what I saw tonight is that I think we can be special if Evan and Kamrin stay eligible, and may be behind Miami if they do not. - Staveskie is the real deal. He has a smooth offensive game and played good defense, too (5 steals tonight!). He plays with a ton of energy and was active on the bench. An excellent find for Ford. - So was Oriol. He and Staveskie already have some great on-court chemistry, too. They could be the best backcourt in the conference. - Mahaffey looked like he made some improvements over the summer offensively to go with his always-elite defense. He's such a great leader - I hope he stays eligible. - Barre will likely be a work-in-progress, especially early on. The coaching staff seemed frustrated at his decisions around the rim (passing up shots or not going up strong), but he has the athleticism to be a difference-maker. - Pence seems like an elite athlete. Couldn't get his shot to fall tonight, but he will be OK. - Hammer Jr. will be a fan-favorite. Tough kid who hustles his tail off. Led the team in rebounding tonight and was often matched up against bigger players. - MMK was doing MMK things - defending, battling in the point, making hustle plays. And he made a 3! - White probably made the least impact on the new guys IMO. He looked a bit slow on both ends to me. Only one game, though. - Perkins looked much better than what I expected from him so early on. You can tell there's a ton of potential offensively and what he lacks in size on defense he was making up for on effort. - I was surprised Wilson didn't play more. - Burton, Halligan, Head, and Henderson were all inactive. I know an injury was mentioned for Burton, but unsure on the others.

They just played it at the YSU game! You guys must’ve manifested it

Lundt saved the first PK attempt and STL goes on to win the first trophy in club history.