Leaderboard

The bad news is the men's game isn't on ESPN+. The good news is that the women's game at #6 Michigan isn't either.

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!!

I feel the talks of this being Groce's best Akron team was premature. We've been able to run up the score on the bad teams we've faced, but haven't been able to beat the good teams on our schedule. Our best win is against #161 Iona. Hopefully Groce can use this as a teaching moment as this is the worst Akron half-court defense we've seen in maybe 5 years. I think we have the bodies and athletes to improve, but we need to play smarter defense and be more disciplined.

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?

It's no coincidence that the two kids who play the hardest on defense started tonight. I suspect the message got through.

I look at all those Q4 wins for the Zips and it makes me scratch my head. The names of those programs are far from what I think of as programs that are typically Q4… hopefully a bunch of them build their numbers going foward.

Reminds me of the old Jerry Tarkanian line: "The NCAA is so mad at Kentucky they'll probably put Cleveland State on probation for an additional two years."

I understand defense is going to be a point of conversation, but it's really hard to get mad when our only 2 mid major losses have statistically ridiculous box scores. Yale and Murray State could run simulated games in practice with zero defenders, take the same shots they did vs us, and not shoot nearly as well as they ended up shooting vs us. 56% from 3 on 32 attempts is unbelievably absurd. That's 54 pts from 3P alone. If Murray State shoots an above-average 40%, that's 13 3P which is 15 less points; Murray State won by 15, and they're a 36.1% 3P shooting team on the season. Murray State committed 18 turnovers; I know some of those are probably self-inflicted, but Akron was doing something right on defense as well. Yet again, a team needed to have a historic night to beat Akron and they did. Akron wasn't nearly as efficient offensively as they were vs. Yale, hence the 15 pt deficit, but they still put up 100 pts. If we start seeing MAC teams shoot ~50%+ from 3P vs us, then I'll be concerned. Until then, hats off to Murray State for an incredible shooting performance. Regroup and beat the feathers off EMU.

Kent had, in some cases, multiple degrees for the same subject area. Most of the subject areas are still available but without multiple degree designations (i. e. B.A vs B.S.). They are not eliminating nine study areas. They are, however, still Kant State and offering many degrees without viable career paths and without the intern, coop, research, club groups that create opportuntunies that have become a signature feature of many of Akron's options. Note the last edition of Zip Insider where Allen, the pole vaulter with a degree in Biomedical Engineering and now pursuing a Master's in statistics mentioned the importance of internships even with the stem degrees she is getting. The importance of having degrees in job-oriented fields with good experience opportunities was also cited in this week's Board meeting by the Provost as being a factor in the increased number of 2027 applications even with a smaller student pool. She mentioned that Akron is doing a better job of telling that story to prospective students and finding more who are listening to that set of factors in their decision making. I hope that is true because students need to consider these items. Students too often pick colleges for insane reasons. Akron needs to continue down this road of making their degrees produce job-ready graduates in as high a percentage as possible. GO ZIPS!

Okay, we need 20 guys to all kick in a buck and we're going to @kreed5120's to watch the stream. He's providing the grub.

Bump for updates and a few notes. - EMU signed the largest class in the first signing period, with many of the signees being freshmen. - Toledo has lost nearly half their freshmen signees due to the coaching change. I don’t think that matters much anymore with the portal having become the more relevant recruiting source, but I thought it was worth mentioning anyway. - Supposedly, UMASS has used their NIL funds towards retention of 15 players, and 13 of them have indicated they will stay at UMASS. - I’ll continue to update this thread as I see more activity.

Imagine showing up in a foreign country just before the beginning of training camp. You barely speak the language. All the other players have been part of the program for month or even years. Everything is different. The food, intense practices like you have never experienced with a demanding coach, classes in subjects you never imagined and not to mention American women everywhere! I would call that culture shock!

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.

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.

And maybe directing some looks toward the north east…

Murray State is a quality mid major. Akron isn't going to beat anyone worthwhile without effort and intelligence on D. That's just a fact. Giving up 97 to Yale was a red flag. Allowing Murray State to put up 115 in 40 minutes is flat out embarrassing.

I’m getting a good feeling about this game!

The Zips get a 10 days Christmas break before Concord comes to the JAR on December 29th. Concord currently stands at 6-3, playing a bunch of teams that belong on Captain’s list of teams he’s never heard of, including Frostburg State. In the confusing geography department, they’ve also played California of Indiana and Indiana of Pennsylvania. Kraig Gilbert, a 6’8” sophomore forward leads the Grapes in scoring at 19.2 ppg. 6’8” junior forward Boubacar Djigo averages a whopping 14.2 rpg to go along with 14.2 ppg. He played for Lutheran West in high school.

Pretty loaded at TE with Cravaack and Newell, this doesn’t hurt like many of the others. I’m thinking there will be many more coming in the next week or so.

No Nate Johnson one-handed dunk disasters last night.

Wedding anniversary. Told my wife I love her so much, I'm skipping the game vs. EMU. Shot 17% from 3P and still put up 93 points while winning by 21. Alrighty then. That has to scare the crap out of the MAC lol. What an offense.

Goes to show you what a defender Greg Tribble was!

Go fix your white board, too. 😉

Really hope that remi comes back for at least one more season. The good thing about ncaa soccer is that we will find out in the spring games instead of being in the dark all summer

all aboard the halligan train

Catdaddy's keeping on top of this but I was also pleased to see the ABJ tracking the fluid situation

I like your distinction between playoff and invitational tournament. Let me expand on that... For me to take it seriously as a playoff, it would have to be setup like other NCAA Tournaments where conference champions get an automatic berth. This would discourage all of the ridiculous conference consolidation and ensure that, from the start of the season, everyone has a legit shot of winning the title (however stretched those odds may be). The fact that the ACC Champion (Duke) was excluded while a team not even eligible to play in its conference championship game got into the "invitational tournament" is ridiculous, regardless of other logical justifications.

Thanks for passing this along TennZip. Rarely do you read an article where the interviewed athlete has such mature and articulate comments. Jason is another example of the exceptional quality of young men who come thru the Akron soccer program.

Best facilities in the MAC? You need to visit Miami's football building. And before you point to InfoCision, remember that an empty stadium isn't much of a recruiting asset.

Lunardi has us as a 12-seed: https://www.espn.com/espn/feature/story/_/page/bracketology/ncaa-bracketology-2026-march-madness-men-field-predictions?appsrc=sc&RuleNumber=Not Applicable&consent_mode=ccpa

Excellent article on Jason Shokalook. article has many quotes from Jason. https://rg.org/news/soccer/mls-next-pro-mvp-jason-shokalook-road-top-american-soccer

So in every tournament where a team wins five or six games, there is also a team that theoretically loses five or six. That team this year is Michigan. Washington beat NC State who beat St. Louis who beat Akron who beat Notre Dame who beat Michigan. Congrats Wolverines!

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.

Josh Hardin was a starter in 2024 and he transferred out. I highly suspcet that was due to Pittsburgh poaching him with huge NIL dollars.

Since covid how many established players have we had transfer out? I can honestly think of only one, Gyuwon Chong. I know there have been a few freshmen transfer before getting playing time but that is normal. Ashton, Mitch, Stefan, Daragh, Malik, WKWK, Dyson, Shookalook, Diogo, truly a huge group of guys to come to Akron and not transfer out. Hard to imagine any other sport retain talent like that in this era

That is about the most AI statement ever. I think I heard Frank Caliendo say something similar when he was impersonating John Madden.

To summarize: Bad defense + good team shooting lights out = 115 points On to EMU.

Ignoring the problems isn't going to make them magically go away. Even in our wins we've consistently seen breakdowns defensively with many wide open looks. The competition just wasn't good enough to capitalize off of them. Murray State and Yale were good enough to carve us up. As will any 4 or 5 seed we encounter if the tournament if we make it that far. Giving up offensive rebounds because you're not boxing out and leaving 3-pt shooters wide open because you're slow in rotation isn't a winning formula against quality teams. We should constantly be evaluating ourselves and looking for ways to improve. Other teams will be doing the same.

Darlington Nagbe is joining Ohio Premier Soccer Club as a Staff Coach. https://www.instagram.com/p/DSOLS9HEWz8/?igsh=b2R6Zm12a2M4cTl3 I’m certain Darlington will be excellent at helping develop soccer talent. 👏👏👏

115 in regulation is embarrassing

Halligan came in and spurred the Zips rally with some really good defense. He was fighting through the screens and would not let his man drive to the basket. Groce was switching him in for defense. With Barre and him on the floor at the same time you could see the difference in defense. I would like to see them get more playing time in the 2nd half.

Washington vs. NC State for the Championship. Two power conference schools. Feel like the Zips would have matched up well with either. Darn it. To make myself feel better I went back and looked at the National Championship program, surprised to see that Akron had about 10000 more students than either Louisville or North Carolina back then.

Chemistry, Life Science, Math, Physics. That is wild to eliminate majors that have been around since basically whenever higher education started

Hope the Zips don't get caught looking forward to Eastern Michigan. Potential trap game.

Watching Xavier host Missouri State on TNT right now. Akron would run Xavier out of the gym.

She did commit as a high school junior. She played high school soccer this year and was selected to the 2025 All American team. I will do some research on the club question. Edit- looks like she plays for Nanchoff team in Cleveland internationals SC https://www.topdrawersoccer.com/club-player-profile/hattie-yugovich/pid-159356

Well, the Akron coaches aren’t providing all the same services to JoeMo that she was providing to Sherrone!