kreed5120

No, it's how you inferred it.

Buffalo, despite winning, seemed to be not playing their best basketball for a couple weeks. Their last couple games they seem to have gotten back to playing they were at the start of the season. This is going to be a tough game to win.

Cheese and Utomi combined for 29 of our 37 1st half points.

Like seeing Cheese attacking early. He normally doesn't get aggressive until the 2nd half.

An important game. A loss drops us a game behind Miami plus they'd have the tie-breaker since they would be 2-0 against us head to head so it's more like a 2 game deficit. It's going to be a battle for those 4 1st round home games.

Those words were never spoken. Liberty has something like 100k students between their online school and campus. I'm well not all 100k are white caucasians. All I was trying to say is that I feel their presidents comments would negatively impact their recruiting efforts and that I don't feel they will ever be able to recruit well enough to reach a P5 level like many here are trying to say they will.

What's your point? Neither of those wins are all that great. UCLA fired their coach in December because of poor performance and are currently rated as the #116 team in the country. They aren't even good enough to make the NIT this year. Congrats, they beat Kent by 12 fewer points than we did and its not like our season is anything to write home about.

#17-#25 all have the same grade (.7000).

This is my sentiment.

We're losing because we're 6th in 3PA per game, meanwhile, 320th in 3P%. Riak isn't the one chucking all those 3s. Groce isn't Dambrot. Dambrot used his bigs to create offense for his perimeter shooters. Groce runs a guard dominate offense. The last time time a Groce big averaged double figure points was DeVaughn Washington in the 2010-2011 season. The days of expecting our bigs to hit double figures on a nightly basis are gone. Frankly, it's probably for the best. When the focal point of your offense is 6'10 and weighs 290+, it becomes extremely challenging to win 3 games in 3 nights.

Riak certainly has ways to improve on the offensive end, but looking at the box score he still finished 3/4 shooting with 7 points, 0 turnovers. I can live with that production considering the value he provides on the defensive end. Frankly, not having him in at the end of the game was a mistake by Groce. No doubt in my mind he would have forced Turner into a more difficult shot attempt at the end with his help defense. Although the way Turner was shooting the ball in the 2nd half, the shot would probably have still found the net.

Dambrot also inherited a roster that had Romeo Travis, Dru Joyce, and Jeremiah Wood. Groce had to pretty much patch a team together as we only had 4-5 scholarship to start with and he wasn't hired until April after pretty much every HS already signed. Because we were pretty much forced to sign a bunch of players in year 1 who frankly weren't good enough to compete at a high level in the MAC in the 1st place, we then had to turn over the team again. I feel now the roster has finally been stabilized enough that we should be in a better position to recruit for the future instead of having to look more towards plugging an immediate need. I feel Xeyrius Williams will be a nice piece for us next year. Riak gets $#!+ on a lot here, but he's one of the best defensive centers in the MAC. If our guards weren't struggling so bad at scoring, his liability on the offensive end wouldn't be so glaring.

At this point I just feel it's a mental issue with Utomi and LCJ. Utomi shot over 40% from 3 each of the previous two seasons. LCJ made .348 of his 3s when he was at Long Beach State. Ivey is a career .312 3P% shooter so the case for him is I just think that's the one whole in his game and honestly he shouldn't be shooting them unless left wide open. Cheese with his .214 3P% shouldn't even be taking them when open. I'd honestly rather see Riak shoot a 3 over Cheese.

You're joking, right? Hugh Freeze was hired BEFORE Arth and most of the other new coaching hires. Despite this Akron managed to finish 112th in 247 composite rankings. Liberty managed to finish 134th, which is dead last among FBS schools and even behind several FCS schools. According to the composite rankings, which is an average of all the major recruiting sites, Liberty has 0 4* recruits. Peter Hayes-Patrick, an Akron RB commit, had listed offers from Florida State, Georgia Tech, Nebraska, Ohio State, and a host of other schools. https://247sports.com/Season/2019-Football/CompositeTeamRankings/ Liberty plays basketball in the A-Sun, the 22nd rated conference, compared to the MAC being rated as the 8th best. A-Sun teams are the type of cupcakes that we pay to come to the JAR to take a beating. Akron's record would be much better if instead of playing a ranked Buffalo, we were instead playing teams like Kennesaw State, Stetson, North Alabama, Jacksonville, North Florida, etc. At the same time Liberty wouldn't be 23-5 in the MAC. That's not to say Liberty isn't the slightly better team this year. They probably are, but at the same time I'd rank them behind several of Dambrot's teams that Akron has had in recent years past. Besides I never said Liberty can't compete at G5 in football or at the mid-major level in basketball. I however am a firm believer they will never be able to compete at a P5 level in football or a high major level in basketball. http://warrennolan.com/basketball/2019/conferencenet I'm not going on a crusade against evangelical Christians. I'm simply stating facts. Up to this point they have shown no evidence that they will be competing at a P5 level in football or as a high major in basketball. They competed at the FCS level for 29 years. Guess how many FCS playoffs they made in that time? The answer is 1. They couldn't dominate the FCS, but you expect them to come in and dominate the FBS at a P5 level right off the bat. On the basketball side, the only postseason tournament game they've ever won is a CIT game.

The last time we hosted Kent before the month of November was in 2007

The Ken+/Akron game should be played every year at the end of September/beginning of October. I get that's not the traditional rivalry week, but that's the part of the year that will generate the most fan excitement surrounding the game. Miami/OU should do the same. We can then finish the season off playing OU at the end of the year and Ken+ can play Miami or vice versa. Edit: I believe the 2009 Morgan State game is the only sell out we've had at Infocision. Anyone think we'll fill the stadium for Ken+?

Watching Zips basketball this season will have that effect.

https://twitter.com/MACSports/status/1098048013073899521?s=20

If we don't make it to the top next year, I'll seriously begin to question Groce. Pretty much everyone is graduating their best players so the MAC should be down. Meanwhile, we return everyon besides Ivey. We also will Xeyrius Williams eligible and heavens knows we need a big man who isn't a complete offensive liability. After next year we lose Cheese, Banks, Utomi, Williams, and E-Man. Personally, I think that will be a rebuilding year.

So let me get this straight. A team that hasn't been able to shoot the basketball for the past 3 months is going to miraculously start making shots in a week and a half for no other reason than it's March? Then again we heard for years how the Q depth perception made our great 3 point shooters of years past not so great. Perhaps the same depth perception issue will alter our not so great shooters shots enough that instead of missing, like they normally would, they will turn into makes

It's beginning to look like their is a decent chance this team won't even make it to Cleveland. If we don't finish with one of the top 8 seeds, I don't see us winning a road game to get there.

Well second game in a row...

So who do you guys having missing this 3?

He must have been referring to getting 3 point shots off, not making them.

Turner has been hitting a lot of difficult shots this second half. Wish we would have taken advantage in the 1st half and built a nice cushion.