kreed5120

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.

Just gave up a 4 point possession to give BG the lead. I guess this is the part of the game we have our meltdown.

Right now Akron's path to the final based on the standings of today would be we'd host WMU the first round then play Toledo in the quarterfinals. In the semi-finals we'd play 1 of EMU, Ball State, or BGSU. I'd prefer to see Toledo surpass Kent as the 3rd seed, which I think they will, that way we would play them in the 2nd round and give Buffalo a tougher opponent on their side of the bracket. Playing WMU - Kent - BGSU is probably the most manageable path to the finals we can get, assuming no upsets on our side of the bracket. The hope would be that someone on the other end of the bracket would knock off Buffalo.

The MAC already regularly schedules the Horizon Leage teams. I looked at a handful of Horizon League schedules and all of them already had at least 3 MAC opponents. Detroit had the most with 6 MAC opponents. There is no point in having a tournament against them since we play them so often anyways.

Have to give it to Akron this year. They put up a better fight than I anticipated against Clemson and Nevada. I didn't know they had it in them to go from worst defense in the MAC to best defense in 1 season. Now if only we had an offense

It's not worth having one unless we get a conference like the A-10 or MVC to agree to it. Like you I don't see that happening. The CAA would be a better long-term option over the SoCon. The SoCon has been around since before the NCAAT, which has been around for 80 years, and not once has the SoCon had an at-large bid. Its been a historic season for the SoCon compared to how they normally do and still they are ranked as the 12th best conference this year. Most years they're in the 18-23 range.

I never said couldn't. I just see many being turned off to them due to it, especially 4* and 5* athletes who have a long list of options. You know the type of players you need if you hope to build a power house program. You're naive if you believe it has no impact. Do you not think teams recruiting against them aren't bringing up the issue? Edit: I really don't care to have a debate on Liberty athletics on an Akron board. You think they will be a great team in 5-10 years. I think they will be about what they are currently. Only time will tell which of is correct.

They can have the nicest facilities in the US and it wouldn't matter. Good luck trying to recruit African-American athletes when the university president is a neo-nazi/white supremacist apologist. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/21/us/jerry-falwell-liberty-university-trump.html

I stream the sports I want to watch for free. No point in paying $20/mo when I can get the content I want (Akron games) for $5.

There went any chance of getting a top 4 seed. Cheese needs to be the running the point to close out games. He's a much better decision maker in crunch time.

I say that and LCJ comes up with the steal. I guess that's why I'm not the coach.

Can we just have Cheese, Banks, Utomi, Ivey, and Riak on court to finish this game? I have no faith in LCJ to make the right play on offense and he's exposed on defense.

Hopefully we can bring this same level of intensity in the 2nd half.

SoCon is having a historic year. Even with that they currently rank 12th in average net rankings while the MAC is 8th. The only notable OOC win that conference has was Furman beating Villanova. The top 3-4 teams in the SoCon have propped their numbers up against the other 6 members of the conference who all frankly suck. Currently 4 SoCon teams (10 team conference) have a NET ranking of 240+. For comparison the MAC only has 1 team with a NET of 200+.

To each their own. I cut the cord two years ago. Like LZlp I have other means to watch what I want on TV without paying for an expensive cable package. I however didn't have the ability to watch ESPN3 stuff. Watching Akron games wasn't worth me paying $80/mo. It's well worth $5/mo to me.

They added tons of new content that wasn't on ESPN3 (MMA, MLS Live, Serie A, Kobe & Peyton Manning player breakdowns, exclusive shows & full 30 for library, other misc sports etc.). This might not be stuff that interests you, but there is no doubt that ESPN+ has way more content than ESPN3 ever had.

I just can't stand Liberty. They're an embarrassment of a university. Pretty much a University of Phoenix with a centralized campus and outdated beliefs.

You appear to be correct. Interesting there is no mention of a return game. Did we allow ourselves to get bought by Liberty?

Akron is hosting Liberty in 2022. https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10155875075922073&id=164280277072&sfnsn=mo

Yes, I do believe points scored/allowed aren't good metrics to measure overall offense/defense as they don't factor in pace. The more possessions in a game, the more points each team is going to score and allow. I look more at efficiency as a better metric. Akron is currently dead last in the MAC in overall fg%, 10th in 3P%, and 5th in ft%. We have the fewest turnovers per game, which is nice, but that probably has a lot to do with the fact we keep tempo at a slower pace.

Not to mention E-man. That's pretty much how I see it as well. On paper I think that looks like a team that can win the MAC. My hope is that getting Utomi back to his more natural position will help him be more comfortable on the offensive end. I honestly think Banks is a much better 3-point shooter than we've seen in MAC play. He was straight money during OOC play. At this point I just feel it's a confidence issue. His shot selection has mostly been good. The shots just have quit falling. Hopefully he can be that bench scorer. If not, we may be forced to move Cheese into a Nick Perkins type 6th man role.

I actually feel pretty much all of Ivey's minutes at the 3 will be filled by Utomi. Utomi may get a few minutes at the 4, but I expect that's where Williams will play most of his minutes. Riak has been the anchor of a top 30 defense. He'll continue to get his 25-30 minutes a night. We also have Reece coming in who will officially be a junior. I can't imagine Groce took a flier on a junior unless he expected him to be able to step in and be in the rotation immediately. I expect him to get most of the minutes at the 4 that Williams doesn't play.

If anything the number of P5-FCS match-ups are declining, not increasing. The B1G doesn't even allow its members to schedule FCS schools now where as a B1G-FCS school match-up was common place 10 years ago.