kreed5120

Tavari, Evan, Scott, and Hardman are all seniors. If he's looking for playing time he will have plenty of opportunity to get minutes next year as we will be much thinner at guard/wing next year. I'm sure Akron is going to look to reload, but I kind of feel this year is similar to Freeman's senior year where this is our year to make noise. Next year, even with a reload, we will need a lot of time to develop as a team and our ceiling likely won't be as high as this team. For that reason I feel the best players need to play. If Oggy wants minutes he needs to earn them in practice.

He was involved in that point shaving scandal that came out a few weeks ago. The incidents he is connected to are before his time at EMU.

I would think Chabi will play 10-15 minutes/game moving forward. That's what he was getting a night the last few games leading up to his injury. When we face Kent again, and assuming Whaley plays, I wouldn't be shocked if we see Amani and Chabi on the court at the same time for stretches of the game. We don't have much need to deviate from our 4 guard lineup as it matches up well against most MAC teams. Kent is kind of the one team that has both depth and size in the paint. The rebounding edge they had against us is still a concern. Had they shot even a horrible 25% from 3 that would have been a much different game because of all the extra possessions those rebounds gave them.

That's what happens when people make politics their identity. There is an off topic section on this forum. If people wish to engage in those kind of discussion it should be moved there. I'll just be sure to avoid those threads.

I might be in the minority, but from my eye test when I've seen him on the floor he still looks very raw and appears to still be adapting to the American game. Him joining the team so late didn't help his cause. He could have probably used an extra ~3 months of practice in the offseason.

Yes, it seems weird that people fixate on it. Not like he left for an extra $10k or $20k. I would have left too if I was in his position and I would have no regrets about it either. He's in a position that he can play professional basketball somewhere until his 30s while his money grows and then not have to worry about a career post basketball. He might still need to work a little to supplement his income, but he can be picky what he does and do something he truly enjoys. A pretty envious position to be in.

I mean that's kind of the player he was here. Although I would say last year he was a + defender and + rebounder. MAC bigs last season also weren't as good as this year and certainly well behind anything the Big 12 has at the position. IMO him getting his bag really represents 2 things. 1) There is a very small pool of bigs, much smaller than guards, so anyone that shows any sort of promise can and will get paid. 2) These P4 NIL programs have more money than they know what to do with. I'm sure Okonkwo wasn't their first choice, but when they lost out on musical chairs on the guys they really wanted they were like we have all this money budgeted for this position so let's throw it at a guy like Okonkwo.

I doubt the bylaws would allow such a thing. Even if it did it would almost certainly void the $2.5 million exit fee NIU is required to pay.

I was more underwhelmed by the half-time entertainment or more lack there of.

They are up 2 at the half. It's not that uncommon for a bad team to hang with a good one for a half of basketball. Usually around the 10 minute mark of the second half the better team pulls away. It isn't until about the 6 minute mark that I start thinking upset alert potential.

Yes, he'll look good in a Big 12 or Big East uniform next year. He's already played himself out of EMU being able to afford retaining him.

I think we were ~45 when NET was first released this year. The Murray State loss dropped us ~20 or so spots and we have slowly climbed back up.

This is kind of where I'm at. I think it's important to set the tone early defensively. Halligan diving on the floor for the opening tip off are the kind of plays that energize a team early. I do agree with @Zippy87 that Halligan playing 25 minutes isn't ideal. Lyles and Eric both battling foul trouble likely played a role in that.

I feel mudding up the game has always kind of been their stick. The physicality throws you off rhythm. I also feel they came out with a decent gameplan defensively. They were daring Evan to try to beat them early and it was working (on that end of the court). I do agree not all the credit can be given to the Zips defensively. A Kent player missed an uncontested dunk in the 2nd half. That shouldn't happen at the mid-major level. I will say overall I felt our defensive intensity was up compared to prior games. It also seemed we trapped less and when we did trap we were quicker to rotate to recover. I think both things could be true. Kent had an off night shooting and Akron played much improved defense.

Imagine how bad traffic restraints would have been had we not witnessed that mass exodus of fans midway through the 2nd half.

A lot of Kent's shots just weren't misses. They were well offline. Makes it challenging as a defender because you're fighting for position in one area, but the rebound was going somewhere completely different.

I was just saying those leagues already have things in place so they maybe less inclined and if you exclude those 4 mid-major conferences there are very few mid-majors left that are top ~75.

Too many $2 Bud Lights

Where has this defensive intensity been all year? We'd have 1 loss if we played like this on defense all season.

The challenge is there are only a few mid-majors each year that provide Q1 win opportunities. Add in that the A10 and MVC already have a head-to-head competition then that doesn't leave many options. The idea isn't bad. I just don't know if it would lead to any better results. Edit: I believe the WCC and MWC also have a deal, which would further reduce the options.

Former Zip Travis Switzer is being reported to be the Browns new OC.

I mean they call it advanced analytics for a reason.

Personally, I think any day is allowable to say F Kent

Didn't Bowden go to Clemson to be a GA after he got canned at Akron? He was around 60 at the time.

UMass would have had a better chance had they fouled sooner. Had they fouled Miami 2-3 seconds sooner they could have actually gotten a reasonable look.