kreed5120

Coming into tonight we've only played 4 quality teams. We were ran out of the gym in 3 of them (lost all 4). Unless we vastly improve in the 2nd half it will be 5 out of 6. This just isn't a good basketball team right now.

Outside of Groce first year, this is easily Akron's worst offensive team of his tenure.

Every possession for Akron looks forced. They're really playing out of control

A pretty miserable start to this game. Bradley has nearly as many offensive rebounds as we have total rebounds. We already have 5 offensive turnovers.

There has been a few others. Kent just beat New Mexico St (113) and Ohio beat YSU (142). NET rankings are more favorable to these teams YSU (110) and NMSU (91). But to get back on point, I think it's important to prove the offensive boost we've witnessed over the prior few games wasn't just a product of us playing over matched teams at home. If we want to compete in the MAC, we need to play that way offensively on the road against quality teams, which Bradley is.

WKU actually was in the SunBelt prior to joining the CUSA. Their departure rubbed many university presidents the wrong way. Similar to how Marshall leaving the MAC to go to the CUSA as it was Marshall saying we're too good for you. This is why WKU didn't get an invite to the SunBelt.

What I've heard is that the MAC had interest in WKU and MTSU and those schools had interest in the MAC initially. CUSA managed to find enough schools to add that way the conference wouldn't fall apart and that made MTSU decide to just stay as they wanted to collect the buy out money from the other CUSA schools leaving. This made it so that MTSU will be getting paid several million to stay in CUSA, which they plan to use to upgrade their facilities. WKU still had interest in joining the MAC, but the MAC didn't want to go back to being at an odd 13 members again. That has never worked for us in the past.

WKU and MTSU just signed a grant of rights agreement with the CUSA so they're bound to stay for something like the next 8-10 years. Neither would have left the MAC. Not because they didn't have higher aspirations, but because where would they even go? The same is true for the MAC. If the AAC came calling for an Ohio, NIU, or Buffalo, they'd leave. They aren't calling and it doesn't make any sense for a MAC school to bolt for the SunBelt or this new C-USA. Akron probably would have gotten interest from the MVC if we didn't have an FBS program, but we do so that would limit our conference options.

I just noticed that this will be our only 2nd true road game of the year. The other one being Marshall. Seems odd we didn't schedule more to prepare ourselves better for conference play.

Yeah, I personally don't think it's remotely accurate tbh. Njigba alone reportedly made north of $1 million in NIL money this year. I imagine Stroud made something similar. Collectively OSU players most certainly are making well north of $3 million in NIL deals this year. Edit: Perhaps that might be the amount of money the staff under the table directly controls, but there is certainly a lot of NIL opportunities coming in elsewhere to get players paid.

Even with the decommits OSU still has the #5 class in the country. The thing is even though OSU has one of the larger chests of cash to throw around, they're not going to be able to hold onto everyone. The same is true for all schools. It's like in MLB where teams like the Yankees or Dodgers is able to throw around huge sums of money that other teams can't compete with, but that doesn't stop a team like the Guardians from signing Jose Ramirez or Twins a Carlos Correa. Those smaller payroll teams can still afford a star or two. No school has infinite NIL money so if a alumni endowment group, like say Nebraska or Minnesota, prioritizes a recruit they still have enough money to pluck some away.

I do think we will need Hunter or Lyles to emerge come MAC play. We can get away with 4 guard line-ups against teams like Maine. It will be more challenging against Toledo and Kent.

Hard to put up 3's when you're on the bench.

Glad to see they came out in the second half and are still playing with effort. I think they learned their lesson against Wright State that they can't just mail it in otherwise teams will play themselves back into the game.

Yes, I agree. I'm just hoping that if we can actually generate a consistent pass rush that would make our secondary much improved as they won't have to cover as long

All I want for Christmas is some D-line and O-line transfers that can be day 1 starters

A slow day at the office today so figured I'd share the latest NET rankings. 33 Kent St. 141 Ball St. 144 Akron 156 Toledo 189 Ohio 210 Buffalo 252 Bowling Green 285 Central Mich. 304 NIU 310 Eastern Mich. 330 Miami (OH) 343 Western Mich. The MAC is truly an embarrassment this year. If you take out Kent, which is a clear outlier, the conference is on par with the Horizon League.

I think Maine is better then they're preseason projections. Based off their performance so far they'd be a mid-tier MAC team. It looks like they prefer to play a 4 guard lineup similar to us.

Yes, I agree it's an extremely easy drive to get to. Also, downtown would make it so fewer students would attend. If anything I wish the arena was next to the football stadium on exchange that way it would be more convenient to go to the bars/restaurants before and after the game.

Enrique was always a 1 dimensional scorer (back to basket) with a shooting range of ~7 feet. He's elite in that 1 facet, but that's the limit to his offensive game. What you're seeing is teams are able to send hard double teams at him freely to force the ball out of his hands or make him force a shot. Defenses couldn't do that as freely as last year as he was surrounded by shooters that would make them pay. If Hunter, Hankerson, Tavari become consistent from 3, you'll see Freeman get back to being the offensive force he was last year.

Actually it's more the students picking up the check through the student fees. Athletics is really just a marketing arm and community engagement tool for universities.

They don't need to leave the NCAA as the NCAA doesn't really receive any of the football revenue anyways. Without the G5 schools like Ole Miss, Rutgers, Boston College, etc would instantly become annual 1-3 win teams. The value the G5 has to the P5 is it allows their middle and bottom tier schools to pad their win total enough to keep fans interested. Perennially winning 1-2 games a season kills a fan base. We've witnessed that first hand at Akron. The Big 10, SEC, etc don't want that for their fans. They would rather just keep throwing peanuts at the G5 to keep their fans engaged.

I don't really feel strongly one way or another with this hire. Probably someone of credentials is the best they can do given what they're willing to spend. We probably would have had to someone similar had extenuating circumstances not made JoeMo fall into our lap.

The game was on a Sunday during the same time as the Browns game and the opponent was Jackson State. I have season tickets and I didn't even bother going. It's not a marketing issue here. It's a scheduling a game against an irrelevant school most people have never heard of while trying to compete against the Browns issue.

Last years team with Ali & Dawson is frankly better than this years team. At least as of right now.