Rufus

Hell of a season, Zips. I had hopes that Akron could hang tough with Arizona, but that was a tough matchup across the country. Akron was the best team in the MAC all year from the start of the conference season through Cleveland. I look forward to our battles next year, as always! Much respect. 🫡

Creighton was a really tough matchup. I watched them several times this year, including when they blew out #1 UCONN. They have a pretty high ceiling, and Shereef Mitchell at Ohio came from Creighton (where he didn't play much). Creighton is a talented bunch. Congrats on the MAC tourney win, it was much deserved. We'll see you all in Athens in 10 months or so. 👍

Congrats on the tourney win in Cleveland, now go get the MAC a W in the Dance! Side note, if nobody up there makes t-shirts that say "Kent read, Kent add, Kent St." I am going to be very disappointed in all of you. 😁

From my side of the aisle, I will agree, the officiating was horrible both ways. It drives me nuts when officiating is wildly inconsistent. Allowing hacks and slaps one possession and calling a touch foul on the next. Late in the game, there were two possessions close together where an OU player and Freeman were tangled up and fell out of bounds with no call, then a Jaylin Hunter 3 attempt where he clearly got hit on the shooting arm...no calls either way. Shortly after, touch fouls were called both ways. Aside from all of that, it was a great game and atmosphere. Official attendance was around 5700, but the place went from pretty silent with Akron up 10 to really loud after the 10-0 run to tie the game. It stayed loud the rest of the way. I thought we did a pretty solid job on Freeman most of the game, but when the double didn't come or was late, he was nearly unstoppable. Both teams traded blows most of the game. I thought Ali was going to single handedly take it over late when he put Akron up late in the game. We seemed to struggle a lot when we had to sit Clayton/Hadaway and had some funky lineups with some foul trouble. Great game to see in person, and maybe not the last time we see each other this year.

We had 9,018 in the building last weekend when Miami came to Athens. It's been a while since I have seen the place that crowded.

Outside of a couple of games, Hunter has struggled big time from the arc. Last year's 3-point percentage from him seems to have been an anomaly. At least to this point.

Not yet.

AJ Brown is done for the year and Elmore James likely will not play, so 40% of the starting lineup is out. Generally speaking, we don't shoot it well. Or rebound well. Or win tight games. I'd be surprised if Ohio can keep this game within 10 points. EMU rolled over and played dead on Saturday, I don't expect Akron to do that.

It was real classy of EMU on Saturday to leave Acuff in the game to score the last 9 of his 30 against the end of Ohio's bench, including two walk-ons.

That was underway long before this game. We're a broken team, and now it looks like Elmore James will miss time with injury. I'm not sure we'll even get to Cleveland, at this point.

AJ Brown is out for the year with a shoulder issue. Miles Brown has missed a lot of time but might be coming back soon. Jaylin Hunter has struggled from the perimeter a lot. With Dwight Wilson gone, there hasn't been any inside/post game and there's a general lack of large bodies. Generally speaking, at least to this point in the season, we struggle to shoot the ball and seem to find ways to lose tight games. Nearly all of the losses have been 6 points or less. Multiple losses had horrid free throw shooting. The last game vs NIU showed some promise with shots falling and making smart decisions with the ball, but at this point, that game feels like the anomaly in the season compared to the rest of the games played.

Right now, this feels 100% accurate.

That was one of the best all around games Ohio has played this year. I didn't have high hopes they could sustain the effort when Wilson got into early foul trouble, because that's usually doom for us. Castaneda is a stud, so much fun to watch that guy shoot the basketball, even as an opponent. Tribble's poster dunk was one of the better ones I have seen in the Convo in a while. The play that got Groce his T unfolded in front of us but I didn't see clearly what happened to Freeman when it happened. Groce clearly defended the heck out of his guy, to the point I really thought he was going to be ejected. Great game, great atmosphere. Maybe we'll run into each other again in Cleveland. Until then, best of luck.

Unfortunately, "fan" is short for "fanatic" and sometimes people with unrealistic expectations can be a bit much. Too many of my brethren over there think that every year should be an NCAA tourney year or the sky is falling. We whiffed on some transfers, talent left for greener pastures, and here we are in the "down" of an up and down couple of years. This game went about as I expected. I hold hope that we can return the favor when you come to Athens, only time will tell. Right now, I just want to beat the Eastern Michigan Fighting Bates' tonight. Freeman and Castaneda are a heck of a 1-2 punch in this league.

Nobody in our fan base knows what to expect game to game. Our one consistency has been inconsistency, basically. Wilson has been solid in the post but the surrounding cast has been wildly hit or miss. Boals is playing a lot of guys minutes, going deeper in the bench than the team has gone the past few years. Road play has not been great, so for me, I'm hoping for a competitive game but know it could go in literally any direction possible and it wouldn't be all that surprising.