Let'sGoZips94

This. The PPG for us haven't been nearly as bad as the PPG against us. Scoring 70 doesn't get you anywhere if you give up 71+. The defense is the #1 thing that needs to lock back in.

14 seed seems to be the new MAC slot.

PCCC has 3 bonafide shooters that, on any given night, can each go off for 20+. Not to mention the stench from their fans in the stands being a 6th man for them. Miami is not good offensively. We have not been good defensively, and this is the perfect team to "get right" against in the quarterfinals.

So we shouldn't be panicking. We should be applauding the team's genius in missing just the right amount of shots these last 2 games.

How the hell did we avoid PCCC - or how the hell did they avoid us? Give me Miami & Ohio all day over PCCC & Ohio. Miami could very well be a get right game that propels us. That's much easier (on paper) than your arch rival in round 1.

Somebody punch me in the face for watching that all the way to the end. Goodness I don't know why I did that to myself.

"Lack of effort there from Akron." Groce has to be horribly embarrassed.

And with how the refs have no idea how to officiate a relatively sound fundamental defensive player.

Welp. Freeman gone. Ball game.

One of the oldest teams in the league and they have no idea how to put teams away.

Word has it Jay Bilas has a lawyer ambulance-chasing the only fan that stormed the court that day to have him thrown in prison with the death penalty on the table.

Look at the previous winners. All NBA players.

He's playing half the amount of time as what he did at NIU, so the 8.8 to 3.5 PPG isn't shocking. He was also a 62%, 74%, and 65% FT shooter at NIU. 45.5% from the line this year is atrocious, but he has a comparatively very small sample size with only 22 total attempts on the year. The disappointment with Thornton comes from the lack of offensive firepower we have in the backcourt. Otherwise, we're getting exactly what he was at NIU.

Has he really been a disappointment? Maybe by Groce's expectations, but I feel like us fans saw a guy who doesn't light up the scoreboard along with "NIU" and are getting pretty much what we expected.

Speaking of what the Zips don't have... We need a t-shirt cannon. Maybe striking fear in our opponents again starts with striking fear in the crowd. 😂

Let's hope this is the basketball team's version of the soccer team's Cleveland State loss in 2010.

Lol. Haven't boxed out all night and it bites us in the ass in the end.

South Carolina needed a 10-0 4th Quarter to beat Jacksonville State last year, and that was with Spencer Rattler at QB. That was towards the end of the season; we'll be catching them as they're still working out the kinks this year. If we would've quit shooting ourselves in the foot, we would've been more competitive with Kentucky last year. I'm not saying it's likely, but it's winnable. Rutgers might be better than South Carolina, but it's still Rutgers. I will forever think of them as a lower echelon B10 team, and all of the Big Ten is beatable outside of Ohio State, Penn State, Michigan, USC, and Oregon.

Yes, Rutgers and South Carolina are beatable for any average-to-above-average G5 program. My expectation for the program is to exist in that category.

I don't think it's as much about cloning their work ethic as it is Groce continuing to build his culture here. Banks, X1.0, Cheese, LCJ, X2.0, and Duvivier were all guys that have played the game the right way while wearing the Akron Blue & Gold under Groce. We've seen the most growth in the individual games of Freeman, Tribble, and Ali because they've been here for 3+ years, but we would've seen the same growth with any of the aforementioned players if they were here for longer than a year or 2. Guys like Prather, Nate Johnson, and Dawson will be instrumental next year in cementing the foundation that has been built by Freeman, Tribble, Ali, X1 & X2, Cheese, Banks, Duvivier, and LCJ. Incoming players like Sharron Young could be extremely special if they see what Akron is under Groce and choose to stay & develop for 4 years.

2 winnable P5 games and a challenging conference schedule. JoeMo is gonna have to earn his money this year.

Wow. So Groce was coaching Akron while recruiting AND officiating (the T he gave their player) NIU. Incredible. His agent is going to use that to get him a salary closer to Frank Martin this off season. 😂

Stats play for both sides, though. For every basic 3PM/3PA stat, there's an advanced metric that shows the 3PM might be negated. His minutes right now are going to Prather and Nate. I'm 100% ok with that as we approach Cleveland.

Is WMU the 8 seed currently?

As poorly as we've played, we're at 70 pts with 5 minutes to play.