Let'sGoZips94

Freeman is "off". Not making his usual hook shots and And 1's. Scott has to learn when it's ok to pull it out on fast breaks.

4 on Tribble. A pee poor 4th, but 4.

Hunter is killing us tonight. Indecisive on his 3's and not making good decisions.

We beat Kent by 50 with Tribble, regardless of the officiating.

Sloppy. Sloppy. Sloppy.

Missed opportunity to torment him with a can of air, simulating the pressure sound that comes before a tshirt cannon fires.

Ohio lost their stud transfer QB to Bama. Let's kick em while they're down. Go Zips! z.i.P.S. BobcatAttack is doing Freeman stat line predictions for tonight. Not sure if it's a reverse jinx or they really hate their team that much. FearLeon: Give your best Freeman stat prediction for tonight's game. Here is mine. 28 Points 14 Rebounds 3 Blocks

I'm hoping it's more of a Dayton/Duquesne situation where there is more important action for The Books to focus their attention and this one wasn't dug into as much.

There's gotta be some sort of backdoor connection between someone in his life and JD, no?

Did not realize SDSU had climbed back up into Q2 range for us. Also, JMU would be a Q1 matchup as it currently stands. Incredible OOC schedule.

If Bradley keeps up their run, and we beat JMU, we'd be 2-4 in Q1 & Q2 games. The focus for this team is on the NCAA tourney. The NIT is as worthless as ever. What we're fighting for is the best seed possible in March, and that could be up near a 10-11 seed, or as low as a 13/14 seed depending on how we take care of the MAC. 3 & 2 pt losses to Utah State and UNLV - especially without Ali Ali - will carry weight with the committee. Regardless, this is the best OOC schedule I've ever seen for Akron basketball. Beat the Dukes!

Nothing to do with the MAC or CBB for this season per se, but in some of the least shocking news you'll ever see in your lifetime...

Has the university rescinded Boals' diploma?

For context, I've added the current Net Rankings for each matchup to your post. The Sun Belt is getting the raw end of the deal, as they are risking their top 3 programs - Net ranking wise - against significantly lesser opponents (outside of Akron). The MAC blows.

23, almost 24 years ago, a gift from the gods was born. In 2019, that gift from the gods descended upon Akron. The rest is history. Rashaun Agee averaged 13.5 PPG and 13 RPG this past week. He had 1 total block, 3 total assists, 2 total steals, and 7 total turnovers including 6 in the game vs WMU alone. Freeman averaged 21.5 PPG, 11 RPG, and added 8 total blocks, 1 total assist, and 4 total steals. He had 2 total turnovers. They're literally handing out participation trophies to anyone named with Freeman. That's ridiculous. It's a poor joke.

Correct. For example, Drake is now in the 40s for Net, so our record vs. Quad 1 is now 0-2. Bradley was Quad 3 for a bit, but we are now 1-2 vs. Quad 2 thanks to their move up the ranks.

Out of all the cases of eligibility being denied by the NCAA, Jay Bilas chose to tweet about a select few, including multiple individual tweets about Ali Ali specifically. Other national guys followed suit. When the magnifying glasses come out to take a closer look at the potential March Cinderellas, Akron will very much be a focus assuming we continue to take care of business.

No doubt, but right now we're slotted into a 13 seed by pretty much every bracketologist. Assuming we get JMU and handle our business in the MAC (including winning the 3 in Cleveland), you'd be looking at a 10-11 seed at worst anyways. Actually, if we draw JMU and beat JMU, assuming we hold serve in the MAC, we would probably starting getting votes then with only 4 losses, all to respectable opponents, and 3/4 losses being without Ali Ali.

Net Rankings through the 1/20/2024 games... Akron - 85 OOC Opponents Q1 L (No Ali) - Utah State - 27 L (No Ali) - Drake - 44 Q2 W - Bradley - 63 L - St. Bonnie - 79 L (No Ali) - UNLV - 84 Projected Matchup TBD - James Madison - 62 MAC Overview Toledo - 141 BUGS - 181 PCCC - 184 ACWH (Athens County Watering Hole) - 194 Miami OH - 230 WMU - 267 NIU - 270 Balls - 278 CMU - 283 EMU - 329 Canada - 341 (21 spots from dead last in the country) Pathetic conference.

I also think Groce has a bond with his players - especially the group of Freeman, Tribble, Dawson, and Ali - that not many coaches are able to build.

I struggle with looking at any depth chart predictions for next year not because it isn't fun to play keyboard coach, but because there is a decent chance we have more scholarships open than we do at this moment and like @clarkwgriswold, we'll most likely see some impactful talent come in from the Portal. I think Baker, Johnson, and Dawson are locks for the starting lineup. However, the spots for Lyles and Tavari are up for grabs as far as I'm concerned. I don't know if either player will be here next year, although their playing time recently is encouraging. I'm interested to see what happens with Prather - does he stay or does he leave? We need shooters and a bonafide big in my opinion. It'll be fun to see what Groce can come up with.

Imagine if he never had Preston or if the transfer portal was more wide open like it is today and Preston would've left.

It was an awful product for the fan of the team getting the short end of the stick. That's a 15+ pt win with even semi fair officiating. The end goal was to have an exciting finish, which they did, but how many people were still tuned in after Akron was up by 20? It was a 10 pt game at the half only because of a BS technical on Ali Ali and weak fouls on Akron. Akron ran an 8 man lineup last night, and for most of the 2nd half, we had 3 guys with 4 fouls, and an additional ~3 guys with 3 fouls. Someone else mentioned that Kent made adjustments and came out more physical, but the only way to stop physicality is with physicality. If you have 7 of your 8 players in foul trouble, you can't be physical. It drastically changed how we could counteract their physical game plan in the 2nd half. @NWAkron claims I have Kent Derangement Syndrome. I don't, but I do loathe PCCC. Yes, we won. But it's Kent. If we have the opportunity to pulverize them, I want to. I want them to feel embarrassed that they exist as a "university". That opportunity was stripped by screwy officiating in my opinion.

Even if that's the only post he makes weekly, it would be a positive contribution to the board. It's 11:50am and...

For those who didn't watch, the game became close when the refs controlled which team was able to play care-free, lockdown defense, and which team had to play smart, non-physical defense due to foul trouble. It was a 20-9 advantage in fouls at one point in favor of Kent. There were 2 very weak technically on Akron, zero on Kent. This led to Kent being able to penetrate the paint more easily, which Akron then had to somewhat collapse towards, which led to wide open 3s. To PCCC's credit, they made a huge chunk of those 3s in the 2nd half, especially late, but those are more contested with potentially different outcomes if the refs don't completely alter the game and throw Kent a bunch of life preservers. It's frowned upon to complain about the officiating, but this was an instance where it was physically visible how the officiating discrepancy affected the game. Abhorrent officiating. I also don't understand how any school that claims to have an ounce of dignity could be proud of Pinky. Winningest coach in PCCC history, yet he has a worse winning percentage than Groce at Akron despite never going through the type of rebuild Groce had to when he took over the program. Pinky's program year in and year out is an embarrassment. Although I guess that is the true embodiment of We Are Kent State. From the Akron Diss Track that was proceeded by a 20 of ass whooping in the MAC Championship game, to the altercation between his plays and the Rowdies at the JAR, to Payton's public claims in the ABJ that were proceeded by an absolute no show by him and pure domination by Freeman. This is a school whose students twice held up signs to the Rowdies that read We Suck and Felons R Us, and Pinky has been at the helm for some of Kent's most embarrassing moments. Nevertheless, we prevailed (without Tribble and Nate to boot). Kent sucks eggs.