Blue & Gold

Made me awfully nervous at the end there. What on earth has happened to Rachel Martindale?

Agree. Much prefer the evening slot.

Holy crap. Tavari’s in the game. He isn’t sick, just no PT 😳

Love watching Dawson’s enthusiasm on the bench. One amazing team-ism dude.

Heath should be ashamed. Tavari must be under the weather? We really needed EMU to get our moxie back. Keep the confidence high, Nate!!!

Yes. He missed the shot down low, but it was nice seeing him pump fake & take it down there. He was also wide open rolling to the basket but Hankerson took the shot (and missed) himself.

Garvin in. He didn’t play much at Ohio IIRC.

There’s Sammy. He came in for freeman, who has one goul

Good point about Sammy possibly being sick. We’ll probably see following this timeout.

Nate over Sammy in the starting 5.

Think Stan Heath took the time to put together a little game plan tonight? Will the Emu's continue to guard Tribble out to the 3? Will the Emu's continue to guard Freeman one-on-one down low?

😳😳😳😳😳😳

Indeed. After the KSUcks game I was on cloud nine and posting like a madman... then ZN.o took a dump at the most inopportune time! 😭😭 But these last two losses have taken the p!ss out of me. Hopefully our players have much more mental toughness than I do 😂

I thought Ryan McClain looked pretty good two years ago. I was disappointed when he did absolutely nothing last year.

I'm not terribly surprised by his departure. Not sure he was college material, academically speaking.

I'd say stay at Akron! (Of course 😉) If it's in the cards he can make the League from the MAC. And, like lots of MAC players, he can certainly play professionally elsewhere (Europe) if the NBA's not in the cards, if that is what Enrique would want to do. And look at Ali Ali. The grass is not always greener. The psychological aspect of basketball is so important & Enrique has a familiarity and comfort level with everything at Akron - on and off the court - that, if I were him, I would be very hesitant to risk losing all that by transferring. On the other hand, with NIL money, I guess he could possibly make some money next year at a P5 while still in college. Idk. (I'm still getting used to the new world of NIL.)

If Groce gets Freeman to stick around for his senior year then I'll give him credit for recruiting Freeman.

Dang! EMU w/ #4 QB & #1 RB. The emu's beat out Deion Sanders & the Colorado Buffaloes for his services. They're seriously building quite the program up there. Buffalo stacking RB's like pancakes 🤯 And WMU landed a 6-0, 220 RB offered by Tennessee & Iowa 🧐

Agreed that Coach Groce doesn't get credit for Freeman. Has anyone ever been so lucky? Serious question without an ounce of hyperbole. Groce gets the guards. We've gotten spoiled with LCJ, Cheese, Banks, and now X. Simply top-shelf guard play. (Though, of course, I wish X had more help at the guard position this year. Losing Dawson was huge & I LOVE Greg Tribble but his complete lack of the outside shot is a serious handicap.) Looking to the future, I'm extremely excited about Tavari Johnson's potential. He can get into the lane at will & I think he's going to be an absolute KILLER when he's running the pick & roll... 🤞don't want to jinx him 😂

The way things shook out last year it felt like we had to run the toughest possible gauntlet. This year the MAC is deeper with parity so I don't think it really matters where we end up; it's going to be a tough 3 rounds any way the cards fall.

CMU really landed themselves a stud! And I thought EMU's QB's tape was spectacular. Can you tell why you rank Steele as #1 (especially over Ike Udengwu - I would have probably picked Ike as #1.)

Following one of our early games, after watching how Nate moves, and his explosiveness, and how he can pass the ball with either hand, I wrote something along the lines of, “We have 3 future pros in X, Enrique, and Nate.” I still think he’s got an amazing upside, but his lack of aggressiveness is frustrating. I have more confidence in Nate than he does in himself. *By “future pros.” I’m not saying NBA.