phil

Athletic There I said it. The A word. And I am not referring to the opposing team. Last night we were the athletic team. We beat Can't 3 times because we were quicker, could outrun, outjump them and outmuscled them. We did not lose to the west division because of our athleticism. Did you see Zeke run the floor last night and dunk the ball. That is the move of an athlete. Keith has never had an athletic team like this one and it will only get better next year. If Keith can get these guys to work hard and share the ball, the sky is the limit.

Give Keith credit for the quick foul shot. That was brilliant and gave us a chance to win the game. We had 2 chances to hit a 3. Good luck to the seniors.

What a great game. Compare this to a game against Miami. The refs are also letting them play.

Their jump shots aren't falling and we got a game. Keep it going!! Go Zips!

The Zips are playing hard. Look at how they are controlling the boards. NW is just making all of their jump shots. I don't think that can continue. We need to keep attacking them down low. Zeke looks tough. We need to make our shots in the paint. Hopefully we can come back in the 2nd half. Go Zips

I am disappointed that we did not get a home game. We have a higher RPI than Northwestern. Why can't the NCAA realize that this would be a big game for Akron because a big 10 team will never come to the JAR to play Akron. However, I wonder if we had the home game if we would draw 5,000 people. I remember going to our last post season playoff game and we didn't even fill the lower bowl even after they told everyone in general admission to move down to the better seats. I think the team should be ready for this game since they are playing on national TV against a Big 10 team. I would love for Akron to advance in this tournament. GO ZIPS

What an ironic end to the game. The Zips have struggled at the line all season. When Alex tries to miss a foul shot, it goes in. Keith was right, the ball just did not bounce our way.

I am hoping that Akron gets their first Nit home game and the University does everything possible to fill the jar. There were 10,000 people at the Q last night and I am estimating around 7,000 Akron fans. We need to get these fans to the jar and create some excitement. Akron should run the same promotion as the MAC tournament, free admission with an expired Ohio lottery ticket or some other offer from a local merchant and have the lower bowl at $10 a ticket. The last time we hosted a tournament game the attendance was terrible and the team was flat. It is time to get the Ohio game behind us and think Big Apple

I take the Zips by 5, 70-65. I looked at the Ohio Box score against Buffalo and they had 2 players playing 36 minutes and 2 players playing 30 minutes. In the Toledo game they had Baltic and Kellogg playing over 30 minutes. Cooper did not have a good 2nd half as his shots were not falling and he scored only 3 points the 2nd half. Buffalo was clearly the better team the 2nd half. Their game did not end till midnight. The Zips should have fresher legs as only 2 zips, the Serb and Alex played over 30 minutes. For those complaining about the format, the format gives the Zips an advantage, one less game and the earlier semifinal. If the Zips play as well as they did against Can't, we should be dancing. Go Zips!

give me a triple overtime win by either team. That should tire them out for tomorrow.

I thought the reason for the new format was to give the best teams in the league the best opportunity to get to the NCAA and then have fresh legs when they got there and then advance in the tournament. A MAC win in the NCAA tournament would look good for the league and we need every advantage we can get.

I just saw the highlights of the Buffalo game in another posting and they had a good view of the offensive foul on Alex at the end of game. Alex beat his man and the secondary defensive player had one leg in the arc when Alex ran into him. I wasn't sure of the rule so I looked it up and it indicates that there cannot be an offensive foul if a secondary defender has one leg in the ring. It looks like the ref made the wrong call when you look at the video. Bad calls are part of the game but I wonder if the ref makes the right call could we have pulled that one out

I thought Toledo looked very good when we played them. They could keep going.

Keith deserves this honor. The one thing that has benn constant under Keith's program is that his players improve dramatically between their freshman and senior years. Nate Linhart, Dru Joyce Steve McNees Jerimiah Wood graduated as vastly improved players as a result of Keith's coaching. The Serb has improved his game and his temperment since his freshman year. Look how much Zeke has improved since his freshman year. With past coaches in the Akron program, you did not see the vast improvement of play that you see with Keith. Even Tree's game has improved a great deal during this season. He has my vote. (if I had one)

I think Zeke took his first 3 point shot of his college career. It didn't go in but it was not an ugly miss. At the next time out Zeke went over to the bench and instead of getting dirty looks, Keith smiled and gave him a pat and Zeke's face lit up in a smile. They looked like they were laughing. I think I saw Zeke smile more in the second half than the reat of the season. He had a great second half and never got down on himself. Hopefully, he starts to understand to stop getting down on himself. This team seems to explode after he blocks a shot.

There was a lot of one on one basketball in the paint tonight. Tree was 5 of 13, almost all in the paint. Zeke also had numerous opportunities in the paint. We got the ball down low but could not finish. We also did not have many layups off passes tonight. I thought Buffalo played hard and earned the win. I think keith is taking the right approach in order to instill confidence in this team. They win 2 at the Q, nobody cares who won tonight.

Very disappointing game. When we were down by 3, I was hoping for a quick 2 or for Walsh to take a 3. My friend wanted Alex to take the 3. Keith calls a time out and then Nitro takes a quick 3 about 5 feet behind the 3 point line. His shot does not reach the rim. How many times have we seen that this season? Not a smart play. I did not like the lineup when Tree got his 4th foul. He had in Harney, Nitro, Gilliam, Alex, and the Serb. Except for the Serb, none of those guys are strong rebounders. That group did not do well and we went down by 6. When you look at the stats and see that Q played 30 minutes and did not score and Gilliam did not score you can understand why we did not win this game. I think that Zeke needs to get some easy points and that is just not happening. He is having a tough time finishing at the rim. Having lost 3 of 4, this team needs to regroup. I have tickets to the Can't game so now the season title will be on the line. This team has the talent to win but now we will see how they respond under pressure.

I am wrong that Keith has tarted seniors on senior night although in this case I wonder if Keith would do it since Nitro has been a starter in the past and it may help his confidence. I did not know that Peterson was a senior. Is he a scholarship player or walkon? This is a pressure game for the Zips since they can claim the first seed, they can erase the memory of their poor play at OU, and a win will give them momentum for the game at Can't only 2 days away. I think Alex is the key in that he controls the flow of the ball on offense. I did not think we handled the double team at OU real well and their seemed to be too much dribbling and not not enough movement of the ball. We only had single digit assist for the game. On defense we need to stop the penetration, especially at the guard position. I hope we have a good crowd tonight. Go Zips!

I am looking forward to the game tomorrow night. For those of you that want a new starting lineup will get their wish. I expect the Keith will start Nitro instead of Gilliam because it is senior night. Last year this team came up big toward the end of the season. We have lost 2 out of the last 3 and just got blown out by Ohio U. This is a big game to clinch against a quality opponent that beat us last time we played them. If this team is going to win at the Q or win a game in the NCAA now is the time to come out strong against Buffalo. I am hoping that Nitro and the Serb have big games on Senior night. I cannot think of a better way to finish your last home game than by winning the MAC championship.

If there is anything good that came out of this game it is that the Zips hit almost 90% from the foul line. Nitro missed the front part of 2 one and ones and the Serb had a miss. Everyone else was perfect. Nitro hit 2 3 point shots. Maybe he will regain his touch. We did not give up the last few minutes and the guys on the floor played hard till the end. Ohio looked much quicker than us tonight. There were a lot of dunks by Ohio, especially on the offensive end. They spread the floor real well. The only trend that worries me is that Alex need to keep his man in front of him and play better D. When he gets beat it seems to put the entire defense out of position. We need to recover for a big game on Wed.

The first half of the game on Wed moved very quickly because there was hardly any whistles. The refs did a great job in letting the players control the game. The second half moved a little slower but I thought the entire game was reffed extremely well. Somebody told me that one of the refs was from the Detroit area and does Big 10 games. Zeke did not have any fouls the entire game because the refs did not call any cheap fouls. I get tired of refs calling a hand check 40 feet from the basket when it does not affect play. I am hoping that the same ref crew will come back and ref at the Q.

I hope they go somewhere else. We went last year took forever to be seated and they then got our order wrong. They were not ready for the number of Zips fans.

Except for a 2 minute period at about 4 minutes left in the game when the Zips tried to stretch the clock out, I thought this was one of their best offensive games. They moved the ball around well and were scoring around the paint. They were also hitting the offensive boards. Zeke had his best offensive game and made some nice offensive moves around the rim. He also hit a wide open J. We were also hitting our foul shots. My only complaint with our defense was that Alex had difficulty staying with his man and when someone came over to help it left the Zips at a disadvantage. I know Keith is not happy with his defense but he had a great steal at the end of the game that won the game for us again. He has made some clutch defensive plays this year at the end of games. Offensively, I am not sure what else we can ask for except better shooting from the 3 line.

I thought Nitro had a good game even though he still is struggling with the 3 ball. He drove to the basket, had a couple of nice assists and crashed the boards picking up an offensive rebound. All of his shots were open and he was not forcing them. I was surprised to see the 3 turnovers. I know one was on a charge that I thought could have gone either way. Looking at Dave's stats, I think he needs to adjust his game to coming off the bench. I am sure that is tough on the psych of a senior to watch your playing time diminish but this is a very talented team. I think it would help his game to move in a little and hit some open twos till he can find his shooting touch behing the 3 line.

I think Dave in Green makes a great point. His minutes are down from last season and he feels like he has to shoot quickly and shoot well from 3 point area to stay on the floor. That is difficult. He has forced a lot of quick 3s this year. I hope he realizes that he can contribute in other ways besides hitting the 3. That would help the team.