phil

I don't care how bad the MAC team are this year. Akron has yet to show that it can win on the road. I hope that your analysis is correct and that the Zips can win the rest of their games but the history of the Zips is that they will have bad games on the road. The full court press does not seem to force many turnovers. We pressure the inbounds pass and then drop off until we double team the ball at half court. Although we are not getting turnovers it does seem to wear the other teams out since they do not have our depth.

I believe Ferrari called 3 of the 4 fouls against Zeke. One was a push in the back that I did not see althought it allegedly occurred right in front of me. Another was an offensive foul when Zeke set a pick and the player tripped getting around the screen. The guy in front of me stated that Zeke stuck his butt out. I did not see it. Does anyone know how badly Zeke is hurt?

great foul shooting by Alex and Zeke won this game. Way to pull out a close game!!

One more time, Alex has the ball for the last shot in the half or game and dribbles and dribbles and dribbles and takes a terrible shot. When are we going to figure this out!!!

The Zips were doing a great job of getting the ball inside to Tree and Zeke. Tree was easily beating his man and then dumping the ball to Zeke. He also had some great one on one moves. Alex had a great game both shooting the ball, not turning it over and getting the ball to the bigs. The last 5 minutes they started playing 4 corners with Alex dribbling the clock out and it started getting ugly. I wanted them to keep getting Zeke the ball so he could get his career high. He missed it by one basket. Great game.

Deji's block was amazing but I thought he got it off the backboard and it was goaltending. I looked at the highlights from gozips.com and they did not have the block so we will never find out. Alex and Benecourt still had too many turnovers. However, they did a good job of getting the ball to Tree and Zeke. This is one of those games when everything was falling for Harney. Everyone did a nice job on the boards. CSU did a terrible job rebounding. Most of the time the Zips were fighting themselves for the rebounds. Coach indicated that Deji has been playing well in practice. This team needs another guard who can move the ball and slash to the basket.

Zeke has always been a much better defensive player than offensive player. This year he has done a much better job of scoring down low when he gets the ball near the basket. One of the TV commentators in the Puerto Rico tournament noted that Zeke was getting the ball to far away from the basket. His jump hook or shot going away from the basket was not very effective. However, when Zeke gets the ball low he has been very good going strong to the hoop and either scoring or drawing a foul. The problem is that this team does not do a good job getting the ball down low to Zeke or getting him easy baskets. The Serb was quick enough to get free and then get Zeke an easy basket. Q was a slasher and dump a pass off to Zeke. Last year Rico was doing a much better job of driving to the basket and dumping the ball of Zeke. This year the ball movement and passing has not been good and I watch Zeke battling underneath and not getting the ball. He is getting worn out by the second half battling for position when he does not get the ball. The other problem with Zeke is that he gets down on himself and always looking at Coach when he fouls somebody, misses a pass, or misses an easy shot. Even when he blocks a shot he gets upset he Akron does not gain possession of the ball. He needs to take more shots and start having some fun his senior year.

His last 2 games, 2 of 10 shooting for 8 points, 2 rebounds, and 2 assists in 54 minutes. Last year Walsh was a great rebounder who was not afraid to pound the boards. He was also driving to the basket. He needs to produce more with his minutes. I just don't see him getting the ball a great deal the last 2 games. Hopefully this team can get him more involved as last year I thought at times he was our best player.

I agree with you. We see more AA dribling and less movement of the ball. We have 2 good post players who are watching AA dribble the ball. Where is the ball movement or backcuts. This team needs to find a better way to attack the basket. Also, AA needs to find his outside shot. I don't think he made a jump shot the entire game.

What is with Brian Walsh? I saw him air ball an open 3. He is not doing much with his time on the court. What a difference from last year where I thought he was the most aggressive player on the court and a great shooter.

very disappointing. Alex turns over the ball too much. He picks up his tribble with nowhere to go or loses the ball in traffic. He did have several nice steals though. Poor foul shooting, we can't get the ball inside to Zeke in the 2nd half and Walsh not being a factor at all. I thought Tree played great but he missed 5 free throws. Gilliam had a great game from the outside. Would have liked to see him shooting the 3 at the end of the game. Hopefully, they will play better at home.

After Tree came in we are playing much better with 2 rebounders and 2 post players

Harney needs to learn to box out or to rebound. He is getting beat on the boards. Tree will be getting his minutes if he doesn't do a better job on the boards.

Both Tree and Zeke got hacked underneath with no calls. Makes me wonder what the ref under the basket is looking at when the defender is nowhere near the ball when the player gets fouled.

Just read the Yahoo summary about todays game and they indicated that with todays loss we are 0 for 25 against ranked teams since becoming a division one school in 1980. The did not mention the games we almost won.

We keep our o for whatever against ranked teams. I really thought this would be a competitive game. Our 3 point shooting was terrible. I also thought that Bentacourt had a bad game turning the ball over and taking some wild shots. I guess that is to be expected with a freshman playing before 17000 people for the first time. The killed us at the 3 point line. By far the best team we have played.

Thanks, I could not recall doing it. I think this could be the year and Sunday could be the day. The talent is there.

Creighten is ranked in the top 25. I think Akron has a good opportunity to win if they play well. (they certainly are well rested only playing one game in 3 weeks) Has Akron ever beat a top 25 team?

And Akron does such a poor job of marketing the team. All of the concession stands on the upper level were closed on Sunday! The line to get food at half was about 15 deep when I went to downstairs to get a drink. Nothing at half to entertain the fans who were there. (rubber ducks do not count) Did not see any advertising for this game or the team. (has anyone seen any advertising for this team?)

Whenever Akron honors their scholar athletes at the half of basketball game 80% of the students leave after the ceremony. How can you change that?

I have been watching Akron basketball for 30 years and I don't think the student support for Akron Basketball has ever been that great, especially early in the season when we play an out of conference schedule and the team we are playing is not from this area or a ranked team. You also have to remember that this was a weekend game and many students go home for the weekend. I am not making excuses, just explaining reality. I believe this team has tremendous talent and as they win more games they will get more students to attend the games. Unfortunately, the University does little to market the games to the students. I thought it was great to watch the students and the team gets together and do the "I do believe" chant at the end of the game. Hopefully, as more students have a fun experience, attendence will improve. I liked it when the team got the crowd going and it seemed to ignite the crowd. If this team beats Creighten next week you may see the numbers improve as there may be a buzz about this team.

"I like the Zips chances in any overtime game this season. In a tie game, the play ran yesterday is their best option to either win or extend the game without a turnover that leads to a last second shot for the other team." I think this comment sums up our strategy, get the ball to our best one on one player and let him create space and take the shot. My only problem with this strategy is that it hasn't worked. The shot yesterday by Alex did not hit rim. None of his last second shots have been close or he has not gotten the shot off. I would rather have a set play where Alex starts the offense with 10-12 seconds left and pass the ball to somebody where we could take a shot with 5 seconds left and then crash the boards for an offensive putback. I also like the idea of working the ball inside to Tree on Z where there is also a chance of a foul. I believe that worked last year although VCU came back and won it on a buzzer beater. I feel confortable with any of the 6 playing overtime yesterday taking a shot off a set play. I just do not like the "one on one Alex take the last shot" because of the poor results.

This year the Zips lost 2 games where they had the last shot in regulation for the win. Last year, they lost in the Nit when Alex took the last shot after dribbling out the clock. I have also seen him dribble out the clock at the end of the half and take a poor shot. Today Alex dribbled out the clock and then took a wild shot in the lane. I am thinking that maybe Alex dribbling until there are 4 seconds left and then going to the basket when everyone in world knows he is taking the shot might not be the best strategy. We are at least 0 for 5 with this play. Who on the team do you want to take the last shot and with how many seconds left on the clock should we start our offense?

It seems that when we have the ball with a full shot clock to win a game we hold onto the ball until 10 seconds and then the guard dribbling the ball tries a one on one move and forces a shot or we do not get a shot off. Historically, we do not have a good 10 second offense. It happened again last night when we never got a shot off. It is something we need to work on.

I don't think the Zips played defense that well in the first half. They got right in the face of the ball handler but then he seemed to have no problem blowing by the Zip player. I thought their guards were quicker then our guards and they were able to attack the lanes until one of our bigs closed it off. That is not the recipe for success. We were only ahead 8 points at the half. It is so difficult to judge a game based upon a division 2 exhibition game but our guards need to stop penetration if we are going to be successful. I did not think Betancourt was that great on D but time will tell.