clarkwgriswold

Bates has scored 8 points, given up 28.

Eastern is LAST in the MAC in team defense and the broadcast guy says 'if there's one weakness in the EMU defense is that they bite on pump fakes." You can't make this **** up.

Nate is feeling it! @1981 grad woke him up!

Yikes. Another double foul.

At least he puts pressure on the defense, unlike everyone except X and Enrique.

Uninspired effort by the Zips so far.

Bates 35 feet from the ball, on the opposite side of the floor, clapping his hands to call for the ball. LMAO.

Nice crowd.

Sammy pretty active.

Sammy in.

I noticed that. Waiting to see of Sammy comes in or is out sick.

https://gozips.com/news/2023/2/13/mens-basketball-akron-travels-for-rematch-with-eagles

Wow, good info. From reading on here I was under the impression that the program was suffering from a lack of support, financial and otherwise, from the administration. That does not appear to be the case.

Here's to Greg Tribble getting up in Emoni's grill and frustrating him all night. I think a smaller faster aggressive defender is the way to combat Emoni. Lord knows that coaching staff won't think to post him up!

I love Enrique. He's a great player at this level. However, there's a name for 6'7" guys in the NBA- small forward. He doesn't have the skill set to play the 3 in the NBA. He may well have a nice career in Europe, but it won't be in the NBA. He's also in for a great future outside of basketball. Very smart, great personality. I'd buy stock in that kid.

Here's one. It's not the one I was thinking of but it's still pretty good.

I think the times are a little different too. There's not nearly the emphasis on having a big man (6'9" and up) that there was 10 years ago. Coaches want mobile kids that can get up and down the floor now. Also, KD was here for 13 years and really had only 2 premier big men (Zeke and Big Dog). All others were undersized guys that played bigger (e.g. Travis, Treadwell, Wood...).

Groce certainly gets no credit for getting Freeman to Akron but should get a great deal of credit for his development. All you need to do is see his old Akron Canton Pro Am league tapes to understand that development.

Same here. In 23 games I've gone from thinking the program was improving to thinking the program was going sideways to now being concerned it's going backwards.

Nate also plays much bigger than his 6'3" height and that's very much helped in the absence of reserve bigs.

I'd be more concerned if he was 2 or 3 years in and lacking that assertiveness/confidence, but he still has time to develop it.

He has stretches where he looks like one of the best players on the floor and stretches when you wouldn't even know he's on the floor. That's part of being 18 or 19 years old in your first real season of D1 basketball. The thing I find most concerning is that he's already pressing Sammy for time, which is not a good comment on Sammy's contributions.

I think the Zips lax defense is probably still better than about half of the defenses in the MAC. As much as I hate the 2 losses in a row, this team is about what I expected heading into the MAC season and I need to keep that in mind. This team has two stars and a bunch of otherwise very average talent. The team just doesn't have the talent of the teams of the last 3 seasons. Ali, Dawson and Bandaogo would make this a different team. That's not to say the young kids won't develop into something special in time. What this team has in spades is heart and character and that will pull them through to some gritty wins (like PCCC) but the below prior standards talent can result in what we've seen in the last week. We'll survive and the kids will play their hearts out.

I read something that said it had to do with hazing. Yikes.

Groce pretty well sums it up in the Beacon article- “We have got to get better on defense,” UA coach John Groce said. “Our defensive numbers have been putrid for about the last five or six games other than the Kent game. We have got to be a lot better on that end of the floor.”