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If you believe the 2014 team might be more likely than the 2010 team to rise to the occasion and get excited, and take a lesser tournament game more seriously, I'd contend that you haven't been paying much attention this year. Also, I pointed out that the previous CBI/CIT bid happened after only ONE trip to the big dance. How about assessing how fans and players respond to a bid like this after THREE recent big dance appearances? And this one is a road game against a pretty obscure opponent. Again, I'll take history over hope, until I see otherwise.

Dave, We have an example of how players and fans responded to this invitation when we received one previously, instead of someone's own personal speculation. And that was only after ONE NCAA appearance in this recent string. I'll rely on documented history as opposed to hope, until I see otherwise.

Over the last couple of days, I have totally bought into this conclusion after further reflecting on the game, and seeing what WMU did on Saturday night. I've also focused in on a pivotal part of the game. At that 10 min. mark after the Treadwell and McAdams dunks to extend the lead back to 15 pts., Hawkins called a quick timeout. The game turned dramatically after that point. even though it seemed the momentum favored Akron pulling away again. What a great move on their part. Had he allowed play to continue, would we have been able to exploit the back side of that zone again? Might we have been only a basket or two away from putting the game away?

Dave, It's just not a matchup I can get excited about. I can't imagine telling anyone "Hey..we beat IUPFW in the CTI" when reflecting on the Zips 2014 basketball campaign. Sorry. With the players, as I indicated earlier, you may not find that they'd publicly acknowledge a lack of enthusiasm. I'm sure they want to play basketball again, but do they REALLY want to play? Know what I mean? Are the results of the 2010 CBI a more clear indication of the desire for a program like ours, regardless of what might be publicly expressed or not expressed?

I just saw it. WOW. I'm getting excited already.

That's exactly what I was referring to.

Speaking of winning one of these "other" tournaments, what would it mean to us to win the CBI ?? We have discussed the value of going to the Final 4 of the NIT or winning the NIT many times over the years, but never the CBI.

That's a great question. Even if they all said "yes", are they being honest? My guess is that they accept it, because there is no other option if they want to continue playing.

I think this needs to be looked at from a number of different perspectives. The Players: I'm sure they love the opportunity to continue to play. The Program: There might be some benefit to future chemistry if you have a lot of returning players, like Akron does. There may also be a small benefit in recruiting by saying "we were selected to play in a post season tournament". The Fans: A total letdown when winning a low-level conference tournament and at least qualifying for the NCAA tournament is now the minimum standard, as it is at Akron. In fact, if the comments of some people on this board over the years are any indication, winning the conference tournament IS the reason why we play the entire season. Although I don't agree with this, I still believe that NIT is probably the least acceptable alternative that you can really be happy about. And the fan interest in these other two alternate tournaments in the past would seem to support this assessment.

I never had a doubt that we played great defense against these guys last night. Just needed a few more free throws or a couple more baskets.

Looking ahead to next season, I don't see why some of these media hacks are thinking that Akron is going to have a drop-off when they lose one Senior and have nearly a decade of consistent success and stability.

Here's the reality. One summer is very unlikely to suddenly turn historically bad free throw shooters into good ones. Maybe a couple of people can show some improvement. That's about all you can ask for. The only other option a coach has is to have the better FT shooters on the floor. But, is that the best thing for our overall performance?

I don't know where you heard this, but EMU has a ZERO chance of getting an NIT bid. They've lost 14 games, and are the 6th best team in the MAC this year. You obviously heard this erroneously.

Speaking of one on one play, Tree absolutely needs to learn when to pass the ball out of the post. If he's going to force his way in, you have to be a good free throw shooter. Additional Note: We've known all season that we are at our best offensively when Tree and Diggs and Harney make baskets. We got nothing from Harney, and Tree and Diggs had bad shooting nights. With 34 points at the half (thanks mostly to Deji) you should accidentally be able to hit enough shots in the 2nd half to win a low scoring game like that.

No doubt. An average FT night, and the game was over. And think about how many of those were front ends of 1 and 1, where we would have had even MORE attempts to score points. It was a game you simply could NOT lose if you kept feeding the paint AND making the FTs. We didn't take care of the 2nd part.

I like this matchup for us, since we played so well against them up there when we were shorthanded. But, I hate the circumstances since we are playing a well-rested team. By the way, does anyone else grasp the fact that we should have a HUGE homecourt advantage the rest of the way with OU and Can't being gone??

Now now. Anyone in the MAC would LOVE to have McCrea. And I'm as Blue and Gold as it gets, but I think the league's yearly POY award carries a little more clout than a title game MVP. I'm just happy that A-hole Hurley is OUT of the tournament. Although, beating him again would have been fun.

Tell me now....anyone...how HUGE it was to earn that bye?? We would have been one tired team going into tomorrow night. I was just thinking....how the heck do you beat a team that makes half of their 3-pointers?? That's easy....be the team that hits 58% of your own

Obviously, it wasn't a big deal in the end. But....if you say his toes rolled over the line while it was still in contact with a finger, then it should NOT have counted. So, don't hesitate to say that it should not have been take away.

We went to the line more because we kept feeding the ball into the paint. That was intentional.

More Interesting Stats from that 2nd Half: 50 points scored Only TWO turnovers Zips go on a 21-3 run when they trailed by 10 Both teams combined hit their first 7 3-pointers

That's now 5 of the last 6 against the Kitties

Bingo!!! That decided it. I knew we'd win this game as soon as OU started missing some shots.

They wore down. It just didn't happen until it was too late for me to have another HEART ATTACK !!!

Did we have any offensive rebounds in the first half? Or for that matter, many rebounds at all? These guys are flat-out beating us to the ball. EDIT: I see it now.... OU - 8 offensive rebounds Akron - 1