1981 grad

Speaking of alumni parents, I remember only one parent that used to post on this board and that was Kwan's mom. She was always very nice. I started thinking about Kwan and it looks like he has had a very successful career playing all over Europe and in Israel. I copied his Twitter picture and he looks great with a very handsome family.

I just wonder who is happier, Tavari who is having a break out season in the MAC and has an opportunity to go to the big dance or Nate who cashed a much bigger paycheck but is stuck on a losing team with no personal accolades such as MAC player of the year and no chance of an NCAA tourney. Money or fame? Difficult decision for 22 year old athletes.

Underwhelmed by college kids playing 3 on 3 basketball in front of the biggest crowd of the year. I am sure the red panda was booked.

I also felt the Lord's presence when the rowdies were yell F___K you to Kent.

Has anyone else noticed that both Scott and Tavari have step back jump shots that are almost impossible to defend. That is something new to their games this year. Also, Scott has been much more aggressive in attacking and finishing at the basket this year. That three point play where he got fouled and put the ball high over the defender was amazing.

I thought Cian Medley was a good player for Kent, very quick, and played really tough defense on Tavari. He had full court pressure on Tavari a few times and really made him work to bring up the ball. I was really suprised that he sat the bench the last 10 minutes of the game. He averages 10 points a game and we held him to 3. He did not shoot the ball well but the same could be said for every Kent player. Tavari leading the team in rebounds does not surprise me. One thing we are doing better is the guards coming back to the hoop looking for long rebounds. With Kent shooting poorly from long range there were a lot of long rebounds. Also, when I played street basketball there was a term, "following your shot" which meant after you shot you went toward the basket to get your own rebound. At least once a game an Akron 3 point shooter would pick up an offensive rebound if he would follow his shot, espcially when shooting from the corners. Finally, Kent missed a lot of open 3 point shots and shot 1 for 23. Maybe we start a new contest at the Jar: "the Kent challenge." Give somebody 23 three point shots and if they make 2 they win.

I learned my lesson in prior years not to park in the deck during the Kent game. Would it kill the U to have a police officer at the exit of the deck to get people out of the deck.

In the post game even the Groce agreed this was a strange game in that both teams struggled on offense. Akron got out of their shooting funk courtesy of Hardman but Kent threw up more bricks than I care to remember. They missed short shots, dunks, layups and shot 1 of 23 from distance. Yikes!!! I almost felt sorry for them. If we weren't turning the ball over and struggling ourselves on offense this would have been a blowout by the half. I am not sure our defense was the reason Kent shot the ball so poorly. Maybe the crowd and the excitement of this game was too much for the Kent crew. Kent had a hugh rebounding edge in the first half but it did not grow in the 2nd half. Maybe because Barre got more time in the 2nd half. I think Groce said it best in the post game that teams have to win even when their offense is not clicking. Finally, the game was very physical and I thought the refs did a good job in letting the teams play and allowing the physicality as long as they were basketball plays.

What better way to learn to be a coach then be a graduate assistant for Groce. Nick was a character when he played at Akron. We were in a close game and Nick was having a difficult time shooting the 3 ball and had missed his last 5-10 shots. At a critical juncture in the game he started lining up a three ball and everyone in the crowd starting yelling "NO" Nick smiled at the crowd while passing the ball. He was a good player while at Akron and glad to see him coming back.

I have been reading and posting on this board for more than a decade and this is the first time I can remember somebody posting that an Akron team is "more athletic" than Kent. On an unrelated note, I hope that they will bring back the cartoon where Zippy destroys all of the mascots for this game.

Toledo came out hot shooting the ball well and shot 73% from three. I have seen teams come into the Jar and have a hot first half where everything goes in and then struggle in the 2nd half. That is exactly what happened tonight and they shot 25% in the second half. I watched Halligan play really good defense on their quick guard. He really works hard on defense. Glad to see him on the post game show. I saw that he wanted to come out. He has a broken nose and it got bumped in the game and he was in a lot of pain. I thought Toledo played really good defense at the end of the first half and I was worried that would continue in the 2nd half but we came out on an 8-0 run. I thought we did a great job running down long offensive rebounds. I would like to see that in future games. Young and Hardman went for a combined 0 for 7 from the 3 line. I thought Hardman rushed his two three point attempts. Young's were open threes but just could not hit. I checked the stats and Young and Hardman are our worst three point shooters with Young shooting 29.5% and Hardman at 35.5%. I think Hardman is often a liability on defense although he tries hard he is just not very quick or physical. He only saw 15 minutes tonight. Tavari is so important to our offense that he played 37 minutes. He made so many difficult shots in the lane. I love the way he can penetrate through a defense. He is playing as well as any Akron guard I can remember in getting and finishing at the hoop.

The Timberwolves got blown out tonight and I checked the box score to see if Freeman got his first NBA action. Bad news, he was sent back down to Iowa. Good news, he scored 22 points and had 10 rebounds in their win on Sat. night.

As good as we played tonight, I still think this team has room for improvement. We did not shoot the ball well from three and we gave up 10 offensive rebounds. It appeared to me we rebounded better in the first half and we had numerous players crashing the boards. Also, we only shot 76% from the foul line. I thought Ohio had a lot of open looks from three but could not make the shots. Tavari was just unstoppable tonight. Lyles also had another strong game, especially on the boards and around the basket. Also, I have noticed when a team goes on a run, a player will just shut it down. Scott made a contested three and the lead shot up from 14 to 17. It seems all season that when a team mounts a comeback an Akron player will make a difficult shot even where there is good defense.

I find this conversation ironic in that dring the KD days we would be having a conversation about Akron getting an at large bid and then we would lose a game against a weak team and the conversation would end. I am sure Miami will pick up a loss during the season and this conversation will end. However, I would love to see them go undeated and lose to Akron in the finals and have the MAC be a two bid confernce.

I just checked the roster for last night's game and it looks like Freeman was active for the Timberwolves. He did not play because it was a close game but maybe he will finally get a chance to play for them: Enrique Freeman: DNP – Coach's Decision Rob Dillingham: DNP – Coach's DecisionLeonard Miller: DNP – Coach's DecisionJohnny Juzang: DNP – Coach's DecisionJoe Ingles: DNP – Coach's DecisionTerrence Shannon Jr.: Inactive - Injury/IllnessRocco Zikarsky: Inactive - G League - Two-Way