1981 grad

I agree! He has the talent but I watched an earlier Butler game where he hit an opposing player in the back when the player had a breakaway. I think he was the one player last year who would occasionally look at the opposing bench after hitting a three. If he bought into the program he would not have left. However, I still wish him well and it is still interesting to see how former Zips do after they transfer.

As I indicated on Sunday, if we played as well as we did against Kent and Buffalo, this game would be a toss up. Against a good team like Toledo, you cannot go 0 for 15 behind the arc and expect to be in the game. it was not their defense, we had great looks and Freeman and Tribble were able to score from inside. It was our inability to score from the outside starting the game. We have seen this all season, the lack of consistency on offense.

When we are down by 30 Hunter finally finds his stroke. I just wonder if this guy just tenses up early in the game and it throws off his shot. When we were up by 30 against Buffalo he hit a couple of three balls. I know it sounds crazy but it makes me wonder especially when I hear he lights it up in practice.

I see your point in the second half. No way I thought we could stop Toledo. However, if we shot the ball decently like we did on Saturday I thought we could be in this game. We are 0 for 12 from the 3 line with most of those being open looks. If we hit 40% of those shots we would be in this game.

Hunter gets an offensive rebound under the basket. Instead of taking it up strong he dribbles away from the basket and loses the ball. That is just bad basketball. Take the ball up strong!!!!

Our wings, Hunter and Hankerson cannot hit a three and they give us nothing inside. We have seen this too many times this season. Tribble and Freeman are keeping us in this game by hitting inside shots. We closed the gap because Toledo finally started missing some shots. It is not that we match up badly with them, we just cannot shoot the ball. We need some consistent shooting on the road. Hankerson usually heats up in the 2nd half. This lead is not unsurmountable but we need to start hitting some 3 balls.

Great shot by Nate Johnson as time expired!!! Great drive by Clarke.

We have had a bunch of open looks. Starting out slow once again. We are playing well just cannot drain an open three.

If we play as well as we did against Kent and Buffalo than this game will be a toss up. We need contributions from everyone on the team. If Nate, Hankerson, and Hunter contribute on offense we should score into the 70s and have a chance to win. We know what we can get from X and Freeman, we need the supporting cast to step up. If they double and triple Freeman down low, we need to hit the 3 point shots. We control our destiny. If we win out, we win the MAC and get a one seed. That makes the tournament a lot easier since we would avoid Kent and Toledo until the finals if we advance that far.

I really enjoyed how the Zips played tonight. They started out hot from beyond the 3 line and when they cooled off in the 2nd half it did not make a difference. Both Hankerson and Nate penetrated tonight and scored inside. If Nate can become a 3rd scorer and Hankerson starts driving to the basket this team can really be good. I thought the defense was good and we killed them on the boards the first half and had about 8 more rebounds. Freeman and X have been outstanding every night. If they get support from the rest of the team we can play with anyone in the MAC. Great team effort and a great game to watch. If we can play like this in Toledo we could upset them at home.

Emani is showing some improvement. He went 1 for 9 jacking up three pointers against us. He went 1 of 8 jacking up 3 pointers against Kent. Why was that a national game of the week?

I do feel a little bad for their announcers. They have to watch this team over 19 times.

I cannot believe there is any discussion about him going in the NBA draft.

Am I the only one to notice but when Emani comes in the game they stop playing defense?

X is having an off game. He really has not taken that many shots and has not gotten to the foul line like he usually does.

Nate drives to the basket and now he has made 2 straight 3 point baskets. I guess he is a 2nd half player. (LOL)

As I have indicated before, Nate Johnson gets the start and really has not added much. He is looking to pass and really has not made one move to the basket. I know he is a frosh but I just cannot understand why Tavari is not getting some time.

Why would Eastern take a quick 3 from the corner instead of running clock. This has to be the worst coached team in the MAC or Emani decided to shoot it on his own. Either way, terrible look. Of course, we also did not run clock on our last possession. We have taken a lot of three balls tonight.

We are really playing bad. I would bring in Tavari, cannot do any worse than what is out there. We have been stuck on 13 for at least 5 minutes. No offensive flow against the worst defense in the Mac

I wish Sammy or Hankerson would learn to finish at the hoop. If they can't do it against this team it is not going to happen.

So glad we decided not to ban sarcasm on the board.

As much as Nate played against Ohio I am pretty sure Sammy is not sick

Gameday!!! Gameday??? Nothing quiets this board more than 2 losses in a row. We went from a high of beating Kent State to a low of losing to Ohio and Toledo. However, both Toledo and Ohio played really well in beating the Zips. A lot of the Zips wins came against teams that did not have great records and did not shoot the ball well against the Zips. The problems with this team is obvious, in the win against Kent we got production from the entire team. In the loss against Ohio, we got 8 points from the bench and Hunter was MIA. And although Hankerson had a good night scoring, most of his points came in the 2nd half when we were already down by 18 points. Although Groce complained about the defense, it is difficult to contain a team when they get hot from beyond the 3 line and that occurred in the past 2 games. We need a team effort tonight to right this ship. Go Zips!!

If you were his mom or dad, would you tell him to stay another year if he wants to make a career playing basketball? Would it benefit him to go pro, transfer to a bigger program, or stay at Akron? If he were undecided about making this a career, I would advice him to stay at Akron and have fun since he is not going to find a better coach than Groce and all the guys on the team are class guys. For most players their college careers are the highlight of their athletic careers since very few college players make it to the pros unless you are committed to playing in Europe where you may find less fans than in Akron. May not find that somewhere else.

I agree that Groce gets credit for developing Freeman. I still remember his first game. Skinny kid with skinny legs that I thought was just a walk on who would never see any time. However, my original post was that Groce was great at recruiting guards and KD was great at recruiting big men. Groce has yet to bring in a big guy that made a big difference although he has a short time frame compared to KD.