1981 grad

X is playing great. We need him to play at this level. How unusual is it for us to score the last 8 points of the half. Very good half for the Zips. Need to keep the metal to the petal in the 2nd half and grow the lead to 20.

I do not like Clark's defense. He keeps getting beat causing our team to collapse in the middle. Luckily, they are not hitting their 3 pointers. Move your feet and keep your man in front of you.

2 great blocks by Freeman. Refs are letting them play. On his dunk it could have been a foul. Good for the refs to let them play.

Terrible spacing with Aziz and Freeman. Aziz needs to get out of the lane. His man is doubling Freeman and when Freeman gets it to him he freezes

You must be the guy from the movie Titanic telling everyone to get on the lifeboats. I still think this ship is afloat. Only one of us is going to be right.

We have lost 3 in a row and have only one day rest and a trip to Michigan. In the best of circumstances this would be a tough game. What are the predictions for this game. I am an optimist and I predict a close game but the Zips win and X comes out of his slump and scores in double digits. Zips win by 4. However, I could also see this team playing another lethargic road game and losing in a blowout. Give me your predictions with who wins and by how much. And for those people on this board who think the sky is falling, the Dukes have lost 11 in a row and most of the losses have been blowouts. https://triblive.com/sports/duquesne-men-lose-11th-game-in-row/

All the above posts are great. I am more optimistic than most on this board. We just lost 3 close games and one of the games was to Kent which is the hottest team in the MAC. Basically, we have sucked in the clutch. Last night X caught a pass and his foot was out of bounds with a minute left in the game. We still had a chance to tie it when Ali tribbles the ball into his own foot. At Western, we had a 6 point lead and blew it in the final two minutes with some horrific passes and Freeman missed 2 crucial foul shots. At Kent, we had 3 empty possessions down the stretch and still could have won it if X had passed the ball to Ali who was open for a three. This team is struggling the last 2 minutes of the game where earlier we executed at the end of the game. I believe our defense is good enough to win but our offense has failed to on too many occasions. Also, it is difficult to watch. As somebody pointed out earlier, we do not push the ball up the court. If you watch Freeman rebound, he is not looking for a quick outlet but secures the ball and we walk the ball up the court. This offense has a lot of movement but in most cases the ball still ends up on the perimeter with 15 seconds on the shot clock. We need a LCJ type guard that can bread down defenses. We see a lot of one on one action with Ali and Freeman. However, it is rare that we see a pass to a cutter or a back door cut. Instead it is usually a kick out to the perimeter. X, Trimble and Dawson went 2 of 15 from 3 point distance. Shooting the 3 has been a problem most of the season and Trimble has been a problem. Bring him off the bench did not improve his shooting. Obviously, we need much better play from X. Clark has played better but he has not been able to penetrate the defense like last year and I hate the way he dribbles 40 feet from the basket with no purpose. I would like to see Tribble shoot more. I watch him practice between the halve and he makes everything. Obviously, he can't do much worse that what we already have. I believe this team can still have a winning season and win in Cleveland if Groce has not lost the team. I watch him get upset on the floor and if the players no longer have faith in him and do not want to play for him anymore then I do expect this downfall to continue and Akron will watch the tournament.

Uncoordinated? A 6 foot 7 guy being the leading rebounder in the MAC and one of the leading rebounders in the country is uncoordinated? I will respectfully disagree.

I am going to state the obvious. This team is in free fall. We need some decent guard play to lead this team. What happened to x. He had another bad game. It seems like it takes forever to get our offense moving. Groce talked postgame how we shot over 50% in the first half. However, we had 9 turnovers that included several time clock violations. Freeman sets a screen, cuts to the hoop but never sees the ball. It just seems the ball stays on the perimeter. Very few easy shots on offense. We just do not have anyone that can break down a defense. Several times Tribble drives to the basket and has nowhere to go. I like Tribble but he afraid to shoot the ball. Very one dimensional I think we shot 25% from 3. Finally, when I look at the players they do not look like they want to be on the court. Very little enthusiasm. If this continues we may not even make the tournament.

Crappy night, crappy team, Thursday game = crappy attendance. I will be surprised if the jar is half full. Does anybody think the students will come back in force after the last 2 games?

Did anyone else notice how we choked this game. Not as bad as Western at Akron where they blew and 11 point lead in the last 90 seconds but we blew a six point lead with about 2 minutes left. It was a team effort. We had some absolutely terrible passes by Trimble, Dawson, and X. Freeman missed 2 crucial foul shots. There were some missed shots and no offense the last 2 minutes except for an X three that was too little and too late. Teamism at its worse. I thought prior to this game Akron was playing its best ball of the season. This team is capable of playing well and we just have to play our best ball in Cleveland.

Great post!! We cannot win without X playing well. If he dishes the ball to Ali on the last possession and Ali makes the 3 I do not believe they would lose to Western. They played their worst game of the season yesterday. I still think this team can advance in Cleveland. Kent beat Toledo at Toledo and the Zips had the opportunity to beat Kent. This team has some offensive weapons. They just took the night off yesterday. Lets see how we do tomorrow.

If it were easy being a die hard Zip fan, everyone would be one. We always have a game on the road where we play like crap and tonight was it. I think the guys were still upset about losing the Kent game. The bad free throw shooting, no movement off the ball, the terrible passing. This was a team effort. Freeman was the only one to play well and he missed 2 crucial free throws down the stretch. Absolutely no rhythm to the offensive flow. Hopefully, they can recover on Thursday and not go into a free fall at the end of the season. Really expected more from everyone on this team.

Is it me or does it seem that we seem to start every 2nd half with a Trimble missed three. I am not complaining, at least he did not hit the side of the backboard like Ali. If this team was playing a better opponent we would be down double digits. We just need to continue to play great defense and get the ball into Freeman and hope they somebody will find the range.

I just do not understand why we cannot get the ball inside into Freeman. We did not do it in the first half at Kent and we are struggling again to get the ball inside to him again. Big 3 point baskets by Trimble and Ali. Western Michigan cannot get any rebounds in their zone. Lets hope they go back to it. The first part of the first half was brutal to watch offensively. We just miss a bunch of wide open shots.

Although we are one game behind Kent, they still must face Buffalo, Ohio and Toledo. Akron only has Ohio left on their schedule. However, this means absolutely nothing if Akron cannot beat Western Michigan tomorrow.

I heard Freeman on post game radio talking about AZZiz and how they are best friends and how he thinks Azzis is going to be a great player. He then said you can tell that some players are going to be really good and that some players just never get it. I immediately thought of Kostelac in that latter group. I wish him well but I do not believe he ever made it as a contributor.

I still think this team is playing their best basketball of the season right now. The only problem is that they have been cold from the 3 line while their opponents have been shooting better from the 3 line. I did notice that when Akron switches on a screen we often end up with Aziz on a shooter and it is a total mismatch. Aziz give the shooter too much room and he shoots a wide open 3. How will the Zips react after losing to their rival at home and then having to travel to Michigan? I see this game as crucial for the Zips to stay in the top 4 for the tourney.

Winner Winner Winner!!!!!!!!

I watched the replay and in hindsight he should have passed the ball to Ali since X had drawn the double team. He actually beat 2 guys but the 3rd Kent player forced him into a tough shot. Ali could have done a better job of moving without the ball and would have had a wide open 3. However, this is all hindsight. For the last shot I would want the ball in X hands. Kent played good defense.

I hate to say it but the Zips players also showed some less than exemplary behavior on the court. Ali made a 3 in front of the Kent bench and started talking to the bench. I saw some gesturing from Trimble after a few made baskets and saw him give a forearm to a Kent player and get called for an offensive foul. It was a dumb foul because the refs had just told him and a Kent player to cool it. It was down the stretch when we could not score and the game was tied. I will chalk it up to youthful exuberance and I think the college players are just mirroring what we see in the pros. Does anyone remember when a football player scored and gave the ball to the ref after he scored? My only concern with Kent getting in the face of the Rowdies is that LZIP is correct in that there is a risk of physical violence that cannot be tolerated.

I thought it was a great game even though we lost. We had a chance to win it at the end but failed to execute. Groce said post game that it was a 2 man game with Ali and X and that he thought X should have passed it to Ali. We also had a terrible possession at the end of the half. Our team has had problems when we have to hold the ball for the last shot. X does not have that explosive quickness to get to the basket like LCJ. I thought the main difference was that Kent shot the 3 ball better than we did. Tribble and Clark both air balled wide open 3 points attempts. We also had several possessions where we struggled to shoot the ball before the time clock expired. Remember, this is the first winnable game that we came out on the losing end. I was hoping that X would pass the ball to an open man for a winning 3 ball. Finally, I could care less about the Kent team getting in the faces of our students. Hey, that student section is great and it just shows that they were getting on the nerves of the Kent players. If the teams meet in Cleveland it will be another toss up. I thought we were very physical and did not back down from the Kent players. Great crowd. I think we had about 90% capacity. Best college atmosphere in 2 years.

The problem with Trimble is that if he is not shooting the ball well he does not add much to the team. He has one offensive rebound the entire season and has a very low number of total rebounds this season. He is not a great defender nor does he have great assists numbers. He is amazing when he is on. However, there is only one game against Western Michigan when he went inside the three point line and started scoring. If Groce's emphasis is going to be on rebounding and toughness, I would not be surprised to see him limit Trimble's minutes if he is not hitting from the 3 point line.

This is not brain science. We were 1 of 11 from 3 point land in the 2nd half, got outscored in the paint by 10 points and got outrebounded by 10. Based on our recent play I expect more points in the paint, better rebounding and less reliance on the 3 pointers.