1981 grad

It sounds like you made the trip to Savannah. How many people do you estimate were in the stands for the final? Over the radio it was hard to tell the attendance. I remember last year there was a video feed in Las Vegas the place was empty. Not sure how these tournaments make money if nobody attends the games.

Has anyone ever get this stream?

Thanks, I am surprised there is a video of the game. But who is streaming this if the tournament director indicates there is no video?

I thought that Ivey has been outplaying Josh Williams and deserves to start in front of Williams. During the second half Williams could not keep his man in front of him and he scored several easy baskets. Josh seems to be a step slow on defense and undersized as a small forward. KD finally pulled him and Ivey finished the game. Josh is a great shooter but needs to work on his defense. I have also noticed that Kwan seems to start out fast but cannot make a shot in the second half. I saw it tonight and in the game in Youngstown. Kwan did play great defense. Jimond, Big Dog and Antino carried the team tonight. Michael Hugh also did well backing up Big Dog. He has a great deal of intensity for a frosh. Utomi played for 3 minutes, missed a 3 and then got pulled. I have seen it a million times from KD with backup players, one bad decision and your gone. I would have like to see him play more. I wish these bench players would understand that you earn minutes playing great defense. A quick 3 miss will get you to the bench in record time.

My apologies, missed your last post about the Ohio State game. However, after reading it I disagree that we should not schedule good teams. Playing good teams gives you a chance for an upset, gives KD an idea about the teams weaknesses, and prepares them for better competition which they will face if they get back into the tournament.

We did that at Ohio State last year in the NIT. The only problem is that we do not take advantage of the opportunity when it was presented.

I guess my point is that the current 3 guard offense, none of them can consistently penetrate to the basket. I watch Robotham dribble left, dribble right, but he has difficulty penetrating into the key and finishing. This was against an American team that was not athletic. Our starting guards should be able to blow by these guys. It just does not happen. Ivey has the size, speed and strength to finish. Kd lines him up on the wing but when he usually drives to the basket from the center of the court. When we do play athletic teams, I think that the current starting lineup will struggle unless they are hitting the 3 ball. I was hoping that Daniel was going to be good this year but time will tell.

The Zips strength is supposed to be our shooting, especially our 3 point shooting. We only shot 25% from the 3 point line and 36% from the field against a weak team. We had 17 more rebounds than American and we were more athletic and played with more hustle tonight. We started hot on the 3 point line and had a double digit lead early. I do not think we made a 3 point basket the entire second half. I liked Ivey's game last year and he played almost the entire 2nd half. He played good defense and had some nice drives and assists. Robotham had 3 turnovers and most of his points came from the line in the second half. Antino did not play much in the second half. I finally got to see Utomi play and he really did not do much in his 4 minutes of play. Not sure how much talent this team has if we do not hit the 3 ball. Kwan had some nice takes under the basket and led the teams in rebounds. He seemed to play with more hustle tonight than in Youngstown. I am hoping that Ivey becomes a starter and we are done with the 3 guard offense.

I went to the American web site and found that they are picked to finish 5th in the Patriot league and have lost their first 2 games. We seem to shoot better at home so I am hoping that our shooters will find their mark. I would still like to know why Utomi did not see any playing time last game and wondered if he was hurt or if it was just a coaching decision. I was looking forward to seeing him play. I expect the ball to go into Big Dog early and often tomorrow until they can stop the big guy. Based on our second half collapse at Youngstown it makes me wonder if conditioning had anything to do with our loss. Tomorrow we will find out if we were that bad at Youngstown or if they were that good. Go Zips.

I agree with you 100%. Antino is a point guard, not a two. He can drive to the basket and dish but wants to have the ball in his hand. He played his best basketball as a frosh when Noah got injured. I would start Antino over Noah. I see Noah as a distributor, but we just do not have any scorers around him that can create their own shot. It would be nice to see these 2 compete for the starting job. Hopefully, that would raise their play.

I think that KD needs to rethink his starting lineup. The 3 guard starters, cannot penetrate and drive to the basket. (Antino is the best at getting to the hoop but did little last night) Further, the starting forward, Kwan, is also a person that does not play close to the basket. It is Big Dog or bust. When they started to triple team Big Dog, he kicked it out to the shooters who were not consistently hitting the 3 point shot. Further, this team is not fast and we have few fast break points. The offense looks like the same as last year, play inside out and have shooters waiting on the wing for the 3 point shot when they double team Big Dog. However, no Jake or Reggie on the wing. I was expecting a more athletic team with Utomi and he never made it off the bench. Unfortunately, I still think that Robotham is a step slow on defense after his ACL tear. We need more speed and toughness on D. We will need the cupcake schedule in the beginning of the year at home to get this team on the right track. KD is a great coach and he will need to make adjustments if this team is going to be successful.

I would start Ivey over Josh since he is more of a forward and gives the team some athleticism and height. The 3 guards are great shooters but if they are not hitting the 3 ball, we look ugly like tonight. I noticed that as soon as Ivey makes a mistake KD pulls him but he has a much more patience with the starters.

I guess it is going to be a long season. Very unimpressive start. KD started 3 guards, Antino, Robotham, and Josh Williams. I do not think that any of them played well consistently well tonight. Kwan started hot and ended cold. Our offense is based on hitting the 3 ball. If we do not hit that shot we are going to have trouble. When we got close we shot quick 3 ball instead of working the ball into Big Dog. I thought Tavian, Big Dog and Jimond played well but that was about it. Once again Kwan relies on his outside shot and does not want to go outside.

I am surprised that we have not seen Daniel Utomi. He played a couple of games last year before they decided to redshirt him his freshman year. I wonder if he is hurt. We started with 3 guards, Robotham, Anitno and Josh Williams. Ivey was first off the bench and went on a scoring binge. Big Dog looks good and Kwan started hot but has cooled off. Youngstown is keeping it close and looks like a good game.

Bowling Green had been kicking the ball short the entire game on the kickoffs. That should not have been a surprise. No reason to let it bounce. That was the key turnover of the game. Wasted a great effort by our third string quarterback.

The defense has really stepped up this half. The only points scored by BG was on the fumble. It is great to see us stop the run.

We have life! Great pass by our 3rd string quarterback/wide receiver. Can our defense hold. We need to stop the run!

Midfield? Midfield? I would be happy to see a first down. Went the entire quarter without moving the sticks!

The defense actually made an adjustment after the first series. They were playing 10 yards off the receivers and that resulted in several first downs. In the second and third series they were playing right on the receivers. The defense has held 3 times forcing 2 punts. Now we need the offense.

I was wondering how somebody could get that wide open. We blitzed 6 guys and they had 6 blockers, nobody came close to the quarterback. The defender was reading the eyes of the quarterback and the safety was in the middle of the field. The receiver ran past the defender and was wide open. This defense cannot play with good teams.

We had 12 men on the field last week several times. At that juncture should have used a timeout and not given them a free play. Has anyone else noticed how quickly this game is being played as compared to last week when CBS did the sports coverage. I think they add an hour to the game based on the number of commercials. It is nice to watch a game in 3 hours. Also, great feed!

The strategy was clear: Our defense is so bad he did not want to give the ball back to Ball State if we did not convert on 3rd down since we were on our own end of the field. He did not want to be down 24-7 at half time. Our bad defense now dictates our offense. This is also the reason he did not go for it on fourth down. Against Appalachian State, Western Michigan and Ball State, this game is the first time we have seen the opposing kicker in the first half. That is the definition of bad defense.

I went to the game today. I did not expect us to win but I expected us to compete. We did not compete. Dropped passes, missed tackles, costly penalties and poor throws. We did not have a first down the first quarter. Our defense was bad. They spread out the receivers and kept throwing quick screen and they have 3 receivers to our 2 defenders and one of the defenders is 10 yards beyond the line of scrimmage. Their running back had a career high as he ran over our defense. It reminded me of Appalachian State where they spread the field and we cannot stop their offense. I believe our defense will be weak all season against decent teams like Appalachian State and Western Michigan.

I was sitting on the VMI side on the fifty yard line and their coach was pissed at Bowden when the game was over and we kept throwing the ball downfield trying to score. He was staring at Bowden across the field the last series and his body language was what the heck are you doing. He ran over from the sideline in record time to get in Bowdens face as soon as the game was over. Akron had a great fireworks display at the end of the game. I am glad I stayed for it. The sound system sucks. Every time they play a song with any bass with it all you hear is distorted static. You would think that somebody would check that out before the season began. As with most posters, was not impressed with Akron football. Way to many penalties and their defense was suspect. The VMI back caught several passes out of the backfield and you would think that somebody would eventually cover him.

I think KD is a great coach and we have first class student athletes at Akron. But the last 2 games were frustrating since I think we should have won both games if we played anywhere near our midseason form or how we played at home. When you look at the last 2 losses, you see that the team went away from what was working. In the last 2 games there was very little if any penetration from anyone. Everything was from the perimeter or from Big Dog. In the Buffalo game we shot only 2 foul shots the entire game and that was in the first minute. In the Ohio State game, Big Dog has 16 foul shots, Antino 3 and Big Dog 1. Basically we had almost no penetration from any of our guards except maybe Antino. Ivey played 5 minutes total the last 2 games. We have 3 small guards that are not very athletic, (Antino has some quickness) not good rebounders, do not box out well and have a difficult time penetrating to the basket. They are good passers, good shooters, and do not turn the ball over. However, when they do not shoot well, we are not going to win many games. I would liked to see Jimond play the 2 guard instead of the wing to take advantage of this ability to penetrate to the basket. Jimond played 5 minutes in our last 2 games and scored 4 points. Noah played 80 minutes in the last 2 games and scored 5 points. KD indicated he was going to play Jimond more and it just did not happen. For this team to reach the tournament we are going to have to win 3 games in 3 days. I remember after the Green Bay game how KD indicated that the team was tired and that is why they played so poorly. Kwan had a terrible game at Green Bay. Well the same thing happened at the Q. We need to learn to play tired, We need to have some back to back games. We had some great wins away in the middle of the season at Ball State and at Ohio. However, at the end of the season we lost at Kent and at Miami. We did not peak at the end of the season. KD is a great coach for Akron but this season was a season of 2 lost opportunities. Lets learn from our losses and get our first tournament win next year. Go Zips!