LoyalZIP

They made a hell of a hire there. Bryan Hodgson.

Just by going off evidence I've seen, I would venture to guess that Groce/Ford gave him a call to gauge his interest/their interest and that's about where the connection went flat. But he could announce later he's a Zip. Who knows.

Looking at Ford's twitter, he hasn't "announced" any offer from Akron and isn't followed on twitter by any of the Akron assistants. I could be wrong, but generally those are pretty good indicators of interest level. I'd be surprised if he came here. He's got his fair share of suitors, that's for sure.

Owls to the Final Four. 35-3.

FAU living our dream right now. They had never won a tournament game before, and have completely punked Tennessee in the 2nd half. 34-3.

So Shammah Scott has committed. We've "reached out" to Bello, Terrance Ford (Ark. St.), and Kaleb Thornton (NIU). The Zips were not on Zid Powell's (UB) list of schools who have reached out. I've searched Twitter for more, but that's all I have come up with so far.

22-23 GLIAC Player of the Year

The fact that he was recruited previously tells me the coaching staff has known him for quite some time. This wasn't a situation where they saw some guy named Shammah pop up in the portal and a GA googled him. As soon as he entered, I'm positive Ford, Fulford, or Pridgen sent him a text.

Scott's career numbers: https://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/player/stats/_/id/5106652/shammah-scott Xavier Castaneda's career numbers: https://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/player/stats/_/id/4396641/xavier-castaneda As I said last week, recruiting the portal for schools like Akron is not quite as easy as a P5 school. Any player that puts up significant numbers at a mid major, or even high major, will land at a big school. That's just the way it is. The one exception in the MAC has been Sincere Carry, who was not even being recruited by Pink Fraud until he gave Pinky a call one day and said he wanted to play where his girlfriend plays. Reality is, sometimes you'll get a Maishe Dailey, sometimes you'll get a Xeyrius Williams, sometimes an LCJ, sometimes a Trimble. I like this pickup, I think it's got a lot of potential. And the connection makes sense. My biggest question now is what kind of piece will the staff go after next?

That was Southern Utah, not Utah Valley. UVU’s head coach is former Laker Mark Madsen. NIT Final Four is pretty cool.

He looks the part. Like I said when he entered the portal, not many numbers too look at or tons of games of film to watch, but he looks to be what the staff was looking for. And he’s a local guy. Let’s ride!

Not the most current record book, but this could help when cross-references with Sports Reference https://gozips.com/documents/2019/3/14/2018_19_Record_Book_WEB_.pdf

I always really liked Garvin. He was extremely important in the run to close out last year. His contributions as a freshman during the 2021 covid year were very impressive, but he did kind of plateau. His title game against Kent and then first game against Kent this year were awesome. He’ll have a nice roll of tape to sell to programs in need of a solid guard. Best wishes to him.

He is on the NCAA selection committee. If I had to guess, the committee may have sent a representative to each site.

I think Boals was enjoying his St. Patrick’s Day a little too much

Kent plays good D but blows offensively when Carry isn’t hot. Showed tonight. Color me surprised. Zips had a much better showing last year against a better team. Onto the off-season for the MAC!

Kobe is the first D1 player to enter the portal today! He's a great example of how recruiting is a game of odds. Obviously the coaching staff is going to try to "hit" on every signee, but reality is, there are some winners and some losers. When recruiting Ali Ali, for example, they knew they were taking a shot on him, but felt comfortable enough to do so considering how the roster was shaping up. When they were recruiting during Kobe's cycle, I'd be willing to bet that they were much more sure on Nate Johnson than Kobe. Best case scenario, you hit on both and they become big contributors. Worst case scenario, you miss on both and then you're in some trouble. Most likely scenario, you shoot 50%. The speed of the game was something that Kobe just couldn't catch up to. His lone breakout game came against Miami, in which he was very important to picking up that W. When he got minutes early in the year, his effort defensively was not there and he was lost. When he got minutes during league play, you could finally see that effort and he played really hard. Offensively he struggled because he was almost pressing so hard defensively that when he caught the ball he'd panic or rush a shot. I wish him the best, but like the coaching staff probably agrees, this is best for his future.

Kaleb Thornton, a solid defensive guard from NIU has entered Jalen Windham of Ball State joining Sparks in the portal. He was quiet for a lot of the year until he lit up Akron a couple weeks ago. The tape from that game alone may get him a nice roster spot somewhere.

Well done! Thank you @mes102 I’m completely in the dark about who’s being interviewed. What I do know is that Borseth would be a Joe Moorhead level hire. If I were in charge, the two names at the top of my list would be Megan Vogel, Borseth’s associate HC at Green Bay, and Pickens. Guzzardo would be an interesting name. I’m excited to hear this news, hopefully soon.

Some of his numbers as a freshman 10.8ppg, 2.2 AST/TO, 40.6% from three. Just wonder if he can play defense and how good of a teammate he is. They were a bad Sun Belt team, but he was quite efficient.

Toledo's EJ Farmer and Ball State's Luke Bumbalough have entered. Both rotation guys, not massive losses by any means.

Couple no-namers from Toledo have entered

It’s a great point that was brought up above, Akron won’t be scraping the bottom of the barrel for transfers, but they also wont necessarily be recruiting and/or landing guys that were studs at the schools they left. Off the top of my head, we’ve had XCast and XWill, Bryan Trimble, Maishe Dailey, LCJ, Deng Riak, Sammy, Hankerson, among others. Considering the numbers those guys put up at their last schools—save for Hankerson as a proven 3&D MAC graduate, you’re generally at this level going to be taking a shot in the dark. You hit, and you miss. Every once in a while, you’ll find a guy like Carry who’s a slam dunk talent, Dennis to a lesser extent but still a sure thing. Maybe throw Jason Carter in there. But a lot of the time, reality is a guy like Castaneda, who was rather forgettable for a lot of his first year with Akron. Groce recruits a very specific type of player—attitude, effort, defense. Yes, there are a lot of names in the portal. But you trim that down by flat out ability to play at this level, ability to guard, and are they a head case, and the number gets a lot smaller. Groce has missed his fair share, but he’s also used it to propel the program to some titles. My suggestion is to be cautiously optimistic no matter who he brings in during this cycle. Akron basketball can be a big adjustment.

Thank you for sharing. My thought back when they landed Prince was that they only grabbed him to fill up a scholarship late with the losses of Ali and Aziz. I was thinking Tavari would be redshirted with Prather, but the loss of rotation guys brought a need for Tavari to fill some holes in the rotation, even if not a forward like the other guys. I watched Mosengo in pregame shoot around a few times (wayyyy before the game) and he seemed like a hard worker. He took a lot of perimeter shots with varied success. He looks the part in D1, that is for sure.