LoyalZIP

Is that LCJ??? Tough night for Sammy. Far from a liability though.

I like to use them as an example of “hiring Rick McFadden.” While Whitesell does have plenty of HC experience, it was obviously an attempt to continue to chase the Oats magic. Hodgson who went to Bama with Oats was the guy who recruited most of the big talent at UB. Bad, bad move.

X could pull up from the locker room and I’d expect it to go in tonight

On a night where he’s benefitted from plenty of calls too!

Sure did. Another tech on the opposing coach. This one’s probably strategic to get them fired up.

We have to have the lowest shooting percentage in the country on run-out layups. 2 missed already today and more offensive rebounds surrendered.

No Kobe or Amani sightings in the first half. I liked Clarke’s contribution. Tavari as well. Nate Johnson all over the place (in a good way)

The Zips are among the few teams playing defense tonight. Has EMU finally woken up? Is Kent sleep walking? Interesting night in the ol’ M-A-C

Weathered the storm and put together a stellar final minute. If only we could’ve cashed in on a bucket at the buzzer. Excellent shooting and half-court defense mask the Bulls’ ability to poke the ball loose and make nice hustle plays to get rebounds. Lots of ball left to play. Keep it up!

Agreed. Not the best effort on the boards. Certainly some missed fouls but still way too many offensive rebounds for the Bulls.

This is shocking

Buffalo lacks skill but fights like hell on the boards. If the Zips cool off (of course Hank buried one after an illegal screen) this will be a dog fight.

Just as the scouting report indicated!

Someone test the ball for grease. This is insane!

Zips not doing the little things well thus far. Bulls getting tons of loose balls and rebounds.

This is the usual. Joe said himself a lot of the staff is young because the salary pool is pretty low. You’ll naturally have a decent amount of turnover with that. And as far as the NFL thing, he will have the opportunity to leave for pretty much any job he wants, people will hire him regardless of what happens with him at UA. I think he’ll be here at least 3 more years, until his son is done with high school.

Virshon Cotton is still playing Division 1 basketball.

Caught wind of this a couple weeks ago but was surprised to see nothing of it on Twitter…til now. Big loss.

Bettors like the Zips. It's been bet up to -2.5. Similar thing happened with the OU game.

No question. I've got plenty of family from down that way who also attended.

When I was 15, an OU “student” who came to watch them get blown out at the JAR told me to suck his **** as the game was winding down. He was the kindest, most un-angry person I had ever encountered in my life!

Ohio just loves being in the middle of BF nowhere and wearing that as a badge of honor. But OU really is awesome. They have probably the nicest campus in the league, and the nicest arena. But haven’t won a football title in *checks notes* 55 years and just lost to rinky-dink Akron while giving up a 30-piece to a walk-on who wore braces last year as tournament MVP. Man, I’d love to be a Bobcat. Did you know they have 2 breweries in town AND a Taco John’s?!?! Best we can do is about 15 breweries and Swenson’s ☹️

The Bulls' only home loss in league play was to Toledo, and they didn't go down easy. Conversely, they've won just one road game in the MAC. Early in the year, they suffered many blowout losses. They've lost by 35 to JMU, 20 to UConn, 25 to Tulane, 18 to WVU (better game than the final score indicates), and a 21-point loss to Michigan State. After an undefeated first week of MAC play, they fell on the road to Miami and CMU by a total of 20 points. Tomorrow will be interesting for sure. And the way things are shaping up, teams like UB and OU could be matching up with some of the top seeds on Thursday. Things could get very interesting.

Over the next 3 games, Akron will be taking on their MAC tournament opponents from last year, not in the same order. I wonder if Groce is using this as a coaching piece at all, in that they need to recognize where they are in the moment as far as the bigger picture, while also going game-by-game. I would caution Zip fans from overreacting to the results on the scoreboard either way that the games go. This team is improving as the season goes on, just as we were hoping. A different role player is stepping up every night, the offense is manufacturing looks, and one of the three of X, Hank, and Sammy is coming in with a hot hand on any given night. Last week was fascinating. Both games were decided by about the same margin, but they were quite different. The Miami game was a slugfest that Akron played poor defense in, and was quite fortunate to win. X was heroic. Saturday, I think the Zips played pretty good defense and had control, they just couldn't bury the Bobcats. X had an off shooting night. All in all, a good sign when you can win those games. For this game tomorrow (and all of them at this point, but especially against these opponents), the Zips need to be focused. Absolutely locked in. Buffalo hasn't set the world on fire in the win column, but they are dangerous. They couldn't get anything going at Kent on Friday, but still managed to hang around all night. They are the fastest paced team in the league, but are fairly middle-of-the-road when it comes to offensive efficiency. Defensively, they're solid too. Their performance at Ball State last Tuesday, a blowout win for 40 minutes, they were outstanding. An outlier performance from a shooting standpoint. If the Zips keep the pace below 62 possessions or so, they force UB to get more makes on fewer shots. What makes them dangerous is their rebounding. They have the best offensive rebounding rate in the league. The Zips, on the other hand, are the best defensive rebounding team in the league. The Zips have put up the best defensive numbers through the first half of MAC play. If they keep that up tomorrow, it could all be for nothing if they can't limit UB's chances. So they keys to beating UB--control the pace and rebound! Scoring more points wouldn't hurt either 😉 Go Zips!!!

Unfortunately, UA basketball is invisible to Joe Akron. There is no marketing toward the general public, they don't hear about the Zips on the local news sports segment, they don't read GT since they don't get a newspaper. This is our new reality. Crowds haven't been consistently huge since the 19-game win streak in 2013. Unless it's Kent, there will be plenty of empty seats, many of them blue chairbacks.