LoyalZIP

Then Santiago bailed them out. They were fortunate to survive on a bad night for Carry, thanks to a bad night for Norman from WMU.

Stan Heath should be fired on the spot. Wow. Has Huger ever beat a MAC team by 26 on the road?

Great to win like that without X. Freaking awesome. I didn’t think this group had it in them. They were on par with the worst team in the league, one of the worst in America, for 20 minutes. Then like a switch, the open shots went in, Enrique’s layups began to fall, and the D didn’t back down. 25 could’ve easily had 40 had he shown up in the first half. Man they’re bad. Feel bad for Hank, I wish he could’ve shot it better against them, but he played just fine. Kobe played some great D. Tavari took a step back IMO. Won’t be easy in Muncie. Whitford is no more. Go Zips!

Who’s Groce gonna kill for that one?

Wrist. Out tonight maybe Friday.

They weren't. Much like the 2017 Zips, they benefitted from some fluky results. They had a negative point differential in MAC play. They lost a pair of MAC home games by 30+ (Akron had 0 MAC losses of 30+ this year). Their postgame win expectancy vs. Marshall was like 14%. They squeaked by Akron with the help of a pick-six and Bobby Golden's punt return blunder. And if Toledo was simply *bad* at tackling, they would have lost that one too. Good on them like those 2017 Zips for winning the games, but the final results speak for themselves. A losing record, blowout losses, a loss to a 6-6 G5 team in the bowl. For UA, it was 2 butt-kickings by Toledo and Lane Kiffin naming the score in Boca. Scot Loeffler won himself a lame-duck year by reaching 6-6. Now with this mass exodus, it seems the writing is on the wall, barring a miraculous portal recruiting season. I encourage anyone curious on the situation to go read the BG board, Ay-Ziggy-Zoomba. It's nearly consensus that SL needs to go, but at the same time they realize they're stuck with him for '23 at this point. Really a terrible situation all around.

Marshall comes to Skeeles on May 10. Let’s give him a warm UA welcome that day.

-13.5

Total douche.

Canton is awesome. They’ve really begun to turn that into a nice destination at the HOF, and a bowl game there would be great. For one, it’s the freaking pro football Hall of Fame! It’s in a great football area, close to a couple of airports, the game is played in an NFL facility. Make it happen!

Though we haven’t come out the gate like I expected to this year, we’re still in decent shape and have at least not lost a bad head-scratcher (yet). We’ve been begging for a tough nonconference schedule for years and we got one, and it showed. I don’t think this has been a result of lack of skill, it’s just taking the new pieces longer to gel than I would have hoped for. With that said, there have been instances where the defense allows far too many open jumpers, and I still have a really bad feeling about the big man position as a whole. Anyway, tomorrow is a great opportunity. In MAC play, the days of expecting to blow out teams like this are over for me. Not because I don’t think Akron is good, you just never know when they can jump up and bite you. And it’s a long season, so hiccups can happen. Like it or not, it boils down to 3 days in March. Step one begins tomorrow, and I like the guy we’ve got in charge. Go Zips!

The second half bought them some props. Overall not real pretty, but could have been much worse. X in a bit of a funk, Rique struggled to his scoring total, he usually doesn’t struggle against a matchup like that. Tavari was brutal, lots of silly passes. Nate Johnson came to play after a horrendous showing in Peoria. If these guys struggle on open looks like this throughout MAC play, they will be average. But the offense itself works alright, just not a good shooting team which is very frustrating. Now the fun begins. Bring on NIU.

This group misses more wide open 3s than the 18-19 team. I didn’t think that was possible.

Wild game against Coppin State. Zips win it in OT. Coppin State’s head coach intentionally got ejected after he was fed up with the officiating. They’re a tough bunch. Zips finish the nonconference slate 9-2.

A lot of the new contributors in 2022 were a direct result of connections with Joe & others on staff. He recruited Whigan and Daniel George at Penn State, recruited AA at MSU, hell he even recruited DJI while he was at MSU. Obviously he was already on the roster, but had he been somewhere else and been available, he already had the seed planted. I'm happy with the HS class that was assembled, but the portal class will be the big difference maker. I have high hopes, which is always scary when you're an Akron fan. In 2022 off the top of my head, big time portal contributors were Cam Wiley, Clyde Price, Anthony Whigan, Max Banes, Daniel George, Shocky Jaques-Louis, Alex Adams, Cam Threatt, Nate Thompson, Tim Terry, Victor Jones, Ravontae Holt, Devonte Golden-Nelson. Still plenty more I didn't even mention. It's both amazing that coach could land this talent and amazing that they lost nearly every single close game. This team really should have gone bowling, and I expect them to in 2023.

Real good player. I wouldn't be surprised to see him pick up some nice offers.

Iowa State EDGE. 3 years left.

They’re the most fragile fans in the country by a long shot

Sell your MAC tournament tickets!!! (Shoutout to @NWAkron for the message board material, appreciate you my man!) I am without question disappointed. I personally feel we should be 10-2 with the only losses to MSU and LSU, but “we is what we is.” The 2022 MAC tournament champions once lost back to back games against NIU and WMU. The sky isn’t falling, though it may be a bit closer than it was in November. Dustin Ford filled in for Groce on Zips Live a couple weeks ago. I can’t remember the question or topic, but at one point he said something along the lines of “I don’t know how he does it, but he can play around with the lineups and just makes it work sometimes” I’m in the middle on this team. On one side of the fence, Groce has once beaten one of the hottest teams in college basketball by 20 with a walk-on as MAC Tournament MVP. On the other hand, he’s lost a MAC tournament game 82-46. I will choose to believe in him, and I do see the potential with this roster, but holy smokes they’ve been run off the floor a lot. Go Zips!

I’m going to give myself some peace of mind by telling myself this is the basketball gods’ trade off for winning the MAC tournament and beating Kent by 20 in the title game. Conservation of points theory. Merry Christmas!

Nate Johnson…….uhhh…..is not good

Regardless, the first few possessions we saw Enrique miss a handful of layups, then moss block outs, then X, Tribble, and Tavari all dribbled the air out of the hall multiple times, ending possessions with no passes and a missed bad shot. Or passes straight out of bounds. CYO BBall.

That was one of the worst halves of Groce basketball since the first year.

We lead the country in missed layups

The ball is too sticky on offense and can’t catch a break defensively. Some missed rotations and close calls in passing lanes. Rebounding leaves a lot to be desired too