ace

Well this is going poorly

And yes, akron is the model program in the mac recently, not Can't.

Tournament runs only really have a lasting effect if you can turn it into some sort of upwards mobility. Butler for example is now a perennial top 25 team after their run(s), and programs like Davidson, or vcu, were able to parlay theirs into a better conference and are now a really solid program. Then there's the other mold: teams like George Mason who are really no better off after their big run. Can't also fits this description, as instead of boosting themselves into a big conference or something they are still fighting for scraps in the mac. And that, my friends, is why Can't state sucks.

I mean I am not necessarily a fan of big men switching onto guards...I have seen way too many Zeke Marshall hip-check fouls for that. But I will say, if your big guys are athletic enough to stay in front of a guard, it can completely shut them down.

While I don't remember the specifics of the Zips' defense during that 2013 championship game, but I will say that that was one of the best halves i have EVER seen the Zips play. Whatever they did worked very, very well...we held them to 17 second-half points, had a team defensive rating of 67 and held DJ Cooper specifically to an offensive rating of 36. Those numbers are completely unheard of. So if switching ball screens is really what caused that, you can count me in for trying that again.

I have been in the locker room and can confirm that Aaron Jackson, or "Ace" as he is known, is quite the personality

I personally would love to see a zone every now and then...would really help on stopping driving guards. By the way, can we all appreciate how good Zeke Marshall was now?

I'm not actually too fussed about this one. Road league games are always tough and you're always bound to lose a few. For example number 1 Kansas got beat pretty solidly by wvu tonight. They're especially not easy when you're playing maybe the most talented team in the league outside of ourselves....this is why they were so highly thought of to start the year. I ain't worried. We'll be fine.

Oh no

Yeah if we're talking about people who have easy access to the team yet don't go it starts with the students. I don't care if we're a commuter school there's no way only 20 students should be at every game. It's not that they don't know about it they just genuinely don't care

CMU is soft inside, but they can shoot like crazy. Not the most efficient but everyone on the court for them can shoot which makes it tougher to guard. Pat and big dog need to have their way down low. Need good closeouts on shooters. Obviously chris fowler is solid but braylon rayson has really come on for them this year. Little guy, but super quick and a good scorer. I.e. the type of player we have trouble against. Many teams have been able to simply outscore the chips. I would prefer not to run and gun with them, but am fairly confident about this one either way.

Yes, this is really a huge, huge part of it. I think this is more important than getting average akronites out. How does a school with 20,000+ students get about 20 of them to show up to games? Even if an average amount of students (by most other school's standards) turned up to each game attendance would be soooo much higher. It's so frustrating how little they care about their own school and about the very good product right in front of them.

Cmu did just beat Bowling Green, not that that means much. Ohio tops ball state in the battle of hard-to-figure-out teams.

As far as their offensive rebounds, westerns offensive rebounding % was an astronomical 48%, which is by far the most we've allowed. But i think one of the reasons they didn't score more points off that than they could've is because they're not good at shooting the three. It's often said the best shots coming off an offensive rebound are an open three, but western simply is not good from there, so it limited their shot selection. For the overall team defense, wilder really killed us, which was to be expected. But their big guys really couldn't get much and obviously the three wasnt there, so it made them kind of one dimensional. I'm content with the zips overall defense and i think if it wasn't for the insane rebounding disparity we would've won by 20+

I wonder what prompted this from espn...seems kinda random

Amen

Wow. Good to hear that he seems to have turned things around.

Western really shouldn't give us too much trouble. They're resume is really not impressive at all and they dropped their first MAC game at home to the Flushes. And as already noted on here, we ALWAYS seem to beat them (except the ugly 2014 semifinal). However, they still have some players. Tucker Haymond is their leading scorer, kind of in the mold of Reggie or Jake except he can't shoot the three nearly as well. Drake LaMont is a decent big man but not on the level of Pat and Big Dog. Thomas Wilder played well against us last year and he's the one guy who I think could really beat us; another quick guard who can get to the rim. Overall, I'm expecting a double digit victory.

A few teams sort of validated themselves last night. I was very skeptical of EMU, NIU, and Ball State and their inflated records after easy non conference schedules, but all three looked really good. Ball State especially returns a really solid young core and i think they could be quite good. They've gotten to this point even with last year's freshman of the year Sean sellers not playing too well. The titan that everyone thought CMU would be is clearly non existent. Even with fowler back they look bad. The mac is going to be very weird this year.

By the way, the Flushes just beat WMU on the road in OT. The Ponies come to the JAR this weekend

That is a great way to start conference play

They would've been scary good with Moss and Evans

The game is tied...you would think we were down by 15

Touche. But especially when we get beat off the dribble like this

I never understand why we don't do this more...it always seems to be effective when we try it