akron's defense

[mivid12]

suffocating....what an outstanding defensive effort..kudo's to the young men and coaches..if this team can continue to play D that way, i could see an opening round win...honestly, i didn't think this team would get past the quarters, only b/c of youth....congrats zips...can't wait till 6 tonight

[skip-zip]

I'd argue that we played good D pretty much the entire season. I often try to go back and analyze games afterwards, and this one particularly was a display of excellent shooting (55%, and even BETTER from 3-point range), at the most opportune time. If someone had told me that Buffalo would outrebound us by 7, I'd say it would be unlikely we would win. But instead, we won in a blowout.

[mivid12]

I'd argue that we played good D pretty much the entire season. I often try to go back and analyze games afterwards, and this one particularly was a display of excellent shooting (55%, and even BETTER from 3-point range), at the most opportune time. If someone had told me that Buffalo would outrebound us by 7, I'd say it would be unlikely we would win. But instead, we won in a blowout.

i wouldn't argue against that....but last night, the D was a notch above...dare i say championship style D

[Quickzips]

We did play some pretty good D all year, but I thought it was even more impressive this weekend. Maybe it was just me, but I NEVER saw the Zips D let up. Even for a second. All 3 teams we're having to run into single digit shot clocks to get even a mediocre look and even those weren't great. We even forced a few shot clock violations last night against Buffalo.

[briancull]

That was easily the best Defense AND offense I have see all year... period! It was incredible, they were hitting shots they sometimes missed and the defense was almost completely sound. I don't know the stats but they forced quite i bit of turnovers, more then they did in the regular season. They also looked so much better in the post season then the end of the regular season. I thought they were running our of steam and were going to just crash and burn but they they showed that extra effort both through play and through excellent coaching! GO ZIPS!!!!!!!!!

[GP1]

I'd argue that we played good D pretty much the entire season. I often try to go back and analyze games afterwards, and this one particularly was a display of excellent shooting (55%, and even BETTER from 3-point range), at the most opportune time. If someone had told me that Buffalo would outrebound us by 7, I'd say it would be unlikely we would win. But instead, we won in a blowout.

i wouldn't argue against that....but last night, the D was a notch above...dare i say championship style D

For the first 5-10 minutes of the game, the defense was great. Beyond that, it was average. I know there is a lot posted here about the Zips defense and against most of the MAC it is probably great, but against a good team like Buffalo you need offense. Akron scored last night with a quality half court offense and making shots when they were presented. They scored some, but not a lot, off of turnovers.You can play average defense when the other team is shooting the ball off of the side of the backboard from the corner. Buffalo's offense was so bad at one point I started laughing out loud. I think they only made 32% of their shots and they had some really good looks at the basket. I can't remember the last time a team played as bad in the MAC finals as Buffalo did last night. Buffalo is a good team that was just not ready to play for whatever reason. The best team won last night.Late in the first half, KD went for more offense/less defense and it worked. #13 makes Akron a better offensive team (at least last night) and it appeared KD noticed this at half and went with more offense at the beginning of the second half. The game was over half way through the second half.Make no mistake about it 1940s basketball lovers and apologist for bad entertainment, UofA's offense won the game last night. Have any fantasy you want about defense winning championships, but points win championships and the Zips produced points last night putting pressure on Buffalo that they couldn't respond to. Next year, if Akron can continue to have strong offensive performances, the people of Akron will go to the games. If they revert to low scoring defensive games then people will not. Most of all, people want to be entertained at a sporting event. Defense is not entertaining. Watching the Zips score points and execute on offense was fun to watch last night. That is what the people of Akron will respond to.

[GP1]

We did play some pretty good D all year, but I thought it was even more impressive this weekend.

If this is true, the quality of UofA's defense is wildly overstated on this board.

[Dave in Green]

Nobody is going to convince me the Zips' defense was not outstanding near the end of the game when it counted. I was totally focused on watching the Zips' defense during crunch time, when Buffalo absolutely had to score or go home. With the clock ticking away, and Buffalo needing quick scores, one by one their players would try to initiate a drive to the basket only to be met by 1 or 2 Zips. They passed the ball to the next player, and the same thing happened. The clocked ticked away and they could not get off quick high-percentage shots. When they finally gunned away, they mostly missed. Anyone who doubts this should try to get a video of the game and watch what I personally witnessed at the Q.

[GP1]

Nobody is going to convince me the Zips' defense was not outstanding near the end of the game when it counted.

Last night, Buffalo couldn't throw the ball into the ocean if they had both feet in the water. The best defense the Zips played last night was early in the game. With 10 minutes in remaining, the game was over and from the close up looks on their players faces on ESPN, you could see they were finished. After the Zips offense burried them, they were done. KD could have put five of us knuckleheads out on the floor to close the game out at that point.

[mivid12]

For the first 5-10 minutes of the game, the defense was great. Beyond that, it was averageI would disagree...take a look at the last 7-8 min...esp after buffalo got under 10..in my humble opine, it was the zips best defensive effort of the year....

[Zip Watcher]

Nobody is going to convince me the Zips' defense was not outstanding near the end of the game when it counted.

Last night, Buffalo couldn't throw the ball into the ocean if they had both feet in the water. The best defense the Zips played last night was early in the game. With 10 minutes in remaining, the game was over and from the close up looks on their players faces on ESPN, you could see they were finished. After the Zips offense burried them, they were done. KD could have put five of us knuckleheads out on the floor to close the game out at that point.

There's a reason they couldn't throw it in the ocean last night: for the most part, they couldn't SEE the ocean.Shooting percentage isn't only related to U@B struggling. The Zips had a big (group of) hand in it.Go Zips! :champs:

[GP1]

For the first 5-10 minutes of the game, the defense was great. Beyond that, it was averageI would disagree...take a look at the last 7-8 min...esp after buffalo got under 10..in my humble opine, it was the zips best defensive effort of the year....

Sorry if my opinion breaks the usual paradigms on this board about the Zips defense. When I say it was average, I'm not saying it was bad. It was just feh. The Zips offense was playing so well last night I felt no threat when the Bulls pulled within 10. In fact, with 10 minutes to go in the first half I told my wife I thought the game was going to be a blowout. The Zips offense was rolling last night and it had nothing to do with great defense. Maybe average defense, but not great. Buffalo's inability to hit shots made the Zips defense look better than what it really was.

[Dr Z]

The Zips played great defense last night. I was most impressed by Humpty, best I've seen him move his feet.The team kept the pressure on the whole night and broke the Bulls.

[ZachTheZip]

Akron played their best all around game last night. They are peaking at the perfect time.

[Dave in Green]

It's absolutely true that there's less pressure to play your absolute best defense when the offense is clicking. The Zips offense was way above average, so there was no need for them to play their absolute best defense throughout the whole game. As has already been stated, the team that plays the best all around combination of offense and defense usually wins. Sustaining consistently excellent offense and defense for 40 straight minutes is out of the reach of most humans.But I still say an analysis of the game tape at the end will show that Buffalo was unable to get into good scoring position when they needed quick buckets because they were constantly met by Zips players who kept jumping into position to stop their momentum toward the basket. All opinions aside, this will show up on video as clearly as Singletary's sucker punch.

[Quickzips]

Everyone just ignore GP1. His whipping boy Keith Dambrot just proved him wrong and he's a little peeved about it. Has to find some way to rain on the parade.

[Dave in Green]

Here's an analysis of the Zips defense from someone who was a lot closer to the action than any of the fans:"They were taking away our easy shots and a lot of us are good at taking easy pull-ups," (Calvin) Betts said. "They just took it away from us."

[Zipmeister]

So to recap the thread to this point....GP1 thinks the Zip defense was outstanding.On another topic, winning a basketball title sure brings out the folks to Zips Nation! This is the biggest thing to hit Akron since Jenna became the first female freshman to win an NCAA title.