Texas Southern Thread

[Dave in Green]

Good to see the Zips take Texas Southern seriously from the start and come out strong like the Cleveland State game and not like the Arkansas-Pine Bluff game. KD started getting indigestion in the second half as the Zips backed off and were content to play the Tigers even. That will work with a team of this level but not the better teams. Holding TSU to 2-20 from the field on their first 20 shots was offset by allowing them to go 22-42 from the field for the rest of the game. The Zips frontcourt players dominated their smaller opponents as expected. A good sign for the Zips was that their backcourt players protected the ball well against the quicker TSU guards, with Rico, Melo, Deji and Walsh combining for a total of only 4 turnovers. The Zips' level of play for the first 15 minutes of this game is what I want to see for 40 minutes against OU.

[phil]

The Zips were doing a great job of getting the ball inside to Tree and Zeke. Tree was easily beating his man and then dumping the ball to Zeke. He also had some great one on one moves. Alex had a great game both shooting the ball, not turning it over and getting the ball to the bigs. The last 5 minutes they started playing 4 corners with Alex dribbling the clock out and it started getting ugly. I wanted them to keep getting Zeke the ball so he could get his career high. He missed it by one basket. Great game.

[Dr Z]

[GP1]

The Zips are going to get diabetes from this holiday season.

[GoZips]

Ho ho, the Ding Dongs come out in force to crank on decent opponent that none of them saw play a lick.

Well, show your sorry asses up Sunday night as Princeton has finally woke up. The Tigers knocked off handily a darn

good Bucknell team (11-2) their last time out.

Princeton has the front court size to match up well with the Zips. They also boast the preseason Player of the Year

favorite, Ian Hummer, who is living up to his advance billing.

[johnnyzip84]

Though it's usually not the case, this game was won in the first 7 or 8 minutes with the Zips building a double digit lead that was never seriously threatened. If the Zips came out flat, it would have been a much different game. The team and coaches deserve credit for the quick start.

Instead it was TSU and Omar Strong in particular who took a while to get going. I'm not sure I've ever seen the Rowdies INSPIRE an opposing player like I did last night. He really put on a show after getting razzed early on for a few UGLY shots.

It's kind of odd to be facing Tigers two games in a row. We should have looked into scheduling Grambling, Mizzou, LSU and Memphis while we were at it

Clearly, Princeton (5-6) presents a different Tiger challenge. As a road team, they've defeated two MAC East schools already (U@B by 4 and K.E.N.T. by 12). If the Zips play semi-disciplined defense, they'll win going away. If not, who knows?

[morris buttermaker]

Texas Southern had 9 players.... 6 guards and 3 forwards... their biggest starter was 6-6.

[Dave in Green]

TSU's biggest starter was 6-6 because, for whatever reason, they elected to start 4 small guards and a 6-6 forward. That didn't last long. One of the little guards played only 5 minutes the whole game. TSU quickly subbed in two bigs who didn't start but played longer minutes -- a 6-7 forward who played 28 minutes and a 6-9 center who played 20 minutes. Were they smaller than the Zips? Of course, we knew they would be before TSU came to town. Most teams the Zips play these days are smaller. Speaking of size, the biggest scorer of the night was the smallest man on the court, 5-9 Omar Strong with 33 points.

[morris buttermaker]

They started 4 guards because they only had 3 forwards in total... 6-6, 6-7, and 6-9... That team had no chance, they are not 1-12 by mistake. Its time for Akron to go on the road and play some real teams. It cant be that they dont want to give up the home gate (2,500). Its hard to be the worst team in Division 1 mens hoops, but Akron has seen 2 that are pretty close (Ak-PB 343/347, TX-S 283/347)

[GoZips]

They started 4 guards because they only had 3 forwards in total... 6-6, 6-7, and 6-9... That team had no chance, they are not 1-12 by mistake. Its time for Akron to go on the road and play some real teams. It cant be that they dont want to give up the home gate (2,500). Its hard to be the worst team in Division 1 mens hoops, but Akron has seen 2 that are pretty close (Ak-PB 343/347, TX-S 283/347)

Shame on Akron for scheduling Texas Southern. I suppose the Zips should hang their heads along with Boise State,

Northwestern, Michigan State, Middle Tennessee, Colorado, Houston, San Diego State and let us not forget Kansas State

who all played Texas Southern this season.

Not terribly difficult to get a low power rating when losing to likes of these teams. Again, shame on the Zips.

[Zipmeister]

Shame on Akron for scheduling Texas Southern. I suppose the Zips should hang their heads along with Boise State,

Northwestern, Michigan State, Middle Tennessee, Colorado, Houston, San Diego State and let us not forget Kansas State

who all played Texas Southern this season.

Not terribly difficult to get a low power rating when losing to likes of these teams. Again, shame on the Zips.

+ 1

[Zips Win!]

Texas Southern had 9 players.... 6 guards and 3 forwards... their biggest starter was 6-6.

And they had how many blocked shots?

[Dave in Green]

TSU may have only brought 9 players to Akron, but they have 12 on their roster. Three players on the roster haven't been able to play this season, which has undoubtedly hurt the Tigers. In addition to the 6-9 center and 6-7 and 6-6 forwards who played, the Tigers have another 6-7 forward and a 6-5 guard on the roster. So the tallest 6 players on their roster are 6-9, 6-7, 6-7, 6-6, 6-5 and 6-4 along with 6 guards ranging from 5-9 to 6-1. In other words, their roster has something close to the average height of a pre-Zeke Zips team, but with better hops.

Last season, TSU was the #2 seed in the SWAC tournament and lost by 5 points in the championship game. This season, the preseason all-SWAC team features forward Fred Sturdivant and guard Omar Strong on the first team, with Strong projected as SWAC player of the year. I'm sure at the time the Zips scheduled TSU, it was expected that they would be playing at full strength and not with 25% of their roster missing.

[Zipmeister]

TSU may have only brought 9 players to Akron, but they have 12 on their roster. Three players on the roster haven't been able to play this season, which has undoubtedly hurt the Tigers. In addition to the 6-9 center and 6-7 and 6-6 forwards who played, the Tigers have another 6-7 forward and a 6-5 guard on the roster. So the tallest 6 players on their roster are 6-9, 6-7, 6-7, 6-6, 6-5 and 6-4 along with 6 guards ranging from 5-9 to 6-1. In other words, their roster has something close to the average height of a pre-Zeke Zips team, but with better hops.

Last season, TSU was the #2 seed in the SWAC tournament and lost by 5 points in the championship game. This season, the preseason all-SWAC team features forward Fred Sturdivant and guard Omar Strong on the first team, with Strong projected as SWAC player of the year. I'm sure at the time the Zips scheduled TSU, it was expected that they would be playing at full strength and not with 25% of their roster missing.

I had no idea these guys were so good last year. I didn't realize they came within 5 points of winning the conference championship for the 33rd best conference in the country (out of 33 total). It must have hurt bad to see that impending tournament 16 seed beat down go up in smoke.

bottomofthebarrel

[Dave in Green]

I can understand why some believe it's embarrassing that the Zips have joined a long list of no-name, wannabe basketball powers that schedule games with the woeful SWAC teams. You can add Akron at the top of the partial list of shame below compiled from this season alone:

Arizona State

Baylor

California

Cincinnati

Colorado

Florida

Iowa State

Kansas State

Louisiana State

Michigan State

Middle Tennessee

Missouri

Oregon

San Diego State

Stanford

Syracuse

Temple

Texas A&M

UCLA

[RACER]

we play teams at home and beat the crap out of them. a few fans say that those teams are not any good.

yet the same ones will complain when we go on the road against very good teams,and lose.

they make statements like kd does not care about the occ games. yet we just beat the crap out of the last three occ teams we played.how do you think teams like osu in football build up great programs.they do it because they play 8

home games every year,and beat the crap out of bad occ teams.the point is no matter what kd does your going to have

some fans complain about anything he does.im sure if we lose on sunday they will be on the board complaning in full force.

[Zipmeister]

I can understand why some believe it's embarrassing that the Zips have joined a long list of no-name, wannabe basketball powers that schedule games with the woeful SWAC teams. You can add Akron at the top of the partial list of shame below compiled from this season alone:

Arizona State

Baylor

California

Cincinnati

Colorado

Florida

Iowa State

Kansas State

Louisiana State

Michigan State

Middle Tennessee

Missouri

Oregon

San Diego State

Stanford

Syracuse

Temple

Texas A&M

UCLA

Well not that I wasn't fully convinced by your previous well thought out 5 point loss argument, but now I'm even more certain that Texas Southern is a really good team.

[ZachTheZip]

I can understand why some believe it's embarrassing that the Zips have joined a long list of no-name, wannabe basketball powers that schedule games with the woeful SWAC teams. You can add Akron at the top of the partial list of shame below compiled from this season alone:

Arizona State

Baylor

California

Cincinnati

Colorado

Florida

Iowa State

Kansas State

Louisiana State

Michigan State

Middle Tennessee

Missouri

Oregon

San Diego State

Stanford

Syracuse

Temple

Texas A&M

UCLA

All those teams have the benefit of guaranteeing a home game or two against ranked teams and a full conference slate of recognizeable opponents. They can schedule teams like Texas Southern without losing much because they have at least 50% of their schedule guaranteed to be against interesting teams. Akron doesn't have that in the MAC outside four or five teams, and so we should be trying to balance that out in the non-conference portion of the schedule.

[Dave in Green]

Well not that I wasn't fully convinced by your previous well thought out 5 point loss argument, but now I'm even more certain that Texas Southern is a really good team.

Oh darn, just when I thought history was about to be made on ZN.o with a discussion actually leading to someone changing their mind.

[FromdaBurgh]

OK..so I know we are moving on to Princeton tomorrow...BUT...I HAD to put this up courtesy of the SBNation Hustle Belt article:

Akron 83, Texas Southern 68

By Matt Sussman on Dec 28, 8:00a

And we're back to basketball! There are some more games on Friday but for now Akron disposed of a one-win SWAC team rather easily.

The Zips took a 43-23 halftime lead with the simple notion of giving the ball to really tall people: HILARIOUS.....Zeke Marshall had 15 points in the first half alone and Demetrius Treadwell had eight points, which equaled Texas Southern's first half total. Marshall finished with 21 points, eight rebounds and five blocks and Treadwell put up 18 points and 10 boards. Alex Abreu also made some threes en route to a 14-point night.

Next up for the 7-4 Zips is a tough little battle on Sunday against Princeton.

[akronzips71]

Pretty funny but true. We have some really tall people - who coincidentally can also play basketball.

That is why we are supposed to be really good this year.

[Dave in Green]

I wonder if the Temple forums had an @Zipmeister who had as much fun questioning the challenge of facing Texas Southern.

Texas Southern 90, Temple 89

[GoZips]

I wonder if the Temple forums had an @Zipmeister who had as much fun questioning the challenge of facing Texas Southern.

Texas Southern 90, Temple 89

Don't forget; the mighty Owls also lost to the Golden Flushers earlier this season.

[Zipmeister]

I wonder if the Temple forums had an @Zipmeister who had as much fun questioning the challenge of facing Texas Southern.

Texas Southern 90, Temple 89

Or if they had an @@Dave in@Green@@@ telling folks how good Texas Southern really is.

[MaxZIP]

Temple SUCKS all around.