Akron vs. Miami Game Thread

[Blue & Gold]

I wasn't at the Miami game at the JAR, but I watched the Miami-Can't game on tv and I must say that Miami looked like a bunch of unathletic, white stiffs. Can't ran in circles around them. This is a bad loss. We never win games we should lose, and we occassionally lose games we should win. This is a team we should have beaten. I'm not optimistic about winning 3 games in Cleveland.

[Zipgrad1990]

We should have won in Toledo and at Miami, since I believe we are the better team. I don't know why we play so bad on the road to decent teams. As many people have stated, we aren't a good team until we win on the road in the MAC against the better MAC teams and/or winning the MAC championship would work too!At the beginning of the year I picked us to finish out the season with losses at Toledo, Miami, Buffalo, and Can't. I'm still thinking thats what will happen, although we have a decent chance of beating Buffalo at least!

[ZipAlumn]

Not the end of the world guys......Games like this will make us stronger in the MAC Tourney. At large chances were lost the day the schedule was announced. We won't see Miami until at least the semi's. We split the regular season games with these guys so the Guys will reposect them in Cleveland and be hungry for revenge. This might be the kick in the a$$ this team needs heading into the final 4 games and the tournament.

Sorry to disagree ............ Games like this makes a team hesitant to play tough down the stretch when the game is close or the team is down. This does not build confidence ... this put doubt in your head.

[Bleacher Bum]

At the beginning of the year I picked us to finish out the season with losses at Toledo, Miami, Buffalo, and Can't. I'm still thinking thats what will happen, although we have a decent chance of beating Buffalo at least!

Buffalo is never a gimme. I don't know how high the interest is up there this year, but their fan support is some of the best I've seen and their student section is in my rankings, the best in the MAC. Trust me, WITHERSPOON! is gonna have his guys ready to play and nothing in Buffalo is easy, just like nothing in Miami with Charlie Coles is easy!

[Zips Win!]

I wasn't at the Miami game at the JAR, but I watched the Miami-Can't game on tv and I must say that Miami looked like a bunch of unathletic, white stiffs. Can't ran in circles around them

Agree completely...Miami is a glorified high school team....and Charlie C. and his bs brand of basketball should be outlawed. They win at home with all the calls, and stink on the road.....While we obviously had our chances and blew it and should get the blame!....I am curious if anybody else agrees on how the league/officiating impacts the outcome? The ridiculous calls the first 5 minutes changed everything! It gave MU at least 6 unearned points at the line, while taking us out of rythum on D for the entire first half. Furthermore our good D is negated by the foul calls which also impacts our flow and possible extra possessions on offense..... The same could be said for the two free gifts at the line to open the OT period. Enough with giving the home team two easy points, make them make a basket......and we obviously aren't good enough to overcome any adversity on the road.....MU is a far cry from the WS days...Why anyone would want to play for CC is puzzling? I was going through the radio if I heard one more time how MU is turning it around. You can give that team a two day bye at the Q and they still don't make the finals...

[RealRedSteve]

I wasn't at the Miami game at the JAR, but I watched the Miami-Can't game on tv and I must say that Miami looked like a bunch of unathletic, white stiffs. Can't ran in circles around them

Agree completely...Miami is a glorified high school team....and Charlie C. and his bs brand of basketball should be outlawed. They win at home with all the calls, and stink on the road.....While we obviously had our chances and blew it and should get the blame!....I am curious if anybody else agrees on how the league/officiating impacts the outcome? The ridiculous calls the first 5 minutes changed everything! It gave MU at least 6 unearned points at the line, while taking us out of rythum on D for the entire first half. Furthermore our good D is negated by the foul calls which also impacts our flow and possible extra possessions on offense..... The same could be said for the two free gifts at the line to open the OT period. Enough with giving the home team two easy points, make them make a basket......and we obviously aren't good enough to overcome any adversity on the road.....MU is a far cry from the WS days...Why anyone would want to play for CC is puzzling? I was going through the radio if I heard one more time how MU is turning it around. You can give that team a two day bye at the Q and they still don't make the finals...

With a hat tip to my colleague Devil Grad at MHT, I'd like to point out that Akron is 10-3 in the MAC. You're 7-0 at home and 3-3 on the road, with road wins over EMU, NIU, and BUGS. Miami is 9-4 in the MAC. We're 7-0 at home and 2-4 on the road, with road wins over EMU and CMU. We still have a road game at BUGS left to play. If Miami stinks on the road, what does that say about Akron? I mean, besides the fact that Akron will be a 20+ win team with no chance at an at-large bid because their OOC schedule rivals that of the College of Wooster.As for the officiating, you guys got the short end of the stick early, but the roles were completely reversed in the second half; you could do no wrong, and we were getting ticky-tack fouls left and right. As someone else on our board pointed out, the total fouls -- even after some game-end, clock-stopping fouls by UA -- were Miami 23, UA 21.Finally, I'm sorry Charlie's band of white stiff GCL all-stars is anathema to what you think a basketball team should be. However, the last time I checked, there were no style points given to supplement your point totals, and we can't help it if your team gets frustrated when faced with a competent defense that keeps your offense 13 points below its season average. The overall goal is to score more points than your opponent -- and part of that occasion is to keep your opponent from scoring more than you.That said, I've had enough Zips for one year. Since we've played to a draw during the regular season, I don't care to see you guys at the Q; my heart can't take another game with you guys!

[Zips Win!]

As for the officiating, you guys got the short end of the stick early, but the roles were completely reversed in the second half; you could do no wrong, and we were getting ticky-tack fouls left and right. As someone else on our board pointed out, the total fouls -- even after some game-end, clock-stopping fouls by UA -- were Miami 23, UA 21.

So what...The 7 fouls in 5 minutes to start the game is the difference. You were given at least 6 unearned points on Ft's and extra possessions and we were handcuffed the entire first half defensively, which also impacted getting easy buckets offensively... It's all in how the games are called, and we get shafted all the time on the road. When Miami came to Akron earlier in the year, they were called for ONE frickin foul the entire first half. If the Zips got that kind of officiating yesterday, we would have been up 15, not down 10. Stop penalizing our great defense with foul calls!

Finally, I'm sorry Charlie's band of white stiff GCL all-stars is anathema to what you think a basketball team should be. However, the last time I checked, there were no style points given to supplement your point totals, and we can't help it if your team gets frustrated when faced with a competent defense that keeps your offense 13 points below its season average. The overall goal is to score more points than your opponent -- and part of that occasion is to keep your opponent from scoring more than you.

Good defense my ass. It's that awful brand of offense where your slow stiffs take 35 seconds off the clock every time to shorten the game, so obviously there are fewer possessions and less scoring....

[DevilGrad]

As for the officiating, you guys got the short end of the stick early, but the roles were completely reversed in the second half; you could do no wrong, and we were getting ticky-tack fouls left and right. As someone else on our board pointed out, the total fouls -- even after some game-end, clock-stopping fouls by UA -- were Miami 23, UA 21.

So what...The 7 fouls in 5 minutes to start the game is the difference. You were given at least 6 unearned points on Ft's and extra possessions and we were handcuffed the entire first half defensively, which also impacted getting easy buckets offensively... It's all in how the games are called, and we get shafted all the time on the road. When Miami came to Akron earlier in the year, they were called for ONE frickin foul the entire first half. If the Zips got that kind of officiating yesterday, we would have been up 15, not down 10. Stop penalizing our great defense with foul calls!

Finally, I'm sorry Charlie's band of white stiff GCL all-stars is anathema to what you think a basketball team should be. However, the last time I checked, there were no style points given to supplement your point totals, and we can't help it if your team gets frustrated when faced with a competent defense that keeps your offense 13 points below its season average. The overall goal is to score more points than your opponent -- and part of that occasion is to keep your opponent from scoring more than you.

Good defense my ass. It's that awful brand of offense where your slow stiffs take 35 seconds off the clock every time to shorten the game, so obviously there are fewer possessions and less scoring....

Akron shot under 40% from the field last night and only 23.5% from three-point range -- a figure that I believe is approximately 15 percentage points below the Zips' season average. If you have an intelligent point to make, now would be a good time to start.

[goodthts]

Miami=Mike Fratello Cavs=boring, grinding, deliberate basketball. They win more than they lose, go a little ways in the tourney, but cannot beat the great teams.Akron=Mike Brown Cavs=full of talent, full of athleticism, but full of inconsistency. Both teams SUCK at FT'S. Both teams really CANT win a big game if their life depended on it.I'm also curious about the FT'S. Shooting a free throw is a skill, not a talent. The more one practices, the better one gets. So....why doesnt Dambrot drill into these guys the importance of that and have the team shoot more in practice. Also, why not have the team actually NOT toss up 3-pters once in a while and work the ball down low to Romeo and Wood?I am so sick of rooting for an ALMOST TEAM. Same thing with the football team. Sucks to be a Zips fAN TODAY.PS...and please dont tell me "hey dont be so negative, we do have 20 wins!" My response? Over whom? Scrubs...all of them.

[RealRedSteve]

As for the officiating, you guys got the short end of the stick early, but the roles were completely reversed in the second half; you could do no wrong, and we were getting ticky-tack fouls left and right. As someone else on our board pointed out, the total fouls -- even after some game-end, clock-stopping fouls by UA -- were Miami 23, UA 21.

So what...The 7 fouls in 5 minutes to start the game is the difference. You were given at least 6 unearned points on Ft's and extra possessions and we were handcuffed the entire first half defensively, which also impacted getting easy buckets offensively...

And the same thing happened during your run in the second half. Make no mistake, MAC officials are bad, and part of the reason they are bad is because they inevitably try to even things up. Again, during your run you were the beneficiary of a number of bad, bad, bad calls, one of which sent Peavy to the bench for an extended period of time -- just in time for Akron to make their run.

It's all in how the games are called, and we get shafted all the time on the road.  When Miami came to Akron earlier in the year,  they were called for ONE frickin foul the entire first half.  If the Zips got that kind of officiating yesterday, we would have been up 15, not down 10.  Stop penalizing our great defense with foul calls!

Welcome to life in the MAC. And from our reports, we got one foul in the first half at your place as much because we were playing passively as we were the beneficiary of bad calls.As for the "up 15, not down 10" comment, you obviously were not in attendance last night. If anything, Miami should have been up even more, had they made their shots early on. Our defense was stiff, and Akron couldn't solve it. Yet, we went 2 for 7 in the first six minutes.

Finally, I'm sorry Charlie's band of white stiff GCL all-stars is anathema to what you think a basketball team should be. However, the last time I checked, there were no style points given to supplement your point totals, and we can't help it if your team gets frustrated when faced with a competent defense that keeps your offense 13 points below its season average. The overall goal is to score more points than your opponent -- and part of that occasion is to keep your opponent from scoring more than you.

Good defense my ass. It's that awful brand of offense where your slow stiffs take 35 seconds off the clock every time to shorten the game, so obviously there are fewer possessions and less scoring....

Funny; I didn't think that Miami's offense could take credit for forcing Akron into 3-4 shot clock violations, or making the Akron offense launch hurried shots on a number of other occasions because they couldn't find the shot they wanted. Miami's DEFENSE forced Akron to play their way -- except for a stretch in the second half when Akron realized the stripes weren't going to call any contact on UA and made their run. And Akron wasn't the one serving up four point-blank blocks -- five if the non-goaltending goaltend had been called correctly. (And there are two points served right back to you...there's your ticket to OT, my friend.) Of course, where our offense did help us out -- despite our freshman PG's second half meltdown -- was having an assist/turnover ratio of >1, as opposed to UA's .9So what? My point is this: the zebras didn't win that game for us any more than they lost it for you. They sucked ass, to be sure, and there are no worse officials in the land than in the Mid-American Conference, but they didn't cost you the game.

[zip81]

the zebras didn't win that game for us any more than they lost it for you. They sucked ass, to be sure, and there are no worse officials in the land than in the Mid-American Conference, but they didn't cost you the game.

Steve:I couldn't agree more.Blaming the refs for our lack of free throw shooting ability is wrong.Face it...if we make the foul shots, we win.But we didn't and Miami did.End of story!Congratulations on your win.

[mollautt]

As for the officiating, you guys got the short end of the stick early, but the roles were completely reversed in the second half; you could do no wrong, and we were getting ticky-tack fouls left and right. As someone else on our board pointed out, the total fouls -- even after some game-end, clock-stopping fouls by UA -- were Miami 23, UA 21.

So what...The 7 fouls in 5 minutes to start the game is the difference. You were given at least 6 unearned points on Ft's and extra possessions and we were handcuffed the entire first half defensively, which also impacted getting easy buckets offensively... It's all in how the games are called, and we get shafted all the time on the road. When Miami came to Akron earlier in the year, they were called for ONE frickin foul the entire first half. If the Zips got that kind of officiating yesterday, we would have been up 15, not down 10. Stop penalizing our great defense with foul calls!

Finally, I'm sorry Charlie's band of white stiff GCL all-stars is anathema to what you think a basketball team should be. However, the last time I checked, there were no style points given to supplement your point totals, and we can't help it if your team gets frustrated when faced with a competent defense that keeps your offense 13 points below its season average. The overall goal is to score more points than your opponent -- and part of that occasion is to keep your opponent from scoring more than you.

Good defense my ass. It's that awful brand of offense where your slow stiffs take 35 seconds off the clock every time to shorten the game, so obviously there are fewer possessions and less scoring....

=>You are partially correct. Miami's tough defense makes our opponents use the clock as well. Miami vs. opponents time of possession has been about equal every year that Coles has been the coach.

[mollautt]

As for the officiating, you guys got the short end of the stick early, but the roles were completely reversed in the second half; you could do no wrong, and we were getting ticky-tack fouls left and right. As someone else on our board pointed out, the total fouls -- even after some game-end, clock-stopping fouls by UA -- were Miami 23, UA 21.

So what...The 7 fouls in 5 minutes to start the game is the difference. You were given at least 6 unearned points on Ft's and extra possessions and we were handcuffed the entire first half defensively, which also impacted getting easy buckets offensively...

And the same thing happened during your run in the second half. Make no mistake, MAC officials are bad, and part of the reason they are bad is because they inevitably try to even things up. Again, during your run you were the beneficiary of a number of bad, bad, bad calls, one of which sent Peavy to the bench for an extended period of time -- just in time for Akron to make their run.

It's all in how the games are called, and we get shafted all the time on the road.  When Miami came to Akron earlier in the year,  they were called for ONE frickin foul the entire first half.  If the Zips got that kind of officiating yesterday, we would have been up 15, not down 10.  Stop penalizing our great defense with foul calls!

Welcome to life in the MAC. And from our reports, we got one foul in the first half at your place as much because we were playing passively as we were the beneficiary of bad calls.As for the "up 15, not down 10" comment, you obviously were not in attendance last night. If anything, Miami should have been up even more, had they made their shots early on. Our defense was stiff, and Akron couldn't solve it. Yet, we went 2 for 7 in the first six minutes.

Finally, I'm sorry Charlie's band of white stiff GCL all-stars is anathema to what you think a basketball team should be. However, the last time I checked, there were no style points given to supplement your point totals, and we can't help it if your team gets frustrated when faced with a competent defense that keeps your offense 13 points below its season average. The overall goal is to score more points than your opponent -- and part of that occasion is to keep your opponent from scoring more than you.

Good defense my ass. It's that awful brand of offense where your slow stiffs take 35 seconds off the clock every time to shorten the game, so obviously there are fewer possessions and less scoring....

Funny; I didn't think that Miami's offense could take credit for forcing Akron into 3-4 shot clock violations, or making the Akron offense launch hurried shots on a number of other occasions because they couldn't find the shot they wanted. Miami's DEFENSE forced Akron to play their way -- except for a stretch in the second half when Akron realized the stripes weren't going to call any contact on UA and made their run. And Akron wasn't the one serving up four point-blank blocks -- five if the non-goaltending goaltend had been called correctly. (And there are two points served right back to you...there's your ticket to OT, my friend.) Of course, where our offense did help us out -- despite our freshman PG's second half meltdown -- was having an assist/turnover ratio of >1, as opposed to UA's .9So what? My point is this: the zebras didn't win that game for us any more than they lost it for you. They sucked ass, to be sure, and there are no worse officials in the land than in the Mid-American Conference, but they didn't cost you the game.

=>I would be certain that Akron lead time of possession last night.

[mollautt]

the zebras didn't win that game for us any more than they lost it for you. They sucked ass, to be sure, and there are no worse officials in the land than in the Mid-American Conference, but they didn't cost you the game.

Steve:I couldn't agree more.Blaming the refs for our lack of free throw shooting ability is wrong.Face it...if we make the foul shots, we win.But we didn't and Miami did.End of story!Congratulations on your win.

=>I do not think free throws lost Akron the game.Akron was 16-24 = 66.7%Miami was 13-20 = 65.0%Thus Akron was the better free throw shooting team.******If you argue that if Akron would have shot its normal % things would have been different, then you must also consider Miami's failures last night. Miami for the season is 270-390 = 69.2%. Therefore, Miami was off for the night by 4%.

[zip81]

the zebras didn't win that game for us any more than they lost it for you. They sucked ass, to be sure, and there are no worse officials in the land than in the Mid-American Conference, but they didn't cost you the game.

Steve:I couldn't agree more.Blaming the refs for our lack of free throw shooting ability is wrong.Face it...if we make the foul shots, we win.But we didn't and Miami did.End of story!Congratulations on your win.

=>I do not think free throws lost Akron the game.Akron was 16-24 = 66.7%Miami was 13-20 = 65.0%Thus Akron was the better free throw shooting team.******If you argue that if Akron would have shot its normal % things would have been different, then you must also consider Miami's failures last night. Miami for the season is 270-390 = 69.2%. Therefore, Miami was off for the night by 4%.

If Joyce makes both, we win.

[Zip90]

I get SO tired of the "can't blame the refs" mentallity on this board. It's like saying that you can't complain about the weather unless you are a certified meteorologist. B.S. When the reffing is bad, it is bad. You don't have to be a ref to know when it sucks.The refs didn't officiate the game, they controlled it. The fact is, they were a total factor in this game. Yes, they made bad calls both ways, but I have never seen a game where the calls going against one of the teams (akron) were at all the critical points in the game.Late in the game, Linhart gets totally run over (knocked to his back) in the lane - - - no call.Then, the miami player that knocked him to the ground continues to drive, and the ref calls a phantom call (absolutely no contact) on a different akron player (shooting foul, of course).It was the same thing all night long (at all the critical points). It was THE DEFINITION of home court advantage (textbook case).The sad thing is, it happens at all the home courts in the MAC, and that is the reason that the MAC will never get two teams into the big dance. The committee knows how piss-poor the refs are in the MAC, and every team has way too big a home court advantage. Unless one team is overwhelmingly better than another, the home team wins (period). It is a total joke.