Game 28- Ohio

[LZIp]

Horrible calls all around. Unbelievable

[bigzipguy]

ALI FAILED BIG TIME DOWN THE STRECTCH

[Westie]

the prize is the top seed. one game lead with three winnable games left.

[Reslife4Life]

Come on Ali geez

[Westie]

Lot to learn from this fiasco but still in 1st place

[LoyalZIP]

Epic collapse. And it happened fast. Zips will go without a road win against a good MAC team. 

[clarkwgriswold]

Awful showing down the stretch by the Zips.  

 

OU earned that one.  

[Zippy87]

MAC officiating classic.

 

Onto the next one.

[ClevelandZip]

Crazy to me that we are in first place yet I am still disappointed with the guys this season. Plenty of talent but they just don't have that dawg in them that’s required to win close games.

[LZIp]

3 minutes ago, ClevelandZip said:

Crazy to me that we are in first place yet I am still disappointed with the guys this season. Plenty of talent but they just don't have that dawg in them that’s required to win close games.

Yeah, everything we want is still in front of us, but perhaps the best Akron team ever on paper hasn’t shown it yet this season.

[mrelegazna]

9 minutes ago, Westie said:

the prize is the top seed. one game lead with three winnable games left.

Expanding on this for those who haven't seen or heard: The Zips were completely bailed out by Toledo tonight, who were outscored by 12 in the second half at home to lose by 3 to a bad Northern Illinois team. 

 

The Rockets have looked very shaky their last 5 games, except of course against Akron, which may speak to that lack-of-killer-instinct ClevelandZip and LZip talked about.

[LoyalZIP]

Groce not mincing words re: final 10 minutes. The 45 second OU possession coming out of the U12 timeout was the ballgame. 

[tolbob]

8 minutes ago, LoyalZIP said:

Groce not mincing words re: final 10 minutes. The 45 second OU possession coming out of the U12 timeout was the ballgame. 

that 10 point run merely tied the game; shouldn't have ended it.

[LoyalZIP]

8 minutes ago, tolbob said:

that 10 point run merely tied the game; shouldn't have ended it.

And if the Zips get their head out of their rear and prevent it, the final 10 aren’t as much of a scramble. Zips looked to be playing not to lose, Ohio was playing to blow us out. 

[MDZip]

Outscored by 14 in the second half. 😔

[zipsrule]

Not a good second half, but we had opportunities and didn't take advantage of them.

 

That being said, beating the top MAC teams is tough.  Winning on the road against top MAC teams is even tougher.  I know there are those who were calling for an undefeated MAC season, but that's not realistic.  Going into the season, you could probably see road games at Toledo, Kent, and Ohio could be losses.  We won one of those three games.  Against the top three teams in the standings (2nd-4th place), we are 3-2.  If you do that and beat up on the bottom of the league, you'll be in good shape. 

 

All is not lost.  We still control our destiny to the 1 seed.  We have three winnable games left.

 

 

[Westie]

It cannot be disputed that this team has the talent and a gear that is beyond what any other team in the MAC has. But my observation is it's a finesse team that doesn't have that killer mentality on the road. However, the goals are win the MAC (#1 seed), win the tourney and make the Dance. All are still right there in front of this team. I suspect last night's failures at the end will light a fire. 

 

Let's go win the next six!

[clarkwgriswold]

That was so damn frustrating, in large part to the fact that it exposed problems we know exist but would rather not admit.

 

The good news is that last night's misery was not the result of a lack of effort, but was one of execution.  We always seem to have one of these stretches in the season.  The run to MAC championships starts today.

[kreed5120]

I'd prefer the #1 seed, but it's not much of a prize anymore now that the NIT did away with the auto bid. It's going to be either win the MAC tournament or no Zips postseason regardless of what seed we are.

[Rufus]

From my side of the aisle, I will agree, the officiating was horrible both ways. It drives me nuts when officiating is wildly inconsistent. Allowing hacks and slaps one possession and calling a touch foul on the next. Late in the game, there were two possessions close together where an OU player and Freeman were tangled up and fell out of bounds with no call, then a Jaylin Hunter 3 attempt where he clearly got hit on the shooting arm...no calls either way. Shortly after, touch fouls were called both ways. 

 

Aside from all of that, it was a great game and atmosphere. Official attendance was around 5700, but the place went from pretty silent with Akron up 10 to really loud after the 10-0 run to tie the game. It stayed loud the rest of the way. I thought we did a pretty solid job on Freeman most of the game, but when the double didn't come or was late, he was nearly unstoppable. Both teams traded blows most of the game. I thought Ali was going to single handedly take it over late when he put Akron up late in the game. We seemed to struggle a lot when we had to sit Clayton/Hadaway and had some funky lineups with some foul trouble. Great game to see in person, and maybe not the last time we see each other this year. 

[Blue & Gold]

Nate Johnson look much better than I was expecting. Hardly seemed rusty at all.

[Let'sGoZips94]

3 minutes ago, Blue & Gold said:

Nate Johnson look much better than I was expecting. Hardly seemed rusty at all.

 

I will say I think there's some rust that showed from what we didn't see - 3 pt shot attempts. Without looking at the box score, did he have a 3PA?

[ClevelandZip]

1 hour ago, kreed5120 said:

I'd prefer the #1 seed, but it's not much of a prize anymore now that the NIT did away with the auto bid. It's going to be either win the MAC tournament or no Zips postseason regardless of what seed we are.

So, I don’t really understand the new NIT rules. But we’re still 99th in the NET rankings. Would we still have a shot at an at-large bid to that if we don’t win the MAC tournament? The NCAA is so dumb for thinking people want to see more mediocre P6 teams in the NIT.

[kreed5120]

2 hours ago, ClevelandZip said:

So, I don’t really understand the new NIT rules. But we’re still 99th in the NET rankings. Would we still have a shot at an at-large bid to that if we don’t win the MAC tournament? The NCAA is so dumb for thinking people want to see more mediocre P6 teams in the NIT.

There is no chance for an NIT at-large. The tournament isn't seeded based off of NET. If it was there wouldn't be a need for a selection committee. Also, because of auto-bids to the NCAA tournament, there are 20-25 teams who aren't even in the top 100 that make the tournament. That means even if they picked the teams for the NIT solely based off of the best NET remaining, it wouldn't be teams 69-106 going. It would be teams ~45-~81. Akron is well below that.

[ClevelandZip]

43 minutes ago, kreed5120 said:

There is no chance for an NIT at-large. The tournament isn't seeded based off of NET. If it was there wouldn't be a need for a selection committee. Also, because of auto-bids to the NCAA tournament, there are 20-25 teams who aren't even in the top 100 that make the tournament. That means even if they picked the teams for the NIT solely based off of the best NET remaining, it wouldn't be teams 69-106 going. It would be teams ~45-~81. Akron is well below that.

Dang, that’s so stupid. Would love to see all the mid-major conferences band together and form our own post season tournament for the good teams that didn’t make the NCAA tournament. This is the final nail in the coffin of anyone giving a crap about the NIT tournament, which by the way, was won by a mid-major team last year.