Games 5, 6 & 7- The Paradise Jam

[kreed5120]

2 minutes ago, 1981 grad said:

Great game.  The guys played very well and just could not get over the hump.  We will win most games if we play like this every night.  

 

Yes, most teams don't have Jokic on their roster.

[csims0917]

Tavari had the best shooting night since Castaneda it feels like (ik freeman has had 30 before too). Just ridiculous stat lines. Biggest outlier is Young with 0 😕

[Illini Zip]

Scott had 25 points too. 

[zippy5]

The good news is we only dropped to 62 in kenpom. Bad news is that's probably our last shot at a "good" win all year 

[NWAkron]

Fortunately, Groce ran up the score in the other two games.  Only one point drop in Ken Pom.

[Reslife4Life]

Unbelievable game, proud of the team for coming all the way back from down 15. So hard to beat a team that shoots 63% from the field and doesn’t foul

[kreed5120]

1 minute ago, zippy5 said:

The good news is we only dropped to 62 in kenpom. Bad news is that's probably our last shot at a "good" win all year 

 

At-large was never going to happen anyway. Biggest issue is it's likely Yale will make the field of 68 and this could keep them seeded ahead of us. Could be the difference between an 11th or 12th seed.

[zippy5]

1 minute ago, kreed5120 said:

 

At-large was never going to happen anyway. Biggest issue is it's likely Yale will make the field of 68 and this could keep them seeded ahead of us. Could be the difference between an 11th or 12th seed.

Yeah at large or seeding, our numbers at the moment are good enough where a top 40 kenpom team starts getting attention if we go on a win streak 

Edited 11 hours ago by zippy5

[Zippy87]

Overall a good tournament experience, and hopefully one that will pay off down the line. 

 

Tavari and Shammah were incredible. Lyles had a solid 2nd half after a pretty rough 1st. Evan played solid defense but struggled to contribute elsewhere. 

 

Rare occasion where I think we got outcoached a bit. Doubling Townsend just wasn't working, and we stuck with it far too long. Yale shot really well, but we also allowed a ton of easy looks. Asking MMK to play the 5 against this team was questionable too, IMO. 

 

Probably the most concerning takeaway from this game was Yale outscoring us 26-13 in bench points, with 9 of the 13 coming from Hardman. I'm optimistic that depth will show up more as the season progresses.

 

Overall, proud of our team and looking forward to seeing them continue to grow over the course of the season! 

[1981 grad]

3 minutes ago, Zippy87 said:

Overall a good tournament experience, and hopefully one that will pay off down the line. 

 

Tavari and Shammah were incredible. Lyles had a solid 2nd half after a pretty rough 1st. Evan played solid defense but struggled to contribute elsewhere. 

 

Rare occasion where I think we got outcoached a bit. Doubling Townsend just wasn't working, and we stuck with it far too long. Yale shot really well, but we also allowed a ton of easy looks. Asking MMK to play the 5 against this team was questionable too, IMO. 

 

Probably the most concerning takeaway from this game was Yale outscoring us 26-13 in bench points, with 9 of the 13 coming from Hardman. I'm optimistic that depth will show up more as the season progresses.

 

Overall, proud of our team and looking forward to seeing them continue to grow over the course of the season! 

I agree.  Marvin did not look confortable when playing the 5.  I thought Groce tried just about everything to stop their offense including zone, double teaming and playing man.  Nothing seemed to work.

[Zippy87]

3 minutes ago, 1981 grad said:

I agree.  Marvin did not look confortable when playing the 5.  I thought Groce tried just about everything to stop their offense including zone, double teaming and playing man.  Nothing seemed to work.

 

Marvin was giving up 4 inches and about 30 lbs against their 5 when he was guarding him. Really tough ask, despite his giving his best as usual. Mentioned it earlier, but not using Barre or Brisco tonight makes me think neither will play much of a role on this team unless there's an injury. 

Edited 11 hours ago by Zippy87

[RoyalBlu]

This is going to sound strange, but bear with me. Yale's shooting percentage was a plus for Akron as there were relatively few rebounds to be had ... and rebounding is where the bulk of fouls usually come from. I still think the Zips are lacking on the boards.

 

To Akron's credit, the Zips shoot it well enough to overcome it and not get guys in fouls trouble. But as the season wears on I think this could be where the Zips are exposed,

[kreed5120]

5 minutes ago, Zippy87 said:

Evan played solid defense but struggled to contribute elsewhere. 

 

Evan never has been great offensively in the half-court. Where he thrives is when he's able to get out in space or when cleaning up misses. Akron wasn't really able to create turnovers nor were we missing many shots so his opportunities were minimal. 

[Reslife4Life]

The doubling Townsend in the post just made sense, the problem was defending the cuts Yale was making. A problem we fell into in the second half, Townsend would get the ball 15~ feet from the basket, dribble in a little bit as if he was gonna take a baseline J, we would fall for it and he could go on by. That happened maybe 3 times in that second half just gifting him points

[Let'sGoZips94]

25 minutes ago, zippy5 said:

The good news is we only dropped to 62 in kenpom. Bad news is that's probably our last shot at a "good" win all year 

 

Milwaukee, Murray St, and Tulane will all be solid opportunities, plus the 2nd SBC game. If we only have a few losses come March and 2 of them are this game vs Yale and the Purdue game, that's a heck of a resume. 

[Zippy87]

1 minute ago, Reslife4Life said:

The doubling Townsend in the post just made sense, the problem was defending the cuts Yale was making. A problem we fell into in the second half, Townsend would get the ball 15~ feet from the basket, dribble in a little bit as if he was gonna take a baseline J, we would fall for it and he could go on by. That happened maybe 3 times in that second half just gifting him points

 

Townsend was just too good at reading the defense and picked it apart. They had so many easy buckets, especially in the first half. It felt like they just didn't have to work as hard to score as we did all night. 

[Illini Zip]

Yale shot 14 of 19 (73.7%) from the line against Green Bay and 11 of 18 (61.1%) against Charleston. They’re good, but we caught them on the wrong night. And there is a little bush league in that ivy. The fact that the refs let them get away with that hook and hold crap was driving me crazy. We do need better defense. There is still a lot of season left for everyone to improve, including hopefully Barre. 

[clarkwgriswold]

In the post-game, Groce was critical of the Zips defense.

[Let'sGoZips94]

53 minutes ago, clarkwgriswold said:

In the post-game, Groce was critical of the Zips defense.

 

Which is fine and expected, but Yale still had to make their shots and they did. Easy to fault Akron's defense and as a coach he should, but it was just one of those nights where the opponent was perfect. 

[Blue & Gold]

10 hours ago, Illini Zip said:

Our guys are fighting like hell. I just can’t believe this Yale team. They can’t be perfect all of the time. Geeez. 

Props to Yale. They played perfect basketball for an entire 40 minutes. 🤯 They made tough, contested shots, always found the open man out of a double-team, never cooled off from 3, made all 21 of their free throw attempts...

... and we still only lost by 3.

Great game.

[clarkwgriswold]

14 minutes ago, Let'sGoZips94 said:

 

Which is fine and expected, but Yale still had to make their shots and they did. Easy to fault Akron's defense and as a coach he should, but it was just one of those nights where the opponent was perfect. 

 

Yep.  That Yale team was sure clutch.  EVERY time they needed to make a shot they did.  I'll give our kids credit for sticking with it and fighting through.

[Zippy87]

15 minutes ago, Let'sGoZips94 said:

 

Which is fine and expected, but Yale still had to make their shots and they did. Easy to fault Akron's defense and as a coach he should, but it was just one of those nights where the opponent was perfect. 

 

They played really well, but I agree with Groce that the defense wasn't good enough. Part of that was gameplan (doubling Townsend didn't work), but we gave up a ton of open shots, especially in crunch time. We tied it with 5:02 to go and proceeded to give up wide open 3s on the next 4 possessions (they hit 3/4). Yes, they had to knock them down, but we absolutely could have made it more difficult on them to do so. 

[zippy5]

9 hours ago, RoyalBlu said:

This is going to sound strange, but bear with me. Yale's shooting percentage was a plus for Akron as there were relatively few rebounds to be had ... and rebounding is where the bulk of fouls usually come from. I still think the Zips are lacking on the boards.

 

To Akron's credit, the Zips shoot it well enough to overcome it and not get guys in fouls trouble. But as the season wears on I think this could be where the Zips are exposed,

My man the other team making every shot was in fact not good for us 

[Illini Zip]

I know it’s just not the same because we lost, but Hardman was put in at the end and boy did he hit an incredible deep three with a hand in his face. 

[zippy5]

I know Yale played a perfect game but I'm sure their fans are saying the same about us. We had an answer for just about everything they had. Just one bucket short