I'm officially annoyed by the schedule this year. We've had the following breaks between games...
11 days
8 days
7 days
11 days
There's only three explanations. 1. Hawk crafted it in anticipation of needing multiple practices in a row to get the freshman up to speed. or 2. Scheduling is more difficult than we make it out to be and WMU wasn't able to set up something favorable. or 3. a combo of both.
I'd lean towards #3. It's frustrating because this is the 4th time we will be going at least a week without a basketball game. But considering we are 8-5, and not the 5-8 that I predicted before the first game...I'll take it and keep the grumbling at a minimum.
Anyhow, back to the thread topic.
Akron checks in at 8-4 right now. They have a game tonight against Coppin St at the JAR. Coppin is pretty weak right now, so I would expect a 9-4 record going into the WMU game.
Akron blew two games earlier in the year when two of their players, Treadwell and Harney, were ruled ineligible or voluntarily held out of games due to a paperwork issue in their compliance office. Those two likely make a difference in a pair of OT losses to Coastal Carolina and Oklahoma St. In short, they are even better than their record.
As mentioned earlier on this board, they are also playing without Quincy Diggs. He was dismissed from the team before the season started. His loss hurts...but don't feel too bad for the Zips...they are loaded.
To go along with the 2 OT losses, they also fell by 16 points at Creighton (#16 team in nation) and at Detroit by 7. I watched the Detroit game and was disappointed with how the Zips executed down the stretch. They were in control most of the game and Detroit's energy took over in the last 5 mins or so.
Akron followed Ohio's lead from recent years and changed their scheduling philosophy. They've been buying home games from fellow mid majors rather than scheduling home and away series. In their 13 non conference games this year, 7 are at home, 3 in Puerto Rico, and 3 were on the road. I can't stress this enough, I wish WMU would follow suit and make this happen. We've had 4 home games so far. Very frustrating.
Here's my take on Akron.
Marshall and Treadwell are the top 4 and 5 combo in the MAC right now. Together they average 24 points and almost 13 rebounds per game. We talked about Treadwell on this board after last year's game (Dip, I think you mentioned that he looked like a future MAC MVP in the making). The dude is a physical freak. To put it nicely, his matchup with Darius Paul does not look to be in our favor. I'm not too worried about Marshall because he has a tendency to get lost in the game and Shayne should play him tough on defense. Despite what is mentioned in the thread below from the Akron board, I think Shayne is equipped to battle him down low as well as most any other post player they will find on their schedule.
http://zipsnation.org/forums//index.php?showtopic=28165
I like the fact that our offense will keep their bigs away from the hoops. Last years game at University Arena was a slugfest down low. Lots of big bodies banging away trying to get position.
I also like the fact that Akron doesn't seem to be a great rebounding team despite the pieces they have. I think we can hurt them on the boards.
I don't like the fact that their guards present a huge mismatch for us. Richie and Pokely will be guarding Abreu and Walsh...and I'm guessing Hutch will draw Gilliam. All 3 of those guys shoot very very well.
Winning on the road in the MAC is tough. Opening up on the road at Akron, who is the reigning regular season champion, will be even more tough.
Our defense is gonna need to show up and we can't afford to let them go off from deep.
I'm really looking forward to this matchup because it will show us how we stack up against the best in the MAC.
Go Broncos
