Taking a look at Akron's win over Miami in the MAC Tournament

I wrote about Kent State's afternoon game Thursday for the Beacon Journal, and the story is that they basically picked the wrong day to have an off day. The Golden Flashes missed a lot of easy shots in their loss.

In the evening finale, Akron erased a 12-point first-half deficit and shot Miami back home to advance to the MAC Tournament semifinal with a 73-63 victory. Akron's win was most impressive. How impressive, you ask? The Zips were the only team that played Tuesday night that won on Thursday.

Things get no easier Friday night. Akron will play Bowling Green and its two-three zone. But they go into the game off a shooting high when many people — some unexpected, quite frankly — contributed to a win that came without Humpty Hitchens, who played just four minutes after aggravating his injured ankle.

Steve McNees took over for Hitchens and scored 17 points — making 5-of-7 threes and almost single-handedly bringing Akron back into the game as the first half wound down. Guard Darryl Roberts stepped in at the point as well and scored 15 points and had three assists. Freshman Nikola Cvetinovic had an outstanding second half, and finished with 12 points and eight rebounds. Nate Linhart played his usual strong game, but Jimmy Conyers stepped in when Linhart had foul problems and also contributed, especially on the defensive end where he had to guard MAC Player of the Year Michael Bramos.

The main reason Akron won? Its three-point shooting was outstanding. For the game, the Zips were 12-of-24 from three-point range, and 11-of-36 from two-point range. Kind of astounding.

The other reason: Work and hustle. The Zips outrebounded Miami 40-28, which largely is a product of hard work. As WKNR's Kenny Roda (nattily attired in a rarely seen Kohl's special rack tie) pointed out, Akron has not lost when it has outrebounded the opponent.

All this came after a poor start. Dambrot was right — the start was brutal and Akron really had no business being in the game. Miami controlled most of the first half — and Akron kept chunking shot after shot. The Zips missed their first nine shots, lost Linhart to fouls for eight minutes and lost Hitchens.

McNees made 5-of-6 first-half shots, including 4-of-5 from three-point range. His only two was on a nifty drive that ended with an underhanded that sat on the rim before falling in. Miami had a real opportunity to put the Zips away early, but didn't. And a 12-point Miami first-half lead had disintegrated into a one-point lead at halftime.

When the Zips came out with (as they say nowadays) energy in the second half, they were able to take control, spurred on by an 8-0 run with just more than six minutes that left that featured a Cvetinovic layup and threes from McNees and Linhart.

One other impressive stat: Akron had eight turnovers, which is really taking care of the ball.

Nice game, nice effort, nice win. The semifinal game against Bowling Green is scheduled to start at 10 p.m.

What did the principal (not Roda) have to say? Here are some quotes from coach Keith Dambrot:

"They hit us in the right. They hit us in the left. They hit us in the middle. They totally disrespected us early. Just beat the crap out of us. And our guys just rallied themselves."

On the three-point shooting: "I felt all year long we've underachieved shooting the ball. Once we quit quick-triggering it we started to shoot the ball well."

He does not expect Hitchens to play against Bowling Green: " He's an awfully tough guy, so if he couldn't play I think we have to move on and not use it an excuse and McNees will have to step up again. It's funny how the world is sometimes. You get opportunities you don't expect."

On guarding Bramos: "He was 5-for-13, which is about the best he's ever shot against us."

On the high-scoring game against Miami: " Seventy-three is usually two games for us against them."