Football
The Buchtelite’s Adam Ferrise wrote excellent stories about how Chase Blackburn and Domenik Hixon’s careers took them to the Super Bowl.
Akron almost overlooked Hixon in the recruiting process. Blackburn filled in for the Giants after injuries. Here’s another story about their careers in general.
Men’s basketball
Daily Collegian — Darryl Roberts mentions some bad blood between himself and toledo.
— Next up for the Rockets is a home game against Kent State, Saturday at noon.
Football
Remember to tune into Joe Dunn’s recruiting show tonight at 8 p.m. on 1350 AM.
His guests will include J.D. Brookhart and me. The Akron portion of the show likely will begin around 9.
Men’s basketball
Jeremiah Wood and Cedrick Middleton are dressed but limping. Jimmy Conyers is in uniform, too. SID Gregg Bach called them each “game-time decisions.”
UT senior guard Kashif Payne left the team for personal reasons early in the season. My question is whether “betting on games” qualifies in that category. You never know with these ramblin’, gamblin’ Rockets.
Two surprises in Akron’s starting lineup. See if you can find them: Nick Dials, Darryl Roberts, Nate Linhart, Brett McKnight and Wood.
Roberts has the assignment on Tyrone Kent. It’s a size mismatch, but Kent is pretty quick and runs the point.
McKnight picked up two quick fouls. His brother will replace him.
This game is getting really ugly. Akron had three straight turnovers. Toledo responded with three run-outs of which they converted none. Besides that, though, the Rockets are hot, shooting 70 percent from the field and 4-of-4 from 3-point land.
This is not the same team that blew out Miami just a few weeks ago. That loss at Kent State really rattled the Zips. They appear to be suffering from a severe confidence problem.
Middleton’s stroke lacks tempo. He needs to practice shooting while listening to some R&B or something. A better solution is to rest him the rest of this game and against Eastern Michigan.
An illustration of Akron’s confidence problem: Conyers had a wide-open 3-pointer. He short-armed it and was AT LEAST two feet short.
Maybe it’s all the competition for playing time catching up with Akron. If you anticipate getting yanked after a bad play or two (like Conyers appropriately was), you’ll play with more anxiety.
Akron is regaining some energy, but the sloppiness persists. The official scorer has Akron with only eight turnovers. I think Dials might have that many alone. It’s not correct, for sure.
You saw another half where Dials and Middleton did not score. They combined for 0-of-7 from the field. Without them, Akron would be at about 55 percent tonight, so the rest of the team isn’t shooting poorly. Linhart leads both teams with 11 points.
Brett McKnight was a nonfactor in his first career start. Quade Milum took his spot to open the second half.
Akron blew consecutive layups. Both would’ve been sure bets if the Zips went glass.
One player who missed a layup was Dials, who looks like he’s in the 10th round of a boxing match. Dambrot needs to cut his minutes, badly. But then again, the same goes for Middleton, who finally made a shot.
Toledo’s Jonathan Amos is 1-for-10 from the field. That guy has more problems finishing than a drunk frat boy. What’s that, you say? I crossed the line?
Toledo is leading mainly because the Rockets are 7-for-13 on 3-pointers. I can’t remember an opponent shooting that well from outside on Akron all season.
I continue to muse over what makes Akron a different team today than it was a week ago. Maybe the team is hitting the wall. We have seen it happen to Miami and Ohio. It almost happened to Kent State, who trailed Buffalo at home. The Zips just need to close out this game, beat Eastern Michigan and hope their legs regain some spring.
You might have just seen the game-turning play. Three Zips got floor burns on a steal. The ball found Roberts in the corner for 3. Dials drilled a 3 on the next possession after Bardo set a crack-back pick on a Toledo defender.
Amos is up to 1-for-12. He just took a 3-pointer, maybe hoping a long shot would unjinx him on the bunnies. No dice. This guy can’t make a sandwich, much less a contested jumper.
Steve McNees and Roberts are quietly having good games. McNees has 14 points and four assists. Roberts has 10 points.
The Zips are covering the spread. That should be significant to Toledo athletes.
Akron has done a nice job on Kent, who is 1-of-7 from the field for three points. He led the MAC in scoring coming into the game.
The Zips have drained 9-of-14 3-pointers in the second half. McNees was 4-of-5 on the night from 3.
Final score — Akron 68, Toledo 52
Football
I will be on the radio tomorrow with Joe Dunn as part of a college recruiting show.
The program will start on 1350 AM at 8 p.m. with Ohio State coverage. Interviews with J.D. Brookhart and myself will probably start at 9.
Men’s basketball
Coaches might limit Jeremiah Wood’s playing time tonight because of a knee sprain, the ABJ’s Tom Gaffney reports.
Gaffney goes on to assess the problems the team has faced the past two games.
I think it’s time to see more Darryl Roberts and Brett McKnight. McKnight, in particular, could become a bigger contributor with more playing time. Roberts could shore up the point guard position while Steve McNees and Nick Dials struggle.
Despite Akron’s recent problems, the Zips are 15.5-point favorites.
Prediction – Nate Linhart should limit Tyrone Kent’s production. Akron can wear out Toledo’s six-man rotation by running the break. Look for the Zips to break out of this mini-slump by curb-stomping the hapless Rockets. Without any size, Toledo’s front line also will be in trouble if Wood does play.
Akron 76, Toledo 55
I plan to liveblog from the game if you aren’t attending and have a computer handy.
Football
Marcus Cooper, wide receiver, Bloomfield, Conn.
Offers: Akron, Buffalo, Temple and Troy
Height: 6-foot-3
Weight: 185
Speed: 4.45
Notes: Akron entered the Cooper sweepstakes late. Rivals.com gives him two stars. Scout gives him three. He might be a player to watch for grades problems. Coming into this season, he had a 2.35 GPA and scored a 900 on his SAT.
Ryan Gardner, wide receiver, Diablo Valley C.C. (Calif.)
Offers: Akron, Fresno State, Utah State, Colorado State and Utah
Height: 6-1
Weight: 185
Speed: 4.4
Notes: Rivals.com gives him three stars. Scout.com gives Gardner two stars, yet says he runs a 4.3 in the 40-yard dash. That’s some incredible speed.
Rhyne Ladrach, tight end, Orrville
Offers: Akron, Eastern Michigan, Kent State and Air Force
Height: 6-6
Weight: 225
Speed: 4.7
Notes: Rivals.com gives him two stars. Scout.com, which says little about Ladrach, gives the tight end one star. Before Akron offered a scholarship, Kent State and Air Force were his favorites, although he told Rivals.com that he couldn’t be a pilot because of his color blindness.
Men’s basketball
We need to play harder.
We need to play better defense.
We miss Romeo and Dru.
Blah.
Men’s basketball
The Rockets have the odd position of featuring the league’s highest scorer, yet being the second-lowest scoring team.
Tyrone Kent scores 18.3 points per game — almost two points more than the MAC’s next best. The 6-foot-5 swingman does a lot of it from long range. He leads Nick Dials by one for the league’s most frequent 3-point converter.
The team isn’t quite so productive, as a whole, because it shoots MAC’s worst free throw percentage and second-worst field goal percentage. The Rockets also are dead last in rebounding margin.
When does Toledo actually win? When they force oodles of turnovers. They milked 23 out of Missouri State and 22 out of Drexel. Both were wins.
As it turns out, carelessness with the ball has been Akron’s weakness the past three games. That includes the lucky win against Ohio. MAC teams have figured out that if you bother Steve McNees, he’s no longer a phenom. Dials shows that he’s just a converted shooting guard.
If Akron did not figure it out this week, Toledo can make the game close.
Football
FoxSports.com wrote a great story encapsuling Domenik Hixon’s tumultuous season.
Hixon is such a good person, I can’t help but root for the Giants on Sunday. Oh yeah, and they’re playing the Patriots.
Football
As a local three-star player and son of Akron’s defensive coordinator, Will Fleming was one of the most interesting stories of the recruiting season.
The plot thickened when Hawaii and Boise State offered Fleming a scholarship from across the country.
In the end, Fleming chose to stay home and play for his father, Jim Fleming.
“My dad was really excited about the news,” Will Fleming told Rivals.com.
Fleming is ranked as the No. 44 player in Ohio. He is Akron’s third three-star recruit, according to Rivals.com. Scout.com says Fleming is the No. 122 safety in the country and gives him two stars.
Men’s basketball
The Zips dipped to 10th in the Mid-Major Top 25 after peaking at fifth last week.
Kent State climbed from ninth to seventh.
Toledo will visit Rhodes Arena Wednesday. I’ll probably break down the Rockets tomorrow.
Men’s basketball
The pregame hosts kept talking about the game being played at Rose Arena, which sounds a lot like Rhodes Arena. It had me wondering if these guys knew what they were talking about, but they did.
I was hoping Michael Reghi would announce the game. My wish was granted.
Isn’t it soothing to play a defense that isn’t as tenacious as Kent State’s?
The Zips are having their way in getting the ball down to Jeremiah Wood.
It would be so much fun to be this crain operator. Take a look at that video during the next commercial break.
Back to the pregame show… The hosts mentioned Cedrick Middleton as being “hot.” While I don’t expect these guys to know everything about Akron, Middleton has been quite cold since MAC play started. His stats: 27.9 percent from the field, eight assists in five games and 7.6 points per game.
Keith Dambrot addressed it at the postgame press conference on Wednesday. He said he’d keep riding Middleton. The Zips would be much better off with Darryl Roberts getting some of his 28 minutes per game. As I write that, Middleton nailed a 3.
Nate Linhart, aka the MVP, had a similar funk early in the season. He came out of it by focusing on defense and not trying to force his shots on offense. The problem with Middleton is that his knees aren’t in good shape, so you have to ask whether a comeback is feasible while he is still playing a lot of minutes. Why not give him a couple weeks off to rest?
Don’t get me wrong. Middleton can contribute because of his talent and character. A nagging injury and confidence issue is hindering that.
Wood has missed a lot of chip shots this game. Still, Akron’s doing a good job of swinging the ball and finding him in position.
Akron is getting rather sloppy with the ball. Nick Dials has at least four turnovers.
My posts are getting less frequent because my puppy keeps nibbling on my legs. It’s cute and painful.
In other MAC action: Ball State is beating Ohio in Athens, 37-27 with 15 minutes left in the second half. Later today, Eastern Michigan will play at Miami and Buffalo is at Toledo.
The Zips are in unfamiliar territory. Even in the games they lost, they have held a first-half lead. The Chippewas are playing more like Akron than Akron is. They are running the break and playing tight perimeter defense. Even CMU’s post play has been superior.
I like how CMU is engaging Akron’s guards at half court, rather than the 3-point line. I think the Zips would be more effective using that strategy, too.
This is a frustrating game for Akron offensively. The Zips are missing a lot of easy shots. The turnovers speak for themselves. Combine that with a subpar defensive effort and it should not be surprising Akron’s losing. There is a lot of time left, and I still think the Zips will win by at least the spread (six).
As we all expected, Ohio came back to beat Ball State, 61-59.
Akron has done an atrocious job of defending Nate Minnoy, who is listed as a swingman, but plays like a power forward. He reminds me of Nate Miller from Bowling Green. Jimmy Conyers is probably the best Zip to stop him, but I haven’t seen Conyers since the beginning of the first half.
Minnoy has 21 points — 17 coming in the second half. If the Zips lose, blame Dambrot’s reluctance to use Conyers on Minnoy and Wood’s countless blown layups.
In his conversation with Dave Ruthenberg, Rick Boyages of the MAC said CMU has trouble getting teams to play in Kalamazoo because of its poor location (not near major airports). Akron is pretty fortunate in that regard.
Middleton drew a charge on Giordan Watson to give Akron the ball with a chance to win. The Zips called their final timeout. They need to feed Wood. Period.
Akron drove down and CMU poked it away. Dials tried to return back down the floor with six seconds left. He lost the handle in trying to pass to McNees. McNees eventually gathered the ball, but was swarmed and could not get off a desperation 3-pointer in time.
Bad defense + disorganized, sloppy offense = loss. This should be a wake-up call for Akron, who will have three days to figure out the offense before Toledo visits on Wednesday.
Final score — Akron 64, Central Michigan 65
Women’s soccer
Chris Pfau, who resurrected Evansville’s program and took Princeton to the Final Four as an assistant, will take over as head coach at Akron.
Mack Rhoades succeeded once again in hiring a man who has been a winner at the same level as a head coach. I’m not sure how he does it.
Men’s basketball
I plan to liveblog during the game today, which starts at 2:30 p.m.
Football
The Odd Corner is fighting to keep its heels dug in at the corner of Union and Exchange streets.
Of the original six property owners contesting eminent domain, two have settled. The other three who are still fighting reside on Nash and Exchange streets.
Men’s basketball
It should be interesting to watch how Akron responds from the emotional loss at Kent State.
Central Michigan is more than fodder. The Chippewas are a high-scoring, turnover-forcing team.
That’s exactly how they blew out Michigan at Ann Arbor — scoring 78 points and forcing 23 screw-ups.
Giordan Watson was in the middle of that, scoring 22 and grabbing three steals. With stats of 16.5 points, 4.3 assists and 1.76 steals per game, he is one of the MAC’s best guards. Watson is in the MAC’s top six in each category.
Last year, Akron did a good job defending Watson, who shot a combined 10-for-28 in the Zips’ two victories.
Outside of Watson, the Chips’ lineup has been in flux. Twelve players have started at least three games. The team also lacks consistency in the front court. Only two players average more than three rebounds per game — and one is a swingman (Nate Minnoy). Minnoy has been cold since conference play began, shooting only 37 percent.
The game starts at 2:30 p.m. today and will be on Fox Sports Ohio.
Prediction – After Kent State, Akron should not have a problem with motivation to beat this MAC West opponent. Combine that with the fact that the Zips are good at shutting down a team’s star — especially when that team is one-dimensional, like CMU is. The Zips are 6.5-point favorites, but I think that’s five to 10 points off. The Chippewas have a chance to beat the spread (not win) if Steve McNees keeps up his Yinka Dare approach to offense management.
Akron 85, Central Michigan 67
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