(03-19-2017 02:01 PM)emu steve Wrote:  For those who have watched EMU realize that we are replacing most of our backcourt, Toney, Lee, and Mangum.

Could be addition by subtraction, considering all the issues we had with Lee and Mangum, and with Toney not being 100% with a knee issue all season.

Paul Jackson should be a very good point guard in the MAC, and I'm excited to see him play. But we have a massive hole at SG right now, that will likely have to be filled by a freshman unless we find a JUCO.

(03-19-2017 11:30 AM)kreed5120 Wrote:  

(03-19-2017 10:10 AM)Ohio Poly Wrote:  Akron loses the Big Dog but should still be a scrappy bunch with a new style of play as the others step up.

They are also losing Kwan. Akron's front court is going to be extremely inexperienced and undersized. I expect them to still be competitive in the MAC, but see them finishing somewhere in the middle of the conference, not the top.

Do the Zips have any bigs coming in this year's recruiting class?

(03-20-2017 12:54 PM)OUVan Wrote:  

(03-19-2017 11:30 AM)kreed5120 Wrote:  

(03-19-2017 10:10 AM)Ohio Poly Wrote:  Akron loses the Big Dog but should still be a scrappy bunch with a new style of play as the others step up.

They are also losing Kwan. Akron's front court is going to be extremely inexperienced and undersized. I expect them to still be competitive in the MAC, but see them finishing somewhere in the middle of the conference, not the top.

Do the Zips have any bigs coming in this year's recruiting class?

This years Akron recruits are below. It's a popular opinion at ZN.o that the Zips will start 6'6 Utomi at PF and either 6'9 Mike Hughes or 6'8 Olojakpoke at C. Hughes has played a grand total of 140 minutes and only 13 minutes in conference play. Olojakpoke has played 186 minutes. Both looked far from being finished products and Akron's success next year heavily depends on whether 1 or both can emerge. Hughes appeared to be the C of the future heading into this season, but completely fell out of the rotation after suffering a minor back injury around Christmas. He never worked his way back into the rotation.

6'9 PF Jaden Sayles
6'6 SF Eric Parrish

I think your guards are good enough to overcome it. This isn't exactly a league dominated by big men, and I'd bet you will compete with the likes of WMU and Ohio for the MAC crown.

(03-20-2017 12:00 AM)Wadszip Wrote:  This. The run of 21 wins seems like a safe bet to come to an end. The backcourt will have talent (though due to height will still be a liability on defense). The front court ????

Dambrot will get this team to 17-18 wins, but this will be the first true "rebuild" he has had to experience ... and if nobody steps up in the front court, 2018-19 could be abysmal.

GoZips (R.I.P.) would kindly ask you to turn in your Zips card.

18 wins? Please. Things will adjust and the looks will be different, but the Zips will be fine and come mid-February they'll be squarely in the hunt for yet another bye to the quarterfinals in Cleveland.

Utomi will step right into the role vacated by Kwan. He's a different player, but provides the same outside shooting in a big body to stretch the floor. I expect that Daniel will be the next All-MAC player on the Zips. With 3 years left, and all the experience from this year .. he doesn't need to take a huge unexpected leap .. just continue the progress from the last 2 years.

The ball action will be a little different without Big Dog to drop it into. I'll expect more drive and kick from Noah, Antino and Tavian. And with the younger bigs near the rim, it's not hard to imagine that the Zips defense will be better next year.

It's absolutely tough to lose 2 All Mac guys and the POY. But the roster is very stable and experienced, and that will yield similar results. We all wanted to light our hair on fire when Jeremiah Wood graduated after winning a little in the NIT and losing 3 KEY seniors (Wood, Dials and Middleton) at the end of 07-08, yet the very next year the Zips won the MAC tournament and went dancing.

It's all good.

As for the rest of the league .. I find it hard not to be optimistic. I think Carter at OU is going to be a VERY special player, and something about Ball State fascinates me. Huger is trending BG in the right direction, and Rob can take a deep breath now and do things his way at Kent. Tom Crean will need a season or two to turn the Redskins around.

Go Zips.

MAC Tourney Squares FTW!

I am not as doom and gloom as some Zips fans, as I think Akron will have plenty of talent to compete next year, but it will be a very different team. So many great big men are leaving the MAC with both of Akron's bigs, Campbell (shame how his season went), Taylor, and Maric all graduating. I expect the league to revert hard back into the guard dominated type of play that it usually has.

Toledo is kind of an unknown for next year. You could probably put them anywhere between 3-10

I would hold off on predictions for WMU for next season. Thomas Wilder just announced for the NBA draft. Smart move, though to not hire an agent. Is going to see where the evaluation puts him and leaves open the possibility of coming back for his senior year.

We'll just have to wait and see.....

I fully expect him to return.

(03-20-2017 04:00 PM)UAZippers Wrote:  I am not as doom and gloom as some Zips fans, as I think Akron will have plenty of talent to compete next year, but it will be a very different team. So many great big men are leaving the MAC with both of Akron's bigs, Campbell (shame how his season went), Taylor, and Maric all graduating. I expect the league to revert hard back into the guard dominated type of play that it usually has.

I wouldn't say calling for 17-18 wins being doom and gloom ... that's like 7-5 OOC and 10-8 in league play and a first-round MAC tourney win.

Now, maybe calling for the bottom to fall out in 18-19 (if no big man steps up next season) could be considered that, but for good reason as both Antino Jackson and Noah Robotham will be gone, so you'd be losing essentially two, four-year starters on top of still having questions in the post.

Plus, this is going to be new territory for the Zips. When was the last time this program has had this much uncertainty in the front court? Never under Dambrot.

It's pretty much gone from Travis/Wood to Wood/Linhart to Linhart/Cventinovic to Cventinovic/Marshall to Marshall/Forsythe/Treadwell to Forsythe/Johnson to Johnson/Cheatham. This program has always had at least two good/very good/great MAC post players.

On the bright side, I do think the 1-3 of Robotham/Jackson/Ivey is the best backcourt the Zips will ever have had under KD and the four-spot, at least offensively, will be fine with Utomi. But the front court is a major, major question mark. The two guys who are going to be counted on have played a combined 329 minutes and have combined for about 4 points and 3 rebounds per game. That's scary.

(03-21-2017 05:44 PM)MileHighBronco Wrote:  I would hold off on predictions for WMU for next season. Thomas Wilder just announced for the NBA draft. Smart move, though to not hire an agent. Is going to see where the evaluation puts him and leaves open the possibility of coming back for his senior year.

We'll just have to wait and see.....

From a selfish standpoint, I sure hope he goes!

I believe dambrot will mold a solid team. Utomi has all MAC ability. The guards are pretty good, although tiny and a bit inconsistent, just when I start to like antino Jackson he goes 3 for 13 in a big game.

Toledo is a big question mark, most of our losses were in OT or due to a weak finish. Add in 2 good sized wing transfers who were rotation guys in the PAC 12 and SEC and will have had a practice year to polish their game and fit in.that worked well for Taylor and Weatherspoon. The only certainty is we will run an efficient offense and struggle to get stops.

(03-25-2017 11:02 PM)pono Wrote:  I believe dambrot will mold a solid team. Utomi has all MAC ability. The guards are pretty good, although tiny and a bit inconsistent, just when I start to like antino Jackson he goes 3 for 13 in a big game.

Toledo is a big question mark, most of our losses were in OT or due to a weak finish. Add in 2 good sized wing transfers who were rotation guys in the PAC 12 and SEC and will have had a practice year to polish their game and fit in.that worked well for Taylor and Weatherspoon. The only certainty is we will run an efficient offense and struggle to get stops.

Toledo will have some talented players but will lack depth unless several freshmen are ready to contribute immediately.

I hate putting too much stock into recruiting classes when a guy has never seen a minute of D-I basketball, but Buffalo's class is shaping up to be maybe its best ever. James Reese was named the player of the year in the state of South Carolina and Jayvon Graves was just named the player of the year in Ohio and he won a state championship and was named tournament MVP.

Today Jeremy Harris, UB's JUCO recruit from Gulf Coast State was just ranked the second best JUCO player in the nation: http://www.jucorecruiting.com/2017jucotop100

Seems Coach Oats and his staff are doing quite the job on the recruiting trail.

(03-26-2017 02:47 PM)BullBoy Wrote:  I hate putting too much stock into recruiting classes when a guy has never seen a minute of D-I basketball, but Buffalo's class is shaping up to be maybe its best ever. James Reese was named the player of the year in the state of South Carolina and Jayvon Graves was just named the player of the year in Ohio and he won a state championship and was named tournament MVP.

Today Jeremy Harris, UB's JUCO recruit from Gulf Coast State was just ranked the second best JUCO player in the nation: http://www.jucorecruiting.com/2017jucotop100

Seems Coach Oats and his staff are doing quite the job on the recruiting trail.

Plus the Bulls have a guy who scored 10 ppg for Missouri and will be a senior eligible for the conference season. Sounds like quite an effective reload.

(03-26-2017 02:47 PM)BullBoy Wrote:  I hate putting too much stock into recruiting classes when a guy has never seen a minute of D-I basketball, but Buffalo's class is shaping up to be maybe its best ever. James Reese was named the player of the year in the state of South Carolina and Jayvon Graves was just named the player of the year in Ohio and he won a state championship and was named tournament MVP.

Today Jeremy Harris, UB's JUCO recruit from Gulf Coast State was just ranked the second best JUCO player in the nation: http://www.jucorecruiting.com/2017jucotop100

Seems Coach Oats and his staff are doing quite the job on the recruiting trail.

Jayvon Harris just led his team to the D-II state championship, and I think he was co-player of the year in D-II. Understand that Ohio has 4 divisons and chooses POY in every division, then from those guys chooses a Mr. Basketball, who was Kaleb Wesson, an Ohio State commit. So calling him the player of the year in Ohio is a bit misleading. He was a player of the year, but not the. To your point, he does look like a great recruit to me.

(03-26-2017 02:47 PM)BullBoy Wrote:  I hate putting too much stock into recruiting classes when a guy has never seen a minute of D-I basketball, but Buffalo's class is shaping up to be maybe its best ever. James Reese was named the player of the year in the state of South Carolina and Jayvon Graves was just named the player of the year in Ohio and he won a state championship and was named tournament MVP.

Today Jeremy Harris, UB's JUCO recruit from Gulf Coast State was just ranked the second best JUCO player in the nation: http://www.jucorecruiting.com/2017jucotop100

Seems Coach Oats and his staff are doing quite the job on the recruiting trail.

Ohio has an incoming PG/SG, Zach Butler, from South Carolina who just helped his team win the 5A SC State Championship a couple of weeks ago. Some Ohio fans see Butler as the 2nd choice after losing out on Jayvon Graves.

Yesterday Butler played in the NC/SC Classic all-star game with James Reese. NC won 134-115, Reese had 13pts, Butler with 9pts. Will be fun to watch these two go head to head the next 4 years.

KSU recruit BJ Duling was named D-I All-Ohio behind Wesson.

It's not a big year for recruits in Ohio. Most ratings, for what they are worth, have only one Ohio player in the top 50 and that is Derek Culver, a WVU recruit. Some services have Wesson a bit higher than him, some a bit lower, around #120. There is a Butler and a Georgetown recruit among the other top recruits.

This is not to say that Graves and Duling and Derek Koch (BG) are not great MAC pickups. All three should be impact players.

Interesting to note the school crushing it in recruiting is Xavier who has signed 2 or 3 (depending on where you look) top 100 players. They are out-recruiting OSU for sure.

Jaaron Simmons just declared for the draft.

Ohio Athletics

(03-27-2017 02:13 PM)BobcatEngineer Wrote:  Jaaron Simmons just declared for the draft.

Ohio Athletics

here's hoping he does what Tony did last year and just get a feel for what he needs to work on and then comes back to Ohio and plays his final year and plays HEALTHY (knock wood!)