This was a different kind of win for sure. It started out like all the others...great defense, winning TO battle huge, not fouling and having a comfortable lead despite meh shooting. But in the end we won because we outshot our opponent highlighted by a few really big shots. Namely the the 3 straight threes late in the 1st half by Sears/Carter/Sears...then down the stretch the 3 by BVP, the tremendous driving bucket off the glass by Roderick, and the dagger drive bucket by Sears.

It was 33-23 at the half but personally I thought Akron was lucky it wasn't about 35-15. We completely dominated the 1st half with elite defense...several of their 23 were from real ugly shots. The stretch from 53-39 to 60-61 was indescribably painful. Both the technical and 10 second call felt like refs taking their job too seriously...Schmock was heading over the line right at the 20 second mark, and coaches are "outside the box" constantly. For that stretch Akron just couldn't miss and things felt very dire. So impressive to move past that and tip the scales back in our favor. As others said, free throw shooting was big. It is a known strength for us and known weakness for them.

And Mark Sears is incredible. We saw it last year too...his talent is just easy to see watching him. I'm forever amazed he didn't get lots of high major offers.

The and-1 that Sears made through 3 defenders was unbelievable.

Very nice road win. Jason Carter had a fine game. Having said that how many times did he fail to finish at the rim? He has struggled with that in 4+ years of college basketball.

Winning in the JAR is always great! Was prOUd to see the team weather the comeback and pull out a tough road win.

Nothing to add someone else hasn't already said, but that game was just all kinds of fun. I absolutely thought they were going to lose it after that stretch that included Boals' T, a bunch of Carter's close-but-not-quite shooting around the rim, a couple of over-excited fouls, and the 10 second violation, but they still played a lot of great basketball and hung tough at the end.

- Roderick shoots 50% from three (okay, 1 of 2)
- Carter made a couple of threes
- Defense was stout
- And Sears looks to be developing into a stud. Within spitting distance of 20 ppg. Ohio hasn't had that in nearly 20 years.

I'm bummed about Mcday leaving, but this is a fun group. Not yet convinced it's made for upsets of the top 25, but still a fun team.

Maybe I missed something but KJ Walton isn't even on Akron's roster anymore? I know Trimble was in protocol but Walton went from playing the first six games to not even being on their roster?

Really good win…but lots of failures in the lane! And lots of bad possessions. Need to learn to value each and every possession. When we move the ball and don’t force things and play good defense we are really good.

I loved how he stripped the ball from behind against Ali in the first half when Ali thought he had a mismatch and was going to take him one-on-one. I believe the steal led to a Bobcat basket.

Later in the game, when Ali was going to single-handedly lead the Zips to victory, Schmock left his man to double up Ali in the corner. I believe Akron came up empty on both possessions.

I do NOT think that is his last name....

That was a great win in a place that is hard to win. Normally do not think much about officials and certainly do not take time to critique but that was several minutes of horse hockey after the T on the Akron end. Talked to my Mom in GA who turned it off she was so disgusted. I did not think we were getting out with a win.

ALways a good trip home when you win at the JAR. Sears was really good post game on the radio. Team is playing well and really seems to like each other. Nice start to MAC play.

IMO, we had "some" bad possessions, not "lots". But I agree we are a better team when we move the ball.

Carter does a lot of good things but at the rim? Keep track each game of how many times he misses at point-blank range. This has been a consistent theme his entire career.
[/QUOTE]There are lots of times I think he should be banking when he chooses to do otherwise.

It's what I call "Chad Gill Disease." Chad was a good ball player, but he'd miss point blank layups, and then make much more difficult shots from outside. I liked Chad as a player, as i liked his dad of Elite 8 fame. But, he seemed to have troubles with bunnies.

Larry Hunter's first recruit. I'll always respect him playing at Ohio. I still don't know how Larry won 12 games his first year with Jerry Lebold at center. Some guy named Dave Jamerson scoring 30 per game had something to do with those 12 wins.