Roo News 11/22/10

1) The men's basketball team won a thriller in overtime against Youngstown State on Saturday.

In summation? Two words. Nik Cvetinovic. Oh, and Zeke Marshall. And Brett McClanahan.

Cvetinovic shot 10-12, and 7-9 from the line for a career high 27 points.

Marshall shot 8-16, 6-12 from the line for a career high 22 points, and also pulled down 3 rebounds and sent 3 basketballs screaming for their life.

McClanahan shot 8-13, 3-7 from behind the arc for a career high 22 points, and pulled down 10 rebounds! Remember earlier this year, when I said not to get too hopeful about Brett McClanahan because he's always been streaky? Ignore that. As far as you know, I didn't say it. See? I didn't even link to the post. I could be lying to you for all you know.

McClanahan has developed into one heck of an all-around player. He lives beyond 3-point range, but isn't afraid to drive the lane, and he's become an absolute workhorse on defense. I was watching him midway through the 2nd half. Every time the ball was shot, he was circling around his defender to grab the rebound.

So anyway, with just a few seconds left on the clock, Akron had outshot Youngstown State by 14% and three players had a career high in points, so naturally the Zips were down by 3 thanks to 56% free throw shooting. After two missed shots on the last possession, Zeke Marshall ripped the ball out of a Penguin player's hand for the rebound and swung it out to McClanahan, who promptly sunk the game-tying three. Overtime. Then Akron pulled away.

This game was tied 18 times; probably the most exciting Zips basketball game I've ever seen. So naturally I wasn't in attendance, but watching it on the hideous creation that is Zips Zone.

2) The women's basketball team dropped Niagara 77-58 yesterday afternoon. Rachel Tecca once again led the team in scoring with 20, as did Kara Murphy. The Zips were only up 64-58 late in the game, but scored 13 straight points to close out.

3) The men's soccer team advances to the round of 16 after beating West Virginia 3-2 yesterday. After leading 3-0 80 minutes in, and dominating in shots 15-2, the Zips got a little complacent, allowing four shots from the Mountaineers, two of which translated into late goals. Darren Mattocks scored his 16th and 17th goals of the season. The other was put in from 18 yards by Scott Caldwell, his 3rd of the season.

The next opponent for the Zips is Indiana, who dropped Tulsa 5-0 in the second round.

Close Game = Akron Loss

After treating us to an hour of the Cavaliers' post-game show last night, FSN finally switched over to the Akron/Dayton men's basketball game. Just in time for the halftime show. And after what seemed like four days later, I got to watch some basketball.

Summary:

After a first half explosion from Chris Wright, the Zips trailed 42-31 at halftime, pulled back to 54-54 thanks to some ridiculous three point shooting, then did what every Dambrot-coached Zips basketball team has done in the last few years in a close game; tired out and allowed their opponents to walk away with a victory. This one happened to be a 76-68 victory.

There is absolutely no reason that the Flyers should have walked away with that win. They're a great team, don't get me wrong. But Akron was leading midway through the second half with 7'0" Zeke Marshall and 6'10" Mike Bardo on the bench with foul trouble, thanks to over 50% three-point shooting. With around 5 minutes left, Marshall reentered the game. Done deal, right? Surely McNees and McClanahan would stop shooting NBA-length threes. Surely they'd realize that hot streaks end. Surely they'd start giving the ball to Cvetinovic and Marshall, letting them get their work done on the inside.

Nope.

The Zips shot a ghastly 22-60 overall. Of course, that may have been largely due to their 14-36 three-point shooting. They were also dominated in every facet by the Dayton offense, who led in rebounding 42-27 and shot 30-56 overall. On top of this "Please don't touch me!" defense, the bench looked awful. For the love of Pete, folks, Nikola Cvetinovic led our team in assists with 7. How many did starting point guard Steve McNees have? 0. Not one. And he was 4-13 shooting. And he was 4-12 from three-point range. I feel like this blog is turning into College Basketbawful.

The good news is, it's a long season. The bad news is, this Zips team looks like the last few Dambrot-coached teams; playing to the level of their opponent, hanging in a close game, then failing miserably in the last two minutes. The rest of the good news is, Dambrot-coached teams translate end-of-game regular season failure into end-of-game tournament success. The rest of the bad news is, the streak of three-point shooting we saw yesterday won't happen every game. It probably won't happen in half of the games. If Zeke Marshall, Dakotah Euton and Mike Bardo can't establish a low-post presence, we're going to be in trouble.

Exhibition Games Are Hard To Recap...

The men's basketball team looked great yesterday in their exhibition matchup against Division III John Carroll, winning by a score of 111-48...but that's mostly because they were playing Division III John Carroll.

The Blue Streaks actually had the lead early on (8-5) before Akron ran away with it.

Looked Great:

- Nikola Cvetinovic, who put up 19 points, 8 rebounds, 2 assists and a steal in just 16 minutes of play. He also shot 9-12 from the line, which is a breath of fresh air after he shot 50.6% from the line last year.

- Steve McNees, who took 7 shots in his 23 minutes of play, all from beyond the arc, and made 5 of them. Add to that his 5 rebounds and 9 assists.

- Zeke Marshall, and his role on the team. Statistically, he played 25 minutes, scored 14 points on 6-7 shooting, pulled down 5 rebounds, and had 3 blocks and an assist. The fact that he only got 5 rebounds looks worrying at first glance. And here's an interesting tidbit: After John Carroll started a full court press, the Zips ran a play with Zeke as the anchor, at midcourt. McNees, or whoever was at the point, would just heave it up to Zeke, who would seemingly jump 40 feet in the air, pull it down, and calmly hand it back to the point guard at half-court.

Looked Good:

- Brett McClanahan. He shot 5-11 overall, 5-9 from downtown. Four of those 3's came consecutively. Most likely, he will be just as streaky this year as he has been in the past, but as long as those streaks happen when it counts, he can be a huge boost to morale.

- Dakotah Euton. He was the only incoming player that didn't look shaky (see below). He ended with 6 points on 3-5 shooting, with 5 rebounds. One of those shots was a ridiculous three pointer that ended up somewhere in downtown Columbus. Other than that shot, however, he looked solid.

- The Zeke Marshall/Mike Bardo combo. Bardo only played 11 minutes, but pulled down 7 rebounds, with a block and a steal. He also had three points on 1-3 shooting. Having 7'0" Marshall and 6'10" Bardo on the floor at the same time will work wonders if the perimeter players play some good defense.

Looked Shaky:

- The incoming players (minus Dakotah Euton). Alex Abreu and Quincy Diggs look promising, but both just looked jittery yesterday. Abreu ended with 10 points on 3-7 shooting, and had 4 assists and 5 steals. There were times he looked like a wizard with the ball, but there were also moments when he didn't look for the pass at all. Those didn't end well. Diggs had 6 points on 3-5 shooting, with 4 rebounds in 17 minutes.

Other Notes:

- Josh Egner looked good statistically (10 points, 5 rebounds and 2 blocks in just 4 minutes), but also had a turnover and 3 personal fouls.

- Brett McKnight didn't play, but if he improves at all from last season, our frontcourt is going to be scary this year.

- I'd like to see some more play from Kyle Peterson. He only scored 2 points and 2 assists in 5 minutes yesterday, but this is largely because Egner took most of his shots in that period of time. Peterson is definitely better than a 2-minutes a season player.

- Want to know exactly how small John Carroll was? The Zips outrebounded them 62-35.

The Zips play another Division III team (Millikin) on Saturday, only this one will put a number on the standings. The game is at the JAR, and there are $1 Hot Dogs and Pepsi Products while supplies last. The $10 general admission ticket is well worth the price.