LeBronCenter

Hey everybody, how's it going?

First things first: I apologize for the complete lack of updates this summer. There are two reasons for this; one is that my specialties are Akron football and basketball, and I didn't (don't) know enough about the baseball team to write good articles on them. The other is that I graduated early in May after the busiest and toughest four months of my life, then had to relocate and be ready to start my new job just two weeks later. Now that all of that has been accomplished, and I've acclimated myself, the blogging will resume.

Anyway, for news.

There is none.

Well, none that I'm happy with, anyway. When I originally heard that men's basketball head coach Keith Dambrot would be on Mike & Mike in the Morning earlier today, I was stoked. How often do the Zips get a chance on national television? Unfortunately, it hit me as soon as the program started; he's only on there to talk about LeBron.

ESPN makes me sick. Watching SportsCenter today is like being drilled in the teeth. It all started after the Cavaliers' playoff loss to the Boston Celtics last year. LeBron himself nabbed the first 27 minutes of airtime discussion on SportsCenter the day after, and the trend has continued and possibly increased thanks to the Heat's long playoff run:

via awfulannouncing.com

This so-called sports news program seems to have forgotten a few things. For one, the Stanley Cup is also in progress, a dead-even 2-2 series between two teams that absolutely hate each other. The "highlights" of these games last about 2 minutes each day on SportsCenter.

For another, the USA men's soccer international team trounced Canada in the first game of the Gold Cup earlier in the week. 97% of you reading this right now are wondering what the Gold Cup is. Case in point.

The Gold Cup is a rather large soccer tournament between teams in North and Central America....well, it's a big tournament for all but one country. "Sports"Center gave a whole 15 seconds of airtime to the USA victory, squeezing in the final score during a Top Play.

Back to Dambrot...don't take this the wrong way. I love the guy. He's an incredible basketball coach. There are very few college basketball teams that have the distinction of winning 20 games each of the last six seasons, and even less that can claim five consecutive conference championship appearances.

BUT.

Keith Dambrot, head coach of the University of Akron men's basketball team, went on a national sports talk show, and talked about LeBron. Defended LeBron.

I get it...he was LeBron's basketball coach in high school. I understand that. Head to the Mike & Mike in the Morning homepage to hear the interview if you want, but I can describe it to you here:

Q: What's up with LeBron only scoring 11 points in the fourth quarter through this entire series?

A: Jason Terry's too quick.

Or something like that.

For as well as the basketball team has done in the last few years (including putting up a fight against Gonzaga and Notre Dame in two NCAA tournaments), the head coach just received more airtime in one show talking about LeBron James than he has talking about his very successful mid-major basketball program in five years.

That is legitimately disappointing.

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.