Roo News 11/12/10

1) The volleyball team lost a thriller to Buffalo yesterday, falling in five sets after leading 2-1 after three. The Zips seemed a bit too confident midway through the fourth set after taking an 11-6 lead, lost focus, and never recovered, despite some seriously intense timeout discussions from head coach Ron Arenz. This loss drops the lady Zips to 15-12 (7-8 MAC). They close out the regular at Ball State tomorrow.



2) The MAC men's soccer tournament begins today. The Zips have the #1 seed, and match up against the #4 seed Buffalo Bulls at 5 o'clock. When the two teams met in the regular season, it wasn't pretty. The Zips won 4-0, and outshot the Bulls 22-2. You can find the box score by clicking on the previous link, or by looking under the word "domination" in your local dictionary. GoZips.com has a nice preview here.

3) Elsewhere in soccer, former Akron standout and current Kansas City Wizard Teal Bunbury will join fellow MLS forwards Juan Agudelo (New York Red Bulls) and Robbie Findley (Real Salt Lake) on the United Stated national roster for the upcoming match against South Africa. He is the first Akron Zip to ever be selected for the national team.

4) The men's basketball team opens their season today at the JAR. After the Zips' 111-48 beatdown of John Carroll, fellow Division III program Millikin is going to need a lot to go their way (like Zeke Marshall suddenly shrinking 5 inches) for a win. It's also $1 Hot Dog and Pepsi night, so if you live in the area, are reading this blog, and haven't bought a ticket, buy one before I question your sanity.

The results should look very similar to the exhibition game against John Carroll, as the Zips once again hold a tremendous size and speed advantage. I'm curious to see how Keith Dambrot is going to handle the playing time of Alex Abreu and Quincy Diggs. I'm also wondering how much he plans on playing 6'10" center Mike Bardo this year. Bardo didn't get a lot of minutes last year thanks to some nagging injuries, but if he can hold those off, his size will help tremendously.

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.

Roo News 11/3/10

1) Notes from head football coach Rob Ianello's weekly press conference:

- Feels like we learned a lot from the Temple game last week. Thinks that we were better on defense, offense, and special teams...Ianello says the darndest things sometimes...

- Has been impressed by the team's effort during practice this week.

- We had a field goal blocked, an early touchdown overturned, and a lot of close failed conversions. If those had been turned around, we may have seen a game.

- Jalil Carter sat out last week for a personal reason, but it wasn't disciplinary and he'll be back this week.

- Broderick Alexander is improving and should be ready for Spring practice. He will stay at running back.

- Ball State is better than their standing would indicate, and in some ways, face a similar story as us this year.

- There was a humorous moment when a reporter asked Ianello if he has talked to Director of Athletics Tom Wistrcill lately and what those talks were about (to paraphrase, will you be fired any time soon?). Ianello responded with "pardon me?" and then something along the lines of "we talk every day...about the future of the program" (to paraphrase, are you freakin' kidding me?).

2) The men's basketball team faces John Carroll tomorrow for an exhibition game. I wish I had the time to write up a nice big basketball preview, but you can read a nice preview from GoZips.com here.

3) The #1 men's soccer team defeated Michigan State 1-0 earlier today in convincing fashion, leading 14-3 in shots, and 5-1 in shots on goal. The lone goal of the game came from Darren Mattocks, his 12th of the year. The Zips move to 15-1-1 and end their regular season at Hartwick on Saturday.