For all intents and purposes, the game ended with 10:13 left in the second half when Akron guard Chauncey Gilliam missed a shot.
He didn’t have to worry whether it was going in because sophomore Demetrius Treadwell trailed behind him. Just when it looked as if the ball was going to roll off the rim, Treadwell, known as Tree, muscles rippling, face contorted in grimace, grabbed the ball and dunked it with a ferocity normally reserved for thunderstorms.
It gave the Zips a 16-point lead and all the momentum they needed to carry out a 75-51 Mid-American Conference win over the beleaguered Huskies (3-20, 2-9 MAC) in front of 4,378 fans at Rhodes Arena Saturday night.
The win gives the Zips (18-7, 10-1) a sweep of the MAC’s West Division, the first since the 2005-06 season.
“I think it took the wind out of them because I think they thought they had a rebound,” Treadwell said. “Me coming over and dunking on that play just sparked another run. We had momentum, but I think that dunk just set the tone even more.”
That dunk was part of a 16-1 run that put the Zips ahead by 25 points with 8:04 left in the game. Sophomore forward Nick Harney said it was a matter of feeling comfortable.
“A lot of it is getting a feel for the game,” he said. “I just think when we get spurts, everyone is comfortable.
Very simply the game boiled down to offense (the Zips had plenty of it) and defense (they had tons of that, too).
Led by Nikola Cvetinovic with 14 points, Harney with 12 and Treadwell’s 11, the Zips shot 54 percent from the floor on 25-of-46 shooting and held the Huskies to 33 percent on a 17-of-52 showing.
“We’re a team who can now play man, play zone and compress a little bit,” UA coach Keith Dambrot said.
If the Zips had any notions of having an easy night of it against the Huskies, they were quickly disabused of them in the first half.
“I thought they did a really good job in the first half of tempo control,” Dambrot said.
The Zips had to battle themselves and some tenacious rebounding on the part of the Huskies, who had a 33-25 advantage in rebounds.
“We have two guys who rebounded the way I want them to rebound and that’s [Brian]Walsh and Treadwell,” Dambrot said. Treadwell led the Zips with eight rebounds and Walsh had four.
The Zips can thank Northern Illinois for its carelessness and generosity.
The Zips got only nine second-chance points, courtesy of an 18-6 offensive rebound deficit, but they converted 19 Huskies turnovers into 15 points.
“We rode the right horses tonight,” Dambrot said.
Abdel Nader and Keith Gray led the Huskies with 13 points each.
Sweeping through
It is the first 10-1 start for the Zips in the MAC and the first MAC team to do it since 2005-06 when Kent State did it … It was the third sweep of the West by the Zips. … Kent State has done it six times and Buffalo did it this year. …It is the first time that three teams accomplished it in the same season.
Injury update
Junior forward Josh Egner is suffering from back issues. Dambrot said that it’s a real possibility that Egner, who has appeared in 10 games this season, might be red-shirted.
“There’s no sense playing him when we’re so far along,” Dambrot said.
Quick shots
Coach Dambrot became the seventh MAC coach to record 200 wins and the eighth to reach 100 league wins with Saturday’s victory.
George M. Thomas can be reached at gmthomas@thebeaconjournal.com. Read the Zips blog at http://zips.ohio.com. Follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/GeorgeThomasABJ.
