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Last-second March loss, then tournament snub linger as season starts
By Tom Gaffney Beacon Journal sportswriter
Published on Friday, Nov 16, 2007
The University of Akron basketball team does not want to forget everything about the lost weekend that left its players feeling numb and forsaken.
As a new season begins this week, it is impossible not to recall the most recent one.
That's the one in which the Zips set a school record for victories in the Division I era (26), won the East Division of the Mid-American Conference and were seconds from an NCAA Tournament berth before a desperation shot ended that hope.
There is no question that the 2007-08 Zips can learn a lesson from the final two days of last season.
''It adds to our maturity,'' senior guard Nick Dials said. ''We don't want to put ourselves in the position that someone can hit a game-winner like that again.
''We want to take care of business, not just for the previous 39 minutes, 50 seconds. We have to gut it out for the full 40 minutes.''
The entire UA basketball community long will remember the weekend of March 10-11, 2007.
In the final of the MAC Tournament at Quicken Loans Arena, the Zips led Miami University most of the way, but they fell prey to their decision-making down the stretch, a missed free throw, a slow game clock and a wild 3-point bank shot by the RedHawks' Doug Penno with one second left.
The 53-52 loss denied the Zips an automatic berth to the NCAA Tournament. The following day, UA was snubbed by the NCAA and NIT committees.
''None of us ever experienced that sort of basketball pain or disappointment,'' junior forward Nate Linhart said. ''We were so down, it was unbelievable. To be that close and lose it. We feel we were the best team in the MAC last year. It's unfinished business this year.''
Senior stalwarts Romeo Travis and Dru Joyce III are gone from the Zips, but such holdovers as Dials, Linhart, Jeremiah Wood, Cedrick Middleton, Quade Milum and Jimmy Conyers give them plenty of returning talent.
The Zips are motivated by the ''unfinished business'' more than the preseason media poll that picked them to finish fourth in the MAC East.
''No one expected the Miami game to be our last game. That was what hurt the most,'' Middleton said. ''It was Akron's best team ever, and to have the season end like that. Last year was in the past. It's a new year. I am trying to get a ring this year.''
The Zips open the season this weekend with three games at the Top of the World Classic in Fairbanks, Alaska, starting tonight against South Carolina Upstate.
It is part of a schedule upgrade that includes pre-MAC games against the likes of Temple, Wyoming, Winthrop and Dayton. The schedule is designed to avoid another postseason snub.
Zips coach Keith Dambrot is optimistic that his team will be successful, but he knows that the loss of Joyce and Travis will change his approach.
''We will be good, but we are going to win a little differently,'' said Dambrot, who signed aseven-year contract extension in the offseason. ''I am not even sure how yet. We may have to play at a different pace. We may have to play big. Some things need to sort themselves out.''
Dambrot said he likes his frontcourt rotation of Wood, Milum, Linhart, Conyers and sophomore Chris McKnight. He said he hopes 6-foot-10 redshirt freshman Mike Bardo can develop enough to help.
Dials and Middleton are a formidable duo as shooting guards, but redshirt freshman Steve McNees is inexperienced at point guard. Freshman Ronnie Steward was expected to be a factor at the point, but he is out with a hip injury.
''The biggest key for us is how well we react to being short-handed handling the ball,'' Dambrot said. ''That is the thing that concerns me the most right now.''
After the three games in Alaska, the Zips are home Nov. 24 against Binghamton (N.Y.) University.
Moss gone
Andrew Moss, a freshman walk-on from Copley High, is no longer a member of the Zips.
Moss, who had been practicing with the team, was suspended after being arrested Nov. 4. He and two juveniles have been charged in connection with an armed robbery.
Tom Gaffney can be reached at tgaffney@thebeaconjournal.com.
The University of Akron basketball team does not want to forget everything about the lost weekend that left its players feeling numb and forsaken.
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