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Following 11-day break, UA men's basketball team struggles with St. Francis
By Tom Gaffney
Beacon Journal sports writer
Published on Monday, Dec 29, 2008
This was a game that had victory written all over it the day the University of Akron basketball schedule was released.
It did find its way onto the preferable side of the UA win-loss ledger, but it was taxing and more than merely 40 minutes of exercise.
The Zips (7-4) survived rather than thrived Sunday night by taking control down the stretch to defeat St. Francis (N.Y.) College 77-70 before a crowd of 2,663 at Rhodes Arena.
''It was a perplexing performance,'' Zips coach Keith Dambrot said in the opening statement in his postgame news conference.
St. Francis (3-8) was picked to finish 10th in the 11-team Northeast Conference with a team that has only two seniors on the roster. The Terriers also were playing without leading scorer and rebounder Kayode Ayeni (knee injury).
Still, the Zips never were able to take a collective breath until the waning moments.
''We have shown we can play with people. We can play,'' Dambrot said. ''But we are so inconsistent and
erratic. It all relates to toughness. It's something we have to work on.
''They are a team that has been in the bottom of their league. That's a game we should win easily rather than scrambling to win.''
The visitors fell behind 29-16 in the first half but used a 34-16 advantage in the middle portion of the game to put itself in position to pull off an upset.
The Zips ended those hopes with a 9-0 run over a two-minute span that turned the score from 57-54 to 66-54 with 7:14 left.
The Terriers followed with a 8-2 spurt of their own to make it 68-62 with 2:01 remaining. But UA maintained the lead after that with an offensive-rebound basket by senior forward Jimmy Conyers and then converting 7-of-8 free throws.
''It was not good at all. We always have problems with getting up and letting teams back in it,'' said Conyers, who led the Zips in scoring (17) and rebounding (8). ''We work on it in practice, but it's something we have to work harder on. We have to put teams away.''
The Terriers shot 59.3 percent from the floor in the first half, but the figure dropped to 34.4 percent in the second half against a better UA defense.
''I was pretty happy with my team's effort considering we played without our top scorer and rebounder,'' St. Francis coach Brian Nash said. ''We played a tough Akron team tonight that threw a pretty hard punch at us in the beginning. Our guys fought back but we had scoring droughts that hurt us.''
The Zips had an 11-day break since losing to Virginia Commonwealth on Dec. 17, but Dambrot said that was no excuse for the uneven performance.
''I don't think the layoff helped us, but it isn't to blame,'' he said. ''I could make excuses, but it comes down to us . . . not being tough enough yet. That's not just a reflection on our players, but also a reflection on me.''
Besides Conyers, the Zips had three other players in double figures. Sophomore forward Brett McKnight had 13 points and seven rebounds. Sophomore guard Steve McNees had 12 points and senior forward Nate Linhart had 10.
St. Francis also had four players in double figures, led by the 17 of sophomore guard Ricky Cadell.
UA shot 43.1 percent (22-of-51) from the floor, including 25.3 percent (7-of-27) from behind the 3-point arc. St. Francis had a 32-31 edge in rebounding.
The Zips conclude their pre-Mid-American Conference schedule with road games on Wednesday at North Carolina Greensboro and on Saturday at Rhode Island.
Tom Gaffney can be reached at tgaffney@thebeaconjournal.com.
This was a game that had victory written all over it the day the University of Akron basketball schedule was released.
Get the full article here.
Comments
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Posted 10:33 AM, 12/29/2008
ugly win, but a win....i doubt cant state can say the same. They just lose ugly and get stomped out by CSU.
