Zipped Up.

There's no point in denying it.  The Zips are a very good basketball team.  Playing many guys, without a true star, they are just cold-blooded assassins.  Well coached, good year after year, even with some graduation losses, this is a very strong MAC basketball program that just got done sweeping the Falcons.

In Wednesday's game, they came loaded to attack the 2-3 zone, which they did with incredible efficiency in the first half, slicing up the zone not with perimeter jumpers, like most teams do, but with layup after layup.  They clearly had a game plan for the interior passing that it takes to beat the zone and they made it work.

In the concluding minutes, it was beginning to look like a reversal of the season's first game at the Stroh, when BG controlled much of the game and Akron stole it at the end.  However, when BG climbed within one possession, Akron turned back the Falcon rally and preserved a victory that for most of the game was never in doubt.

When I look at the MAC standings, we have not lost a game to a team that is currently below us, and we have won only one (OU) from a team that is above us.  We're now 6th in the MAC.

Certainly still time to write a new story....but at the same time, there's little reason to think it will be any different.  We are where we are, and we should be realistic about it.  This many years into the program, we continue to be about .500, and not in touch with the best teams in our conference.  We might well be solidly in the upper part of the middle, but the Kents, Akrons, OUs and even Buffalos--those teams are in a different part of the league right now.

We have a chance to start to turn that around.  We have a good Kent team coming to town Saturday.  They didn't win in Oxford, but BG did.  Home game...this is really key.  Without it, BG could fall as far as 7th in the conference.

More on Akron later today....