Akron Game Thread

[OKBluejay]

Akron's "big man" (Enrique Freeman) is listed at 6-7, 206, only the third tallest player in their starting lineup. Not a great shooter, but otherwise fits the profile of a guy who can give Kalk problems at the 5. His rebounding acumen may be the toughest part of his game for the Jays to handle.

[DC_JAY]

The Jays should handle Akron, but there are a couple red flags...

1) Akron is 10th nationally in 3-pt fg% defense. Opponents are only averaging 29% against them. They are going to guard the perimeter.

2) As others have mentioned, Freeman is an excellent player who leads the team in 3-pt %. They do start another, larger forward, so would Kalk would be on Freeman instead of Miller?

[Chicagojayfan]

I love our draw, personally

It's the tourney, we are going to have to play some tough teams, but this draw looks fine to me.

Groce is a good coach and they'll be ready to play, but this is what we've been preparing all year to do - go out and win

[bluejayfan00]

12:30 tip time

[Minnesota Jay]

The Jays should handle Akron, but there are a couple red flags...

1) Akron is 10th nationally in 3-pt fg% defense. Opponents are only averaging 29% against them. They are going to guard the perimeter.

I noticed this also and, while I admit to not having watched them play this year, their other stats make this look like mostly luck/variance/lower skill opponents.

You can see that they're 167th in opponent 3pt rate, which means they aren't actually denying looks at any kind of impressive rate. They're also 43rd in FT percentage "defense" with opponents shooting FTs a couple percentage points below national average. They also don't defend the 2 pt shot particularly well, ranking in the bottom half of the country. So add it up - mediocre 2pt defense, not denying 3pt attempts, opponents shoot free throws poorly - and it seems its more likely Akron's opponents are just missing an inordinate number of 3s. Kenpom has written about how opponent 3% shooting percentage is only loosely predictive of future opponent 3% shooting (behind these other stats I've mentioned). Contrast all this with a team like Auburn, who allows a very similar 3pt fg% but denies 3pt attempts well, and despite opponents hitting FTs at a good clip

Now of course we could go 4-22 or whatever (knock on wood...) but I would not be particularly concerned about Akron's defense being the reason why

[JayPharmAlum]

12:40 ET on Thursday.

[LJay]

Looks like Jays at 1:40 (assume Eastern time) at same time as Omaha regional.

Edit: on TNT

2nd edit: During the lesser side of the Omaha bracket with Illinois.

[GWJay]

Nice because that leaves most of the afternoon open for the games in person, but brutal work if we were to lose lmao

[LJay]

[JayPharmAlum]

Final game of the entire day on Thursday is a 9:05pm tip-off for Drake and Wazzu. That kind of sucks.