Ohio looks to best Akron, one of the best teams in the Mid-American Conference.
Pick up your fictional collegiate basketball thesaurus and look up "Ohio".
Under the antonyms you'll most likely see "Akron".
Ohio and Akron will matchup for the first time this season Tuesday night inside The Convo. The real storyline, though, is two teams succeeding in two contrasting ways.
While Ohio, who is looking to blaze through the Mid-American Conference with it's three-pronged offense of Jaaron Simmons, Kenny Kaminski and Antonio Campbell, is fresh off back-to-back conference wins for the first time in almost a year, Akron will look to utilize its third-ranked defense and 3-point shooting artillery to continue its four-game streak.
"You have to make decisions with (Akron)," Ohio coach Saul Phillips said. "It's difficult to do that when they have so many shooters out there. They got two post players that require some sort of attention and to figure out where that attention is going to come from is tricky."
Ohio (13-7, 4-4 MAC) has three players in the top 15 for the conference in scoring with Campbell (sixth), Simmons (10th) and Kaminski (13th). Akron has zero in the top 15.
That stat, however, doesn't mean Akron doesn't know how to score. Actually, it unearths a more difficult task for Phillips and the Bobcats on Tuesday.
Akron (15-6, 6-2 MAC) coach Keith Dambrot disperses minutes almost evenly between his players, as he only plays one player, Noah Robotham, over 30 minutes per game.
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With minutes given scarcely, Akron has four scorers that contribute over 10 points per game and three that score more than seven-plus points per game.
Phillips said this matchup is difficult to defensively gameplan for since it will force the Bobcats to rapidly guard different players throughout the 40 minutes of play.
"You gotta know where to help from, where to shade from (against Akron)," Phillips said. "It's a very different situation than covering (Kent State's Jimmy Hall)."
Phillips said the Bobcats' "white" team were jacking up 3-pointers throughout Monday's practice in order for the rest of the team to get an idea of what's to come Tuesday.
And no player knows what may be in store Tuesday night more than forward Treg Setty. Setty has played the Zips six times in his career with the Bobcats.
"They're different from a lot of teams in the past," Setty said. "A lot of Akron teams in the past had a solid, good four who could get down hill and dribble the ball a lot and really just be a beast on the boards."
Setty said this Akron team, much different than Ohio, have a variety of shooters who have led the Zips to one of the top records in the MAC.
"We really gotta hone in on the 3-point arc and make sure they don't get their feet set and get open looks," Setty said. "We know they're going to go on their runs, but we're prepared to go on our runs as well."
@Lukeoroark
Lr514812@ohio.edu
