Both teams are 2-7 in the MAC, but overall Akron has 7 wins to Miami’s 4, but they played a softer nonleague schedule. Both teams have new coaches who had to rebuild the roster as Akron had a winning record last year but 4 starters graduated and their best subs transferred. They did have a couple of advantages, though, as Akron announced the firing of their head coach Melissa Jackson with a couple of weeks to go in the season and allowed her to finish the season. So they hired their new coach shortly after the season was over… Also, their star Reagan Bass was a 6-1 soph first team all MAC center and she stayed and gives them one of the best 5 players in the MAC.
Their new Coach is Ryan Gensler, who spent 5 seasons as an assistant at Dayton ( 3 of those were NCAA tourney teams) and then went with their Head Coach and their best players to Illinois and turned them into an NCAA team at Illinois ( they went from 1 Big Ten Win to 11). So Gensler has been with NCAA teams 4 of the last 6 years.
Miami leads the all time series 39-23, BUT the ZIps have dominated lately, winning 7 in a row.
Girls with Akron’s most starts include 6-1 JR Reagan Bass 17.8ppg and 11.1rpg, 5-8 RSSR Morgan Haney 10.2/3.6, 6-2 JR Lanae Riley 9.6/3.8, 5-7 JR Alexus Mobly 5.8/4.1, 5-7 Zakia Rashid 5.7/2.0, 6-5 SOPH Lisa Taponin
For Miami we need more contributions from the Scott twins and our bench. This will be a much more challenging game for Amber Tretter as she will likely be going up against Reagan Bass. Still, if we play our best we should have a chance. Also, this game starts at the same time a our men’s game.
Tretter with 18/10, Jada Scott with 11 rebounds, Jordan Tuff with 9 off the bench and Cori Lard with 12 points, 5 assists and five rebounds. We win by 10. Coach Box dramatically shortened his bench and it pays off.
Amber did match up very well with Reagan Bass, probably considered the best post in the MAC. Bass came into the game shooting 81% from the line and somehow went 4 for 11 from the line. She did get her normal double double. This was the best we have passed the ball and found the open shooter, and we shot the ball much better as a result. 14 assists to 12 turnovers. We were playing a smaller lineup than usual, and a much older lineup than most of the season. Tretter was the only freshman to get many minutes, and the rest were all juniors and seniors.
I waited till tonight to watch the replay, and managed to go all day without hearing a score, so this win definitely made my day. Once again the same 3 girls, Tretter and Lard and Luu-Brown dominated the production, scoring 40 of our 58 points. Jada Scott had another bad shooting day going 1 for 9, but had a season high 11 rebounds and played great defensively. Also, Jordan Tuff had by far her most productive game of her Miami career. She had 10 points all year and had 9 today and played 28 very solid minutes. As Grumpy stated, Coach Box shortened the bench today. Tretter 38 minutes, Lard 38 minutes, Luu-Brown 37 minutes, and Jada Scott 35 minutes.
Don’t look now, but they’re half a game out of a tournament spot, play 5 of their last 8 at home, and only have one game remaining against the top three teams in the conference.