COLUMBUS: On Sunday’s NCAA Selection Show, the University of Akron Zips didn’t even make the list of teams on the bubble.
Ohio State coach Thad Matta joined those mystified why UA’s 34 RPI wasn’t good enough for an at-large bid. Matta even questioned why the Zips were seeded sixth in the National Invitation Tournament.
The no-respect theme continued when the public address announcer at OSU’s Value City Arena called the Zips’ Antino Jackson “Antonio” until the first timeout.
UA had a chance to make a statement against third-seeded OSU in its first-round NIT game Tuesday night. And despite playing its fourth game in six days, it gave it all it had.
In the first half, center Isaiah “Big Dog” Johnson took the ball at the free-throw line, put a spin move on OSU’s Daniel Giddens and threw down what was likely his most ferocious slam of the season.
Reggie McAdams was fouled as he sank a 3-pointer with seven minutes remaining and converted the four-point play to tie the game.
With Johnson knocked to the floor at the other end, McAdams’ rebound tip on the Zips’ third shot attempt put UA up by three with 4:44 remaining in regulation.
OSU students were on spring break, but a crowd of 4,698 loved every minute of the tightly fought contest. The Zips were doomed by poor shooting from the free-throw line and 3-point range and fell 72-63 in overtime.
UA coach Keith Dambrot didn’t feel the Buckeyes (21-13) took the game. He felt his Zips (26-9) just failed to hit shots. He said fatigue was a factor, especially for Johnson.
But there was still a hint of disrespect from Sunday lingering.
Asked what it would have meant to the program to win, Dambrot noted what his team had achieved over the past few seasons and said, “When you’re a 34 RPI and you’re not even up on the board at ESPN ... Every coach in America knows we have a good program. If you ask college coaches, you ask coach Matta, he’ll tell you. But we can’t get a sniff, we can’t even get talked about.
“Would the win against Ohio State have helped? Yes. But we’ve beaten Arkansas, we beat Mississippi State, we beat USC, we beat Oregon State and none of that has really mattered. That’s the frustrating part of being a mid-major coach — you have to win your conference tournament game.”
For the Zips, it was one disappointment heaped on another after a three-point loss Saturday to Buffalo in the MAC Tournament championship. But the visibility against a power conference team like Ohio State, a team that had made seven consecutive NCAA appearances before this season, is what the Zips need if a MAC team is ever to make an at-large breakthrough.
They need all the ESPN games they can get, even if they’re firing up 9-of-42 from 3-point range like they did Tuesday. There might have been a high school long-range specialist watching, hearing of the departures of seniors McAdams and Jake Kretzer, who might see a chance for early playing time at UA.
There was value for the Zips, even in a loss to an OSU team with a 74 RPI.
“Maybe the next time we get in the NIT maybe we can get a home game because we played pretty well,” Dambrot said. “That’s the discouraging part. The last time in the NIT we went to Northwestern and we had a way higher RPI. That gets hard. If we play in our building we have a much better chance to win. We’ve won 88 percent in our building since I’ve been the coach. You take what you get, really.”
For the Buckeyes, the NIT is essentially the start of practice for next season. Their fate was sealed on Friday with a 27-point blowout loss to Michigan State in the Big Ten quarterfinals. Against the Zips, there was no question they had the better athletes — only whether or not they would be motivated.
In taking the Buckeyes to overtime, UA learned something. It saw it could physically compete with a team like Ohio State, even if the winners were missing starter Keita Bates-Diop because of an illness.
“For the last four or five years I’ve felt physically we’re as good as the big boys. We’re big, strong, tough,” Dambrot said. “I haven’t felt at any point that physically we were outmatched, which is a great feeling.”
Going forward there were positives for the returning Zips, even if it takes their exhausted bodies and minds a few days to grasp them.
Marla Ridenour can be reached at mridenour@thebeaconjournal.com. Read her blog at www.ohio.com/marla. Follow her on Twitter at www.twitter.com/MRidenourABJ.