Akron Basketball: 3 keys to Zips Round of 64 matchup with UCLA Bruins

Make Your Three’s

This one goes without saying, of course shots need to be made in order to win a basketball game. The one thing that makes Akron different than a lot of other teams in the tournament who play really slow is the fact that they do make a lot of threes and Akron has three rotation players shooting over 35% from deep. One player in particular in Ali Ali is a guy who can get red hot from downtown and bring Akron back from a deficit.

The Zips can not afford a night shooting below their averages and we have all seen it before that a team who is making their first appearance in the NCAA tournament in a long time they come in with nerves and before you know it they are down by a ton. Akron is going to be able to get through a lot of those nerves if they start to make their shots. If the shots are falling early everything else for the Zips will come naturally. As with any lower seed the longer they are able to stay in the game the better off they will be.

Akron shoots a high enough percentage from deep that a few early misses isn’t going to sway their confidence, what Zip fans don’t want to see is desperation, which is another thing that happens all too frequently in the tournament.

Akron needs to take their threes within the offense and take good shots, they don’t need the desperation heaves at the end of the shot clock when the ball is stagnant and hasn’t moved. Those are the three-point shots that will quickly squander any chance the Zips would have in this game.

If they run the offense as they have all year and guys have their normal nights shooting this game can be close and Akron is going to have a good chance to win the game. If the shots don’t fall and the Zips enter desperation mode then it will be an early exit from the NCAA tournament.