CLEVELAND, Ohio – In last night’s MAC final, in a game they led continually for the last 34 and a half minutes, one which was basically over at the under-16 second-half media timeout, Akron bested Buffalo by a final score of 65-53. It capped a run of four wins in five days from the No. 5 seed; counting the season finale last Sunday (a loss a Kent State), that’s five games played in seven days.
They came back from the dead, in the form of a 12-point deficit in the last five minutes against No. 12 Toledo on Tuesday night and down one-point inbounding with 1.5 second on the clock in overtime. And now they’ve garnered the MAC’s automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament, Akron’s first since a young Bob Huggins patrolled the sideline in 1986.
The Akron kids did it with terrific shooting (55 percent for the game, 57 percent from the arc). They did it with injured point guard Anthony Hitchens coming off the bench to contribute 10 points in 14 minutes. They did it with superb rebounding against the MAC’s best rebounding team, competing on the boards to be within a rebound of Buffalo at the half, within seven for the game. They did it with tenacious man-to-man defense Saturday night and throughout the tournament, on this night particularly by Darryl Roberts on Buffalo’s all-league second guard Rodney Pierce.
Most of all they did it with tremendous heart, courage and mental toughness, in the words of Coach Keith Dambrot, they were “resilient; they had the ability to take punch after punch, and keep coming back.”
And they did it with balance, up and down the roster. I’ve never been at a tournament final before at which there was so little consensus, so much and broad disagreement, about MVP and all-tournament selections. And that’s a good thing, one I suspect the Akron players – those selected and those not – are smiling about today. In addition to players from other teams in the conference, I had second guard Roberts and back-up second guard/substitute point guard Steve McNees on my ballot, and listed McNees as MVP for controlling the ball the last three games, as well as for his clutch three-point shooting. Others had Roberts as MVP; others had leading scorer Brett McKnight as MVP; still others had his brother and leading rebounder Chris McKnight as MVP. Some had “Humpty” Hitchens as MVP for his game-saving shots that first night against Toledo, coupled with his effective play in the final on an injured leg.
And wouldn’t you know it, none of those voters got it “right,” as the final vote named senior and team-leader Nate Linhart MVP, with six points and a game-high nine rebounds this night, and every single winning “little play” throughout the tournament. Linhart was joined on the all-tournament team by teammates McNees and Brett McKnight, Buffalo forward Max Boudreau, and Bowling Green forward Nate Miller.
Given the team balance, given Akron’s inconsistent play the last few weeks of the regular season, given the 5th seed and the task of winning four game in five days, perhaps the true MVP was Dambrot; at least that’s what the white-clad Akron student section seemed to think as they chanted Dambrot’s name over and over in the final minute. And he would surely share the honor with the sports psychologist that Linhart mentioned had visited the team earlier this season, and rejoined them for the conference tournament.
Now fifty years old, once released as the coach of Central Michigan, back to high school and then an Akron assistant to Dan Hipsher for a year, Dambrot was characteristically humble. “I’m fortunate just to be coaching, in some ways I have no right to be coaching. I’m 50, still love to compete, love to coach, just have my family and coaching, no other hobbies. And I’ve gotten to coach at my alma mater, in my hometown, at a school where my mom was a professor.” I’ve gotten to know Dambrot pretty well, all within the last 6 or 7 weeks. He really is humble, even gentle, and there wasn’t a sound in the room as he spoke.
“In this tournament, there was no clear-cut favorite,” Dambrot said, adding, “I’ve thought all year that all the teams in the MAC were about the same, from best to worst, that there wasn’t much of a difference. We had a rough year shooting the ball, I thought all year we underachieved shooting the ball. We’ve taken a bunch of shots in the mouth. Heck, we were 9-8 early. Then, after winning seven in a row, we faltered late at Valpo, at Northern Illinois, against BG and at Kent State. It took our kids a while to get used to me.”
When I asked Dambrot about “point-guard Steve McNees,” Dambrot said that “he was really good in the tournament. He’s had a tough season. He needs to feel good about himself to play his best, and he picked just the right time to feel good about himself. Some players have to be coached differently than others, and I probably did a poor job earlier with McNees. But you know, there’s not a better guy than McNees, and I’m really happy for him. I feel good for all our guys. I have come to realize that it’s not about the coach, it’s about the players.”
About the unexpected (and terrific) play of Humpty Hitchens, he said that “I didn’t know before the game that he’d play. He hadn’t come to me and told me he was ready. But he had gone to [Assistant] Coach [Jeff] Boals, and told him he could go. So we rolled the dice, gave him a few minutes, he played well, so we gave him a few more minutes. Humpty is really tough; the best thing about him is that he’s not afraid to fail.”
Finally, about the team as a whole: “Somehow, these guys don’t let stuff bother them. Then, when we shot well coming back against Toledo, I knew we could win the tournament, could beat anybody; also that we could lose to anybody. We defend well enough to beat anyone, except that first night against Toledo. If we straightened ourselves out offensively… Are we as good as previous Akron teams, previous MAC Tournament winners? Well, before I didn’t think so, but now I don’t know.”
Tonight the Zips will learn their seed and destination, and wherever they’re assigned, they’ll be happy to go. And if we can believe Brett McKnight, “we’re ready to compete.” They’ll get to compete on the biggest stage Thursday or Friday.
