CLEVELAND: The University of Akron men’s basketball team will play in its ninth Mid-American Conference Tournament title game, but even after leading wire-to-wire, it wasn’t easy to get there.
After battling with Ball State on Friday night at Quicken Loans Arena, the Zips came away with a 74-70 victory.
Top-seeded UA will play in the championship game Saturday against rival Kent State, a 68-66 winner over Ohio in the other semifinal. The Zips split the season series with the Golden Flashes.
UA led by 14 points in the first half, nine at halftime and by 11 in the second half, but couldn’t close out a gritty, determined, fourth-seeded Ball State team. It was a case of stop-and-go, go-and-stop for the Zips as they built leads and watched them quickly come down.
“We delivered about four knockout punches and we staggered them and we just couldn’t put them out,” UA coach Keith Dambrot said. “I don’t think it was us so much as them. I thought they just shot the ball in, and we had a hard time with them.”
Something had to give.
UA’s big advantage was center Isaiah “Big Dog” Johnson. The Zips fed the Big Dog at key moments and let him run. After the Cardinals cut UA’s lead to 65-62 with 2:11 in the game, Johnson went to work to pad the lead and in the process buy his team time.
A three-point play by Johnson put the Zips ahead by six with 1:45 left. Kwan Cheatham’s fifth personal foul led to two free throws that Ball State’s Sean Sellers made. Johnson answered with a layup and with 1:09 left, UA needed to just successfully beat the clock. Dambrot said his team made things more difficult than they needed to be.
Johnson scored 12 points in the first half, but had just 14 until those waning moments and finished with 19.
“When I mean simple, just get the big guy the ball,” he said. “I mean, like just get him the ball. I don’t care if it’s at the top of the key, the low block, the elbow, just get him the ball and play off of him, and quit messing around trying to do things yourself.”
Guard Antino Jackson, who matched Johnson’s 19 points, agreed.
“Well, everybody knows it starts with Big Dog,” Jackson said, “and our team expects him to make the right play every time, so we feed off of him.”
Johnson said he felt a bit fatigued going down the stretch.
“I got a little tired there at the end and just being able to muster up the strength to be able to go ahead and finish both of those shots really just boosted not only myself but the team,” he said.
But the Cardinals proved a handful. They pushed the Zips when they had the ball, especially in the second half when they made 48 percent of their shots.
They also showed that they are one of several teams who can keep up with UA from beyond the 3-point arc. They outshot the Zips 45 percent to 38 percent on 3-pointers, making 13-of-29.
“I don’t know if we’ve ever won a game where somebody made 13 threes on us,” Dambrot said.
The difference ultimately came in the paint, where the Zips outscored the Cardinals 34-18. Much of the credit goes to Johnson.
Reaching a milestone
Jackson became the 43rd player in Zips history and the 13th under Dambrot to score more than 1,000 points in his career with his 19-point effort in the semifinal.
George M. Thomas can be reached at gmthomas@thebeaconjournal.com. Read the Zips blog at www.ohio.com/zips. Follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/GeorgeThomasABJ.