There is still confidence and optimism within the University of Akron men's basketball team as it heads into the Mid-American Conference Tournament this week at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse in Cleveland.
Yes, the Zips missed out on the MAC regular-season championship and dropped to the No. 2 seed in the tournament after losing four of their final six games.
But, the Zips are still just three wins away from advancing to the NCAA Tournament.
Akron (21-10, 13-5) meets No. 7 Miami of Ohio (15-16, 9-9) at approximately 4 p.m. Thursday in a MAC quarterfinal.
"Obviously, we didn't play as well as we wanted to last week, but I have told them [the players] that none of that really matters," Akron coach John Groce said Tuesday. "Right now, everybody is zero and zero. The record doesn't matter and quite frankly, your seed doesn't matter.
"You gotta try to win one game at a time. That's the deal and those guys know that. We have got some guys obviously that were a part of the run a couple of years ago [to the MAC Tournament title in 2022] and won a game in the tournament last year [over Buffalo] and were in a heck of a game that we got beat in against Kent."
The MAC Tournament starts Thursday with No. 1 Toledo (20-11, 14-4) vs. No. 8 Kent State (15-16, 8-10) at 11 a.m. The second game pits No. 4 Central Michigan (18-13, 12-6) against No. 5 Bowling Green (19-12, 10-8) at around 1:30 p.m.
Akron and Miami are the third game. The fourth game features No. 3 Ohio (19-12, 13-5) against No. 6 Western Michigan (12-19, 9-9) with tipoff at around 6:30.
"We didn't end the regular season the way we wanted to, so I think we are going into the tournament super hungry and energized," Akron senior Enrique Freeman said Tuesday. "We are ready to play Miami, especially because we didn't beat them in the regular season."
Akron seniors Freeman, Ali Ali, Greg Tribble Jr. and Mikal Dawson were starters along with now graduated Xavier Castaneda on the 2022 team that beat Buffalo, Toledo and Kent State in the MAC Tournament, and almost upset UCLA in the NCAA Tournament.
"Our focus has been on making sure we are right, we are prepared and ready to go for Thursday," Groce said. "The first one, you always have extra prep time because you have five days in between [the end of the regular season and tournament opener]. A couple of them we used as rest, on Saturday and Sunday.
"Then, we went pretty heavy mental, strategic, physically, because you want obviously to make sure that you have them at their best. You can't do nothing either. You gotta get cardio. You gotta get their second wind on a couple days, in my opinion. We did that [Monday] and [Tuesday], and I think [Wednesday] will be a lot of non-contact stuff and finish up our prep."
Akron and Miami met once in the regular season with the RedHawks winning 70-68 in Oxford on Jan. 27. Miami is coached by Groce's half brother, Travis Steele.
"They played well," Groce said. "Give them credit. There were some things that we didn't do as well as we needed to, to ultimately win the game. We got off to a great start. We were up by a good margin early, and really were ready to play. Then we took a couple of body blows and then it was a game. It was a game, nip and tuck all the way to the end. Give [senior] Darweshi Hunter credit. He made a big-time game-winning shot.
"We can play better. Defensively for sure, we can play better than what we played."
Senior Anderson Mirambeaux led Miami in scoring in that win with 19 points. Hunter and freshman Eian Elmer scored 13 points apiece. Ali paced Akron against Miami with 23 points, Freeman scored 18 points and Tribble added seven.
Prior to the recent struggles, Akron compiled win streaks of seven games once, four games twice and three games once.
"We haven't been executing our X's and O's very well on the defensive side, but I think overall our team is in a good spot," Freeman said. "We have guys where no one is a issue or anything like that. We haven't been executing the things that we need to in the best way. The good thing is we still put ourselves in a good position to compete in the tournament. I am excited to see and show you guys that we are ready to play."
Groce is seeking his fourth MAC Tournament title after winning two at Ohio (2010, 2012) and one at Akron (2022). The 2020 Zips earned the No. 1 seed in the MAC Tournament, but the COVID-19 pandemic ended that season.
Groce also won one conference tournament championship as an assistant coach at Butler (2001), two conference tournament titles as an assistant coach at Xavier (2002 and 2004) and one conference tournament crown as the associate head coach at Ohio State (2007). The 2007 Buckeyes finished as national runner-up to Florida.
Michael Beaven can be reached at mbeaven@thebeaconjournal and is on Twitter at @MBeavenABJ .
This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Enrique Freeman leads Akron men's basketball into MAC Tournament
