Tavari Johnson, Amani Lyles, Evan Mahaffey after Akron basketball win vs Buffalo
Tavari Johnson, Amani Lyles and Evan Mahaffey talk after a University of Akron Zips men's basketball win over Buffalo, Feb. 24, 2026 at Rhodes Arena.
Video Transcript
Go from, my left to right, Tavari, Amani, and Evan.
Just what's your takeaway from tonight's win?
Where you guys, you know, a twenty-five point lead.
Obviously, they made it interesting.
They pressed you and turned you over a little bit, but got some buckets.
But just overall, what's, what's the positives?
What are things you need to work on?
we played well.
A lot of guys were-- five guys in double digits.
a lot of guys contributed, and, was out there making plays, but like you said, at the end, we turned the ball over a lot, and we just gotta be more strong with the ball at the end of games while we're getting pressed.
Yeah, we didn't start off how we wanted to.
they came out more aggressive.
Obviously, that's something in my mind, but we can't take that for granted, just be enough.
have to come out harder, playing harder.
I feel like they played harder than us.
Came out, second half in a good run.
like you said, they turned us over at the end.
it's unacceptable.
way too many turnovers, and we'll work on it.
Yeah, I think they hit it all.
I think we just need to, um-- it's February going into March, like, we need to start playing complete games and not playing spurts of really good basketball and not so good basketball.
So I think, we need to focus on that more than anything.
And then for you, Evan, twenty points tonight is a collegiate career high for you.
just how, how were you able to accomplish that feat?
honestly, just being confident.
my teammates install a lot of con- confidence in me, my coaches do, so just knowing my spots and getting to those spots and just making the shots I know I can make.
It's, simple, just simpl- simplifying the game and not overthinking it for my part.
And then with five guys in double figures that Tavari mentioned there, for you guys, Amani and Tavari, just what do you think about how the I mean, it was pretty well distributed today.
Obviously, a couple guys go over twenty, but just how were you guys able to do that against a, a team like Buffalo?
just based on our depth, the type of team we have, anybody can go off.
we're unselfish, we share the ball, and we kinda just played through Ed today, how were they, how they were playing, and we practiced that.
he did a good job at accepting that role, finding other guys, and obviously, he benefited off that as well.
just for any of you guys-
