CLEVELAND: Saturday’s Mid-American Tournament championship game produced all of the tension that could be expected of a matchup between rival teams.
The University of Akron and Kent State men’s teams squared off for the third time of the season and their third meeting in the title game with the sixth-seeded Golden Flashes earning the chance to dance in the NCAA Tournament. KSU beat UA 70-65 at Quicken Loans Arena to earn its first invitation since 2008 and the first trip for Rob Senderoff as head coach.
“It’s great,” Senderoff said. “It feels great for them [pointing to the team]. It feels great for the people who entrusted me with the program.”
Kent State (22-13) seemingly took control of the game over a five-minute span when the Flashes went on a 10-0 run to take a 57-49 lead with 4:03 left in the game. Flashes guard Jaylin Walker, playing with swagger, led the way. Walker shot the ball fearlessly and confidently most of the night, but was responsible for six of those 10 points in that span.
Walker made 11-of-18 shots and scored 30 points to lead all scorers. KSU forward Jimmy Hall added 19.
Isaiah “Big Dog” Johnson led the way for the Zips (26-8) with 24 points and five rebounds. Cleveland native Jimond Ivey tossed in 18.
Give Walker plenty of credit for what happened in this upset, but the Flashes played as a team on both ends of the court, outshooting the Zips 53 percent to 46 percent.
More noticeably, they clamped down on the Zips defensively. Johnson did his work by sheer force of will in some moments, but he still peeled off his points. The Flashes locked down the Zips’ strength. UA couldn’t buy a basket from beyond the 3-point arc until late in the game when guard Josh Williams made consecutive 3-point shots with a little more than eight minutes left in the game.
It dealt the Zips a blow they couldn’t overcome despite a Herculean effort to do so.
UA coach Keith Dambrot has guided the Zips to the MAC final in nine of the past 11 years but has had a series of disappointing finishes, winning just three times.
“All I can say is, look, we’ve been good enough to get in the championship game year after year, and sometimes the ball hasn’t bounced very well for us,” he said. “I know the first time they banked in a 40-footer on us with a clock malfunction, I think we lost one overtime game to Ohio, we lose at the buzzer last year to Buffalo. The league is so close that — like the year we pounded Ohio, right? I don’t think we were that much better than Ohio, it was just a weird game, right?
“So I mean it’s disappointing. You get there, that’s the hard part about sports, right? When you’re good, then you set yourself up for disappointments. If you’re no good, there are no disappointments because you’re never in the championship game, right?”
The win capped a remarkable week for KSU that began against Miami on Valentine’s Day. Since then, the Golden Flashes won 9-of-10, peaking at the right time of the season.
“It was just tremendous toughness,” Senderoff said. “The guys believed and fought for each other. I couldn’t be prouder.”
Hall, who was basking in the afterglow of the victory, agreed with his coach.
“It’s all about togetherness and belief in each other,” he said. “We knew from the beginning we were going to win.”
It was clear from the first half that a grind-it-out affair was in the offing. UA, a team that averaged more than 10 3-pointers per game, made just one in the first half. The Zips’ first lead didn’t come until the 3:23 mark of the first half as both teams played tight defense.
While Walker and Hall filled up the box score with 11 and 10 points respectively in the first half, UA forward Kwan Cheatham Jr. wasn’t able to attempt a shot in the same time span.
Not surprisingly, the victory garnered KSU players individual tournament recognition.
Walker took the tournament MVP award and was named to the all-tournament team along with teammate Hall. Johnson and guard Antino Jackson claimed awards for the Zips. Ohio’s Jaaron Simmons received the final slot.
The Flashes will find out Sunday who they will play in the NCAA Tournament, and the Zips will wait to see who they play in the National Invitation Tournament.
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.