AKRON, Ohio - For now, anyway, the Akron Zips are unquestionably the best team in the Mid-American Conference.
By the numbers, they're also the hottest team in the country.
MAC Basketball's Super Bowl — part I of probably III, anyway — went to the Zips Saturday afternoon, 86-72, over Ohio University. Akron trailed by 13 at the midpoint of the first half and pretty much flattened the Bobcats from there.
The win was Akron's 13th straight, and with Kansas losing to Oklahoma State earlier on Saturday, Akron has the nation's longest winning streak. A program that's gained fleeting national notoriety in recent weeks through its marketing department and LeBron James bobblehead giveaway turned its Social Media Night into a #beatdown.
The Zips are playing like they want to be both heard from and talked about.
"You earn your respect," Akron coach Keith Dambrot said. "This (nation's longest) win streak is good because you keep winning, but it keeps us in the minds . . . of the (NCAA Tournament selection) committee. If you keep winning, they have to look at you."
Saturday's game was Akron at its best, with 7-footer Zeke Marshall playing angry and point guard Alex Abreu keeping pace with — and often a step ahead of — his much-heralded Ohio counterpart, D.J. Cooper. Abreu led everybody with 21 points and also dished out 9 assists.
Marshall went 8 of 8 from the field, scored 17 points and grabbed 12 rebounds. He was really good, yet barely Akron's most dominant paint player. Demetrius Treadwell had 15 points and 10 rebounds, his fourth double-double in five games.
Akron looks like a Big Ten team when it takes the floor, and when the game starts it has 6-foot-11 Pat Forsythe to replace Marshall and 6-foot-7 Nick Harney as inside-outside combo player to complement Treadwell. Saturday's Akron rebounding advantage was 40-22, and to Ohio coach Jim Christian it didn't seem that close.
"You've got to want it," Christian said. "The key to keeping those guys off the glass is hunger. You've got to want it. They wanted it more than us. It has to be commitment.
"Zeke is big, but the other guys aren't much bigger than us. Treadwell is 6-7. He wants the ball and he goes up and gets every one of them, two hands."
Said Dambrot: "Treadwell has paid huge dividends. He's a monster."
The hot shooting pushed Ohio to an 18-2 run and a 23-10 lead a little less than 10 minutes into the game, but the Zips were the hotter shooters the rest of the way. Akron shot 56 percent for the game; the Zips took the lead for good at 36-33 on an Abreu 3-pointer with a little less than two minutes left in the first half. Abreu didn't miss in the first half, going 5 of 5 from the field.
Akron improves to 17-4, 8-0 in the MAC. Ohio slips to 15-6, 6-1, and a had a seven-game win streak snapped. This game was so anticipated because it was the rematch of last year's MAC Tournament title game; Ohio won by a point, went on to the Sweet 16 and has every key contributor from that team back for this season. Akron has almost everyone back and added Forsythe and two freshmen who have made the Zips offense more dangerous in Reggie McAdams and Jake Kretzer.
"We tried not to think about last year," Abreu said. "The (championship game) is one of those nightmares you want to forget. We know somebody took something from us that belonged to us."
By any standard or label, this was two really good basketball teams trading runs early and trading baskets into the final four minutes. Even the most ardent Ohio fan, though, would say that the Zips were better on Saturday — bigger, more aggressive and more complete. Marshall (12.8) and Treadwell (10.5) are the only Zips players who average double-figure scoring for the season, with five more players averaging 6 points or better and contributing to a rare but true balanced offense. On Saturday, McAdams hit three 3-pointers, and scored 11, and Harney scored 13 points and 5 rebounds.
"I don't think we have anything to envy from any team in the country," Abreu said.
The MAC is a league of long road trips, outdated arenas and, usually, parity. Records that date back to the conference's "modern" expansion in 1975 don't show two teams being unbeaten in conference play this far into the season. This year, these are the only two thoroughbreds in the conference race.
There wasn't a seat to be had. There were even scalpers outside in a snowstorm asking for — and getting — double face value for tickets.
Should those without tickets just have waited for what seems an inevitable third game in the MAC Tournament championship game? To Akron fans, it was worth every penny.
"This was the best crowd we've ever had," Dambrot said.
Dambrot isn't afraid to talk — to his players or publicly — about his team's goals extending beyond the occasional really big MAC game and the MAC title in general. A trip back through the MAC record books shows the last two MAC teams to win the league with just one loss (Western Michigan 1976 and Kent 2002) went at least to the Sweet 16. The last MAC team to start the season 7-0 in conference play, Miami in 1999, got to the Sweet 16.
Talk is just that — but it starts somewhere.
"It's our job to continue to win to keep the buzz going," Dambrot said.
During this win streak, the Zips are outscoring opponents by better than 15 points a game and outrebounding them by 10.
That's a formula.
For Ohio, Akron's formula and precise play over the last 30 minutes added up to a long, quiet bus ride back to Athens.
