“Optimism is in the air inside Rhodes Arena where two University of Akron basketball teams look toward the near future with a sense of hope and excitement. The men’s squad recently played and won four games in the span of a week, catapulting itself back into the thick of the race for the Mid-American Conference East crown, and even more importantly, for one of four prized byes in the first round of the Mid-American Conference Tournament in March.”
“

Optimism is in the air inside Rhodes Arena where two University of Akron basketball teams look toward the near future with a sense of hope and excitement.

The men’s squad recently played and won four games in the span of a week, catapulting itself back into the thick of the race for the Mid-American Conference East crown, and even more importantly, for one of four prized byes in the first round of the Mid-American Conference Tournament in March.

The women’s squad’s resurgence has taken much longer than a week of play, but is in many ways, more impressive.

The women (8-12, 3-4 MAC) collected their third conference victory in a season for the first time since the 1999-2000 season when they defeated Toledo, 64, 62, Saturday at Rhodes Arena. The Rockets currently sit second in the MAC West standings.

Not impressed? Let’s put the team’s current conference record into historical perspective. Coming into this season, the Zips were 59-209 in their previous 12 seasons in MAC play.

The Zips’ second conference win came in a home contest against arch-rival Kent State on Jan. 21. While a win over the Golden Flashes in any sport is met with celebration throughout campus, the true magnitude of the victory can only be found in the history of the series between to the two teams.

UA came into the game with a 5-43 record in the series that dates back to the 1974-’75 season. Oh, by the way, the Zips had lost the last 18 meetings.

Even more remarkable, these watershed accomplishments have been achieved by a team that had only four letterwinners return from last season. One of those four, sophomore guard Amanda Sedlack, was sidelined by a season-ending injury 10 games into the season.

The Zips are being led by the MAC’s leading scorer sophomore Kara Murphy (18.1 ppg.) and freshman center Kyle Baumgartner (9.3 ppg.), but each player has filled roles to allow the team success.

Head coach Jodi Kest deserves a lot of credit for the somewhat improbable turnaround she’s engineering and so do the players for buying into Kest’s philosophy.

Call senior sports writer Vincent Dorsey at: 330-972-7395

To comment on this story, go to:

https://www.buchtelite.com

“