The University of Akron Athletics
University of Akron
Coppin State
Akron Edges Coppin State 77-71
December 02 | Men's Basketball
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AKRON, Ohio – After leading by as many as 13 points in the first half, Akron held on to a five-point lead with one minute to play, defeating Coppin State, 77-71, at James A. Rhodes arena on Wednesday night.
With the win, Akron's head coach Keith Dambrot earned his 150th home victory. The Zips moved to 5-2 on the season while the Eagles slip to 2-4 overall.
The Zips' big men, senior center Pat Forsythe (Brunswick, Ohio) and junior center Isaiah Johnson (Cincinnati, Ohio) were the Zips leading scorers. Forsythe poured in a game-high 20 points with three blocks while Johnson posted a double-double with 11 points and a game-high 15 rebounds. Sophomore guard Antino Jackson (Houston, Texas) was the third Zip to score in double figures with 10 points while dishing out four assists.
In addition, the Zips' sophomore guard Noah Robotham (Las Vegas, Nev.) made his first appearance of the 2015-16 season after being sidelined with a season-ending injury from last year. In his sophomore season debut, he scored nine points on 2-of-5 shooting, including a 1-of-3 effort from deep and a 4-of-4 performance from the charity stripe.
Coppin State had four players score in double digits. James Sylvester had a team-high 18-point performance and Keith Shivers added 17.
Akron hit on 40.6 percent (26-of-64) of its shots from the field in the game and went just 9-for-28 (32.1 percent) from beyond the arc. Coppin State connected at a 37.1-percent clip in the contest making 26-of-70 shots from the floor, and shot a low 25 percent from long range (4-of-16)
Akron missed its first three shots of the contest and Coppin State went 2-for-2 from the field for an early 5-1 lead. The Zips stepped up the defensive pressure and five early points from Forsythe helped Akron gain a 9-7 lead.
Led by 12 points in the paint and 11 second chance points, the Zips opened up their first half to lead by 13 points (25-12) at the 7:37 mark. Junior forward Kwan Cheatham (Cincinnati, Ohio) found Robotham open in the corner and he connected from beyond the arc to cap off the Akron 16-5 run.
The Eagles cut the Zips lead to as little as six points with 2:50 to play in the first half. Lucian Brownlee made a jumper form long range to make the score 28-22. The difference would not go lower than six as Akron took a 35-26 lead into halftime.
Akron played lock down defense in the initial stanza holding the Eagles to shoot 28.6 percent (10-for-15) from the floor and just 2-for-10 (20 percent) from long range.
Offensively, Coppin State came out of the locker room a different team. The Eagles used a 9-4 run by the Eagles in the first five minutes of the second half to cut the Akron led to four points (39-35).
The Eagles reclaimed their first lead of the game since the 17:26 mark of the first half following an alley-oop from Seymore to Keith Shivers with 11:34 to play. The dunk by Shivers was the end result of an 11-6 run by Coppin State.
From that point on the game went back-and-forth with five different lead changes. With 4:33 to play, Jackson drove the lane and passed the ball out to senior wing Jake Kretzer (Bainbridge, Ohio) in the corner who found the bottom of the net for three points to give the lead back to Akron, 64-63.
Johnson took over in the final four minutes of the contest for the Zips, scoring seven of Akron's 10 points with three lay-ups and a free throw to keep the Zips' lead to the final whistle.
The Zips return to action on Friday, Dec. 4, when they travel to Huntington, W Va., to take on Marshall. The first tap is set for 7 p.m.
