Akron coach Dan Hipsher started the preseason with several question marks and might have accumulated as many as he has solved.

        Which is why his Zips take a 3-7 record into tonight's Rock-N-Roll Shootout matchup against the 17th-ranked University of Cincinnati in Cleveland.

        “The way I look at these games, three things can happen,” Hipsher said. “We play above our head, they play below theirs, and it's a helluva game. We both play to our standards and we're in trouble. And if we play less than ours, we've got problems. That's pretty much the way it goes.”

        Akron ended a five-game losing streak last Saturday with a 76-70 victory over Mount Union.

        The Zips have lost Byron Thompson to a knee injury and two players for academic reasons (Emmanuel Smith and Andre Sims). Thompson was in his second year as the starting power forward. Smith started 24 of 28 games last season and eight of the first nine this fall.

        Starting forward Andy Hipsher (back) and reserve forward David Falknor (foot) are returning from offseason surgeries that sidelined them for months.

        Hipsher (12.8 ppg); Rashon Brown (11.3 ppg), who is coming off a career-high 28-point effort against Mount Union; and Western Hills product Darryl Peterson have been the most steady performers.

        “We haven't been very good, to be honest,” Dan Hipsher said. “We're still either defining or searching. It's tough when you're nine, 10 games in and you're still testing the waters to see who's going to perform on a given night. A lot of it is maybe just figuring out a couple guys who can provide a role for us and do it on a consistent basis.”

        The Bearcats, on an 11-game winning streak, have to ignore that the Zips are the lowest-rated team on UC's schedule (No.303 in the RPI).

        “Great teams ... beat teams they're supposed to beat by as many points as they can,” UC senior Steve Logan said. “We're trying to become a great team.”

It's showtime for Bearcats Tepid Akron faces hot UC

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