Akron survived its own lesson Saturday night. The Zips beat Tulane 65-63 at James A. Rhodes Arena to stay unbeaten at 3-0 and run their home winning streak to 33 games, and they did it with one of their most important players watching the final 12 minutes from the bench — benched by his own coach after a technical foul, in a decision the Akron Beacon Journal chronicled in detail.
Senior forward Buddy Hammer Jr., a transfer from North Texas, had been dominating for the Zips when, with 12:24 left in the second half, he was called for a foul while guarding Tulane’s KJ Greene and slapped the ball hard off the floor, drawing a technical, the Beacon Journal reported. The foul and the technical gave Tulane four free throws, all made, and sparked a 14-0 Green Wave run that erased an 11-point Akron lead.
First-year head coach Dustin Ford never put Hammer back in. “I made up my mind I was willing to lose the game to hopefully teach him a lesson for down the road,” Ford told the Akron Beacon Journal. Ford pointed out that Hammer had also picked up a technical earlier in the week during a 112-64 victory over Muskingum, and that a pattern had to be addressed, the Beacon Journal reported.
Hammer owned it afterward. “I made a big mistake tonight. I let my team down in that moment,” he told the Akron Beacon Journal. “I just thought I had good position. It really wasn’t I was mad at the ref or nothing like that. I just made a simple mistake.” He finished with 11 points on 5-of-6 shooting, six rebounds, two assists and two steals in 17 minutes off the bench, the Beacon Journal reported.
Akron still found a way. Wing Evan Mahaffey made the go-ahead layup with 55.5 seconds remaining, Greene drove for a tying layup in the final seconds and missed, and guard Ty Pence, Akron’s scoring leader with 17 points, secured the final rebound just before the buzzer, according to the Beacon Journal. Forward Halil “Chabi” Barre added five points and a game-high 10 rebounds.
Ford admitted the gamble nearly cost him. “With about five minutes to go, I started second-guessing myself, and the [assistant] coaches were in my ear [about benching Hammer], but I tried to stick to it,” he told the Akron Beacon Journal. His praise for Hammer was just as emphatic: “He plays with emotion and passion, and I coach with emotion and passion. If I could get on NBA Live and craft a player, I’d want [one like Hammer]. He just plays hard.”
The Beacon Journal noted why the moment matters beyond one November night: in the transfer-portal era, a first-year coach establishing a culture has few clearer tools than holding a standout accountable in a game his team might lose. Hammer’s energy — diving for a loose ball and taking a charge in a 21-second span of the first half, per the Beacon Journal — is the same fire Ford wants channeled, not removed, with Mid-American Conference showdowns against Kent State, Miami and Toledo ahead and a fourth consecutive MAC Tournament title as the target.
The stakes of Ford’s stand were easy to measure: without Hammer, the Zips were, in the Beacon Journal’s words, in jeopardy of losing at home for the first time since March 5, 2024. Instead the streak reached 33 games, and Akron’s 3-0 start now includes a win its coach deliberately made harder than it had to be — the kind of early-season deposit a team draws on in March, when the Zips will try to defend three straight MAC Tournament titles with the league’s target squarely on them, the Beacon Journal reported.
Ohio’s college basketball weekend was busy elsewhere, too: Cleveland State won a conference title on the soccer field in the game NewsForce247 covered in our report from Krenzler Field, and Findlay stayed perfect behind a career night in our recap of the Oilers’ win over Quincy.
What happens next
Akron (3-0) now has to prove the lesson stuck on the road, and Hammer has to prove the fire can stay on the right side of the whistle. Tulane fell to 2-2. The Zips’ home streak, the longest active run of its kind in the program’s recent history at Rhodes Arena, will be tested again the next time Akron takes its home floor — with, Ford hopes, its sixth-man spark back in the rotation and out of the officials’ notebook.
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