"When you know a guy is probably going to be your best player someday what is the right thing to do?" Dambrot said. "That's been the toughest thing for me. Do we take a hit or two early because he doesn't know much and hasn't be through it? Or, do we play older guys and still have a good solid team, but not a team that could go to the sweet 16 or anything like that."

Dambrot has decided that Marshall will learn on the job and that certainly makes Akron one of the nation's most intriguing teams.

"If we are going to take the next step we have to have to have blind faith in this guy and that this is the right thing to do for the program," Dambrot said. "It's hard because everyone of these guys earned their minutes early."

Dambrot said he has been very impressed at how the Akron players have accepted the idea that he will be more tolerant of Marshall's mistakes than he was with their mistakes.

"They never got an inch of slack," Dambrot said. "They had to earn everything they got … there was no patience with any of them."

With or without Marshall, the Zips would have come into the season with lofty expectations. With four starters and 13 letterwinners returning a 23-13 NCAA tournament team, the Zips were overwhelming favorites to repeat as Mid-American Conference tournament champs in the league's preseason media poll. The Zips, 2-2 start heading into Friday's home game against Arkansas-Pine Bluff, received 19 of 24 first-place votes.

"The bull's-eye is on us, and we have to get the job done, instead of just talking about," said guard Anthony "Humpty" Hitchens.

Hitchens says the Marshall plan is fine with him because Marshall's presence "clogs up the middle" defensively.

"Last year we didn't have a dominant shot blocker," Hitchens said. "Already, we can see he is helping us in the paint. ... We can play harder or the wings and gamble because he can protect us down low."

Marshall, from McKeesport, Pa., is the only 7-footer in the MAC this season, and there have only been 11 7-footers in the league inn the past decade. There hasn't been more than two 7-footers in the MAC during one season since 2002-03.

"Akron is a good fit for me," Marshall said. "It's not too big or too small. It seem liked it was one of those colleges you can get something you can't get anywhere else. You don't know what it is, but you have to go there to find out."

Dambrot and teammates said Marshall has come a long way in a short time.

"In the summer, I thought it was going to be a long year with him," Hitchens said. "... In practice it seemed like he was struggling, but in our first scrimmage he totally changed. He just needed a game atmosphere, and he's way ahead of where I thought he would be."

Marshall said he's different in practice, when the focus is on analyzing his action. "In a game I have more freedom," he said. "It's just put points on the board and stop them defensively any way necessary without fouling or doing it illegally."

Said Dambrot, "Once he started to compete, this team opened up its arms to him."

Akron junior Brett McKnight said the players are adjusting as much as Marshall.

"Not a lot of players have played with a 7-footer before," McKnight said. "Everyone has to get used to putting the ball up ... you have to get used to having a 7-footer around the basket."

With Marshall added to an already talented group, Akron faces pressure, but Dambrot, who coached LeBron James in high school, discounted that as a factor.

"We have such high expectations here that it doesn't bother us," Dambrot said. "We want to be great ... we don't care what others think. We care what we think. I went through that coaching LeBron in high school. If you didn't win by 20 points, everyone thought you were a bum. I'm used to it."

Enlarge By Matt Freed, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Akron's highly-touted recruit Zeke Marshall, shown playing for McKeesport High School (Pa.), will learn on the job as part of coach Keith Dambrot's squad.