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Zips Bball's Future


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59 minutes ago, Spin said:

Is a new arena what will propel the Zips to the NCAA elite?

 

An arena doesn't let the staff fly all over the country recruiting players. An arena doesn't entice future NBA first rounders to come to Akron. 

 

I think we're looking at the wrong fix. Some of the most iconic college basketball arenas are 70+ years old.

So why was INfo built? 

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2 minutes ago, a-zip said:

When the same mistakes are repeated...I have an issue with it. 

 

I dont come come on here much anymore so my timing is bad. Everyone seems content with the direction so GO ZIPS!

What is being repeated? The stadium has been discussed more than enough. I can't have an honest discussion about the future of the program with you if you think a very real transition year that we just went through is going to have a huge impact on the future. We've got the coach who has shown he can take a MAC school where we want it to go. We've got a program that isn't starting from scratch thanks to KD. I don't think anything was squandered. KD was the highest paid coach in the MAC. The school has made financial commitments to the basketball program as they've got the money (lighting, scoreboards, etc). I think they are doing the best they can given the circumstances. KD did a nice job but he is no Huggins. If he really wanted to be here, then he would be here.

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1 hour ago, LZIp said:

What is being repeated? The stadium has been discussed more than enough. I can't have an honest discussion about the future of the program with you if you think a very real transition year that we just went through is going to have a huge impact on the future. We've got the coach who has shown he can take a MAC school where we want it to go. We've got a program that isn't starting from scratch thanks to KD. I don't think anything was squandered. KD was the highest paid coach in the MAC. The school has made financial commitments to the basketball program as they've got the money (lighting, scoreboards, etc). I think they are doing the best they can given the circumstances. KD did a nice job but he is no Huggins. If he really wanted to be here, then he would be here.

You question what is being repeated....either you didn't read what I have said or you don't understand.  

 

Can you explain this one to me....."We've got the coach who has shown he can take a MAC school where we want it to go."  Groce went 14-18.  Is that where we want to go?  He had a .600ish record at Ohio, went to the regional semifinal and left the next year.  Is that where we want to go?  Also the putting lipstick on a pig thing you referenced (lighting, scoreboards, etc.)  What do you do you mean by "given the circumstances".  Are you referring to the financial distress the school is under?  If so, how can you not understand my point?

 

BTW - if UA would have kept the commitment they made to Huggie, he would have stayed much longer.

 

 

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On 4/4/2018 at 9:06 AM, a-zip said:

That is my kind of my point. Hug left because originally a commitment was made to him to make UA a basketball power.  BUT then Gerry Faust became available and was given a blank check to make football the priority.  Hug was pissed and left shortly after. It was a poor decision that has been repeated. 

 

KD wanted a new arena and would have stayed had it been built BUT a decision was made to build the INfo and hire another Notre Dame reject to take over the team.

 

Not saying Hug would have stayed forever, I am telling you he got shafted and left. Ditto for KD. 

 

Not saying KD is as good a coach as Hug but I do believe facilities and attendance bring in better recruits. Add LBJ, we had a rare opportunity to make a splash on the national stage. Instead we have a giant football stadium 1/5th filled. 

 

Football is is too expensive and it’s futile to try and compete with what will ultimately be (or is) a 4 league D1 competition. 

 

We we should have taken the Xavier, Gonzaga, Wichita State, Dayton model. Which schools have more pride?  Which schools are ridiculed for have the worst attendance/Gameday experience for football. 

 

 

X10

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8 hours ago, a-zip said:

You question what is being repeated....either you didn't read what I have said or you don't understand.  

 

Can you explain this one to me....."We've got the coach who has shown he can take a MAC school where we want it to go."  Groce went 14-18.  Is that where we want to go?  He had a .600ish record at Ohio, went to the regional semifinal and left the next year.  Is that where we want to go?  Also the putting lipstick on a pig thing you referenced (lighting, scoreboards, etc.)  What do you do you mean by "given the circumstances".  Are you referring to the financial distress the school is under?  If so, how can you not understand my point?

 

BTW - if UA would have kept the commitment they made to Huggie, he would have stayed much longer.

 

 

No 14-18 isn't where we want to go. Are you serious?  We've had a coach who was great in the regular season and that didn't do us much. We didn't get real respect at a national level. Winning games in the tournament is what gets respect at the national level and what brings in better recruits and more money (in various ways). You don't know he will be quick to jump again and you don't know that other teams will be quick to hire him again. And lets be clear - his tourney success was not a one and done. He won multiple games in the tourney over multiple years.

 

And by given the circumstances, I absolutely mean the financial distress. I "understand" your point in that you think a new football stadium shouldn't have been built. What you don't understand, or apparently forget, is the feasibility study that was done on the Rubber Bowl and the cost it would have taken to repair that. Someone else can go into more detail than I care to look up. The Rubber Bowl lasted 68 years, the JAR is only 34 years old. The Info is not extravagant by any means compared to our peers. FAU stadium, built in 2011 cost 70 million. North Texas stadium built in 2011 cost 78 million. Tulane's stadium built in 2014 cost 75 million.  Of course, if you're suggesting we should have dropped the football program for the very slim chance that building a new basketball arena would have made us a Gonzaga or Xavier level program, then I have no interest in further discussing this with you dude.

Edited by LZIp
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14 hours ago, a-zip said:

Appreciate the feedback.  Basically you are OK with the investments and decisions UA has made and you are looking forward to "next year".  That is awesome!  I also hope next year is great.

Yes.  I try to be optimistic.  It's fun to bitch and complain during the game threads as our emotions run up and down but I'm not going to run down the university or Groce until he gives me reason to do so. And I spent all the KD years looking forward to next year as well.  

 

As for football, amazingly huge awful horrendous mistake in hiring ICoach.  And the AD who did that is gone.  

 

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9 hours ago, a-zip said:

You question what is being repeated....either you didn't read what I have said or you don't understand.  

 

Can you explain this one to me....."We've got the coach who has shown he can take a MAC school where we want it to go."  Groce went 14-18.  Is that where we want to go?  He had a .600ish record at Ohio, went to the regional semifinal and left the next year.  Is that where we want to go?  Also the putting lipstick on a pig thing you referenced (lighting, scoreboards, etc.)  What do you do you mean by "given the circumstances".  Are you referring to the financial distress the school is under?  If so, how can you not understand my point?

 

BTW - if UA would have kept the commitment they made to Huggie, he would have stayed much longer.

 

 

 

Yes, this is exactly where I want to go. 

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The JAR is still structurally fine. I posted a report on this site 2-3 years ago that detailed the report conducted by that independent party that conducted the feasibility study on the cost of repairing the Rubber Bowl. Long story short, the Rubber Bowl was totaled. Building a new basketball arena while continuing playing football games at the Rubber Bowl wasn't an option. The option was either build a new football stadium or disband the program.

 

Infocision was built at a cost of $61 million. That's really cheap compared to most other stadiums built and renovated in that same time period. Could have they built it a little smaller and saved a few million? Probably, and honestly they should have. It still would have only saved a few million dollars at most. Not enough to fund a ~$70 million basketball arena.

Edited by kreed5120
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25 minutes ago, kreed5120 said:

The JAR is still structurally fine. I posted a report on this site 2-3 years ago that detailed the report conducted by that independent party that conducted the feasibility study on the cost of repairing the Rubber Bowl. Long story short, the Rubber Bowl was totaled. Building a new basketball arena while continuing playing football games at the Rubber Bowl wasn't an option. The option was either build a new football stadium or disband the program.

 

Infocision was built at a cost of $61 million. That's really cheap compared to most other stadiums rebuilt and renovated in that same time period. Could have they built it a little smaller and saved a few million? Probably, and honestly they should have. It still would have only saved a few million dollars at most. Not enough to fund a ~$70 million basketball arena.

 

Very, very good post regarding the topic. A "like" was not enough. 

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On 4/4/2018 at 10:16 PM, a-zip said:

So why was INfo built? 

The Rubber Bowl was condemned, and it cost less to build the Info than to repair the Bowl's foundation, renovate the stadium, and bring the restrooms up to 1950's standards. Figuring in the sponsorship deals at the new stadium.

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10 minutes ago, Let'sGoZips94 said:

 

 

Oh no... Queue a new thread in the Off Topic section, titled "ZipsVoice and LZip's Athletics' Affects on Enrollment". ;):lol:

While I agree with this sentiment, I found a couple studies really quickly.

 

Here is one that states donation money is way up (more than double) for athletically successful schools versus the average university. 

 

Here is another one that found a large increase in enrollment for smaller colleges when they added or devoted more resources to athletics. My take away from this one though is that the extra athletes themselves caused much of the increase. 

 

Both articles are from 2015, so I doubt much has changed since then. I was not able to find studies about enrollment increases related to division 1 athletics from the past few years during my three minutes of googling, but there were many articles dated in the 2011 range that showed positive correlation. 

Edited by UAZippers
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30 minutes ago, UAZippers said:

Here is another one that found a large increase in enrollment for smaller colleges when they added or devoted more resources to athletics. My take away from this one though is that the extra athletes themselves caused much of the increase. 

Good point.  When Malone and Walsh added 100 football players it would have instantly increased their enrollment by around 3%. :lol:

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1 hour ago, UAZippers said:

While I agree with this sentiment, I found a couple studies really quickly.

 

Here is one that states donation money is way up (more than double) for athletically successful schools versus the average university. 

 

Here is another one that found a large increase in enrollment for smaller colleges when they added or devoted more resources to athletics. My take away from this one though is that the extra athletes themselves caused much of the increase. 

 

Both articles are from 2015, so I doubt much has changed since then. I was not able to find studies about enrollment increases related to division 1 athletics from the past few years during my three minutes of googling, but there were many articles dated in the 2011 range that showed positive correlation. 

I stand corrected then....sorry.  :bow:

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Athletics has certainly helped the OSU, Duke, and Alabama's of the world. What I'm interested in knowing is how much the Elite 8 run helped PCC, the Sweet 16 impact on OU, and BCS/New Years Day bowls impacted WMU & NIU?

 

Side note: I'm really genuinely curious. I've never really heard hard numbers in any of these circumstances.

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20 minutes ago, kreed5120 said:

Athletics has certainly helped the OSU, Duke, and Alabama's of the world. What I'm interested in knowing is how much the Elite 8 run helped PCC, the Sweet 16 impact on OU, and BCS/New Years Day bowls impacted WMU & NIU?

 

Side note: I'm really genuinely curious. I've never really heard hard numbers in any of these circumstances.

Can't speak for the MAC squads (especially football), but off of the top of my head, Butler,George Mason, and FGCU's NCAA tourney success and the increase in applications is well documented.

http://eaglenews.org/news/fgcu/fgcu-admissions-spikes-march-madness-run/

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I did very minimal research earlier, and saw that VCU had a couple thousand enrollment spike around the time of their run(s). There's a difference in athletics boosting enrollment, and that enrollment actually attending games (student attendance, or lack thereof, at athletic events in recent years has become a hot topic). Athletics have become vital to the existence of college academics due to the fiscal overlap. Better academic programs stem from better athletics (in many cases), and with better athletics comes more exposure, thus more enrollment for the better academics. 

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Interesting article from Cleveland.com on the sports budgets of the non-OSU public universities in Ohio.  The UA takeaways- UA is 8th out of 10 in the percentage of expenses covered by ticket sales;  2nd of 10 in the amount of per student subsidy towards athletics; and 3rd of 10 in total athletics expenses.  Not positive figures in support of a new arena.

 

http://www.cleveland.com/expo/erry-2018/04/75b2bda3ed/money_in_ohio_college_sports.html#incart_m-rpt-1

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5 hours ago, clarkwgriswold said:

Interesting article from Cleveland.com on the sports budgets of the non-OSU public universities in Ohio.  The UA takeaways- UA is 8th out of 10 in the percentage of expenses covered by ticket sales;  2nd of 10 in the amount of per student subsidy towards athletics; and 3rd of 10 in total athletics expenses.  Not positive figures in support of a new arena.

 

http://www.cleveland.com/expo/erry-2018/04/75b2bda3ed/money_in_ohio_college_sports.html#incart_m-rpt-1

 Millions a year in debt service for the football stadium doesn't help.

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