All Activity

Leiendecker was determined to hire someone he knew, someone from Butler. And he hired his former teammate. Look at the search. The other finalist was one of Matta's Butler assistants in 2001, John Groce, a mid-major coach with solid results and a large NIL fund, which means he’s competing with more resources than most of the MAC.

I wonder how Bud Wentz factors into all of this. From afar, it seems he and Groce have become very close over the years.

Depends on how much he wants to be a head coach. If Groce got a job with the right P4 program, Dustin would like make more there as head assistant.

I live in those areas and I travel to any zips game I can

I think you may have missed that they play EMU week 0.

Maybe he will find more consistent playing time and better production at a low major, like NIU.

Sac gets 7 MAC games instead of 8 and plays Hawaii for their last game.

Kent is taking a big hit to their team GPA.

Cat you think that is good, bad, or indifferent? I don't know what to make of the stats. I couldn't really find much on him. I saw that he was at three different schools each for a year school for a year year before that. Texas-Permian Basin: Played in six games in 2024, recording 11 tackles, a sack, and four tackles for loss. Dodge City (Kan.) CC: In 2023, earned All-KJCCC Second Team honors as a defensive lineman…Recorded 23 tackles with one sack and four tackles for loss. Independence (Kan.) CC: Spent one year with the Pirates. Size wise he is a large man.

https://x.com/i/status/2036797960311193772 Maybe backtracking...

It kind of shows how college athletics is shifting. NC State by a small margin has probably been the better program historically and plays what had been known as the basketball conference. 10 years ago you probably wouldn't expect an SEC school not named Kentucky to be able to poach NC State coach. The landscape has shifted.

I'd happily take him back. He's turned into a really good player IMO.

NC State is about to open up. Will Wade to LSU. Not an opening I expect to be a threat, but it does muddy the waters a bit.

It's pretty obvious that Zips basketball has a decent fanbase and they show up when it really counts. Which speaks more to the MAC and how spoiled we have been, than anything else really. We all know that the MAC Tournament and Kent games mean something. So people show up. Everything else? Not really. The Zips could have a cupcake OOC schedule like Miami, finish below .500 and still end up making the NCAA tournament if they win in Cleveland. I try to attend games when I'm in town, but I live 2 hours away and it's not feasible. Even tuning in to ESPN+ to watch is very sporadic because most of the time I'm not invested in the outcome. Fun to watch? Sure. But in the end beating a MAC school by 20+ doesn't do much in the grand scheme of things.

I agree, I'm not sure what more they could have realistically done. What's disappointing is we see terrific turnouts in Cleveland every year which makes me wonder where these fans have been all season. I get if they live in Westlake, Bay Village, or Parma it might be a bit of a drive for them to regularly attend games, but even if we could get them to go to 3-4 games a year it would help attendance numbers a lot.

I have to imagine they would have scaled down or not built Wolstein Center at all had they known the Cavs would be relocating only a few years later.

I'm going to push back on this and say there has been a noticeable effort over the last two years to improve promotions and gameday experience. The unfortunate truth when it comes to the Zips is that they won't truly break through to the average fan until they take the next step and win a tournament game and/or hold a national ranking for some time. Groce was brought here to do that. He was supposed to do what KD couldn't.

Even so those things don't fit the fix that sports/concerts does. Much of the things you listed are reasons why I said people are unlikely to make an all day event out of both attending Akron games and then also attending Browns games. Adults have responsibilities so there is only so much time they can carve out for personal entertainment. People in Cleveland, Detroit, Buffalo still have to do all those mundane things you mention and the free time they have they have many more options of how to spend it. I grew up in a small city and people went to the high school football game on Fridays because that was the only thing to do. Stadium seated maybe 6k and the population of the city at the time was ~9k-10k. Every home game the stadium was probably 80% full. As I grew up I realized that everyone attending the local high school game wasn't the norm in other cities, particularly the larger ones. You can pretend that Jonesboro, Arkansas has all the alternative entertainment that Cleveland, Detroit, or Buffalo does, but it doesn't. The same way that Cleveland has less competition than a city like LA or NYC. I never said a product still wouldn't be important to attract people. Just that people in Jonesboro are more likely to go watch a 5-7 college football team than someone in Cleveland because frankly there are fewer big events for them to attend. I'm not saying the product doesn't have to be good to get people to show. I'm saying the more competition you have to attract people the higher the threshold is needed to get them. I would think that would be fairly obvious. I'm not sure exactly what you can dispute about that.

If USF wants to run it back, Stan Heath is again available.

If there's a total re-build, Ryan Prather is in the portal.

Yes, the AAC is a step up from the MAC. They have a beautiful college arena. Dambrot interviewed there before leaving Akron. They will likely end up in the ACC. It would be quite a move for his family and the grass is not always greener in the heat belt.

Cleveland State looking to renovate Woodling Gym and vacate the Wolstein Center within the next couple years.

My understanding is that if Coach leaves, Ford would indeed take over. Not the best case scenario, but clearly would be the best possible outcome in that case

I only see Groce laving for a "prestige job" or in a situation where he's just fed up with the administration and the "ceiling" on the program (not unlike Dambrot). I never saw Butler as a "prestige" job so that one didn't worry me. We'll see what happens with the NC and possible Kansas fallout (good call by @kreed5120).