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I'm not sure I agree with that last part. Your donations are investments in your university and its students, because I'm assuming you are personally invested in its success.

I donate every year and have a named scholarship in my parents name. I expect nothing in return. It's not an investment. It's a charity.

Tbh I don't have unlimited money. Would be nice. Football could use it more, but basketball has earned it and deserves it imo. Hopefully I can say that about football soon too

I also think as the playoffs expand more and more of those bowl games will be eliminated. Two bowls were eliminated last year and the Detroit bowl was just eliminated. In full transparency 1 was added so it was a net decline of two. Many existing bowls are barely surviving.

The difference IMO is that simply making the NCAA Tournament is bigger than anything the football team will ever realistically be able to do. I'd imagine a lot more people watch Match Madness (especially the first two days) than the Snoop Dogg Bowl, the Potato Bowl, or whatever other meaningless bowl game Akron would make.

Football and basketball are the sports I care about…even with all of basketball’s success, one could argue our ceiling is just winning the MAC and losing in the first round of the NCAA…especially with how the games have played out the past few years. Much less upsets than usual.

I said over twenty years ago that there should be an exchange of programs such that Akron has mostly STEM and Kent has the liberal arts. Also, it is a crime that NEOMED is in the middle of nowhere.

Correct, it wasn't just Hardman, but we saw first-hand why his metrics from @kreed5120's site were so unfavorable. Nate wouldn't have required a double team. He wasn't overly athletic, quick, or threatening from deep. Okonkwo maybe down low but I think that's a stretch, too, considering he only averaged 2.9 ppg as a fully developed 5th or 6th year "senior" at Utah. Young will be missed for his energy, not his height, and we're seeing the future for Akron guards - taller. Tavari and Young got completely covered up by longer TTU players. We have now gone from 2 sub-6ft guards to 6'1" being our shortest (expected) key ball handler (Perkins at 6ft-even would technically be shorter but I'm not expecting a redshirt freshman to be relied on heavily, especially with Tahj/Wilson/Head on the roster). Eric is good and has a ridiculously high ceiling but he isn't the answer at this stage in his career. His game is still raw and his decision making is questionable at times. Not so sure Ty Pence will be much of a downgrade, if any at all. Athletically I'm sure there will be a little bit of a difference, but experience/decision making/etc. should all be upgraded with Pence given his experience. White is also a similar type player but with more physicality.

Bowen's greatest moment as a Zip was in Ypsilanti.

This pretty much sums up how I feel. Honestly, you seem more invested than I am. I might catch one or two games on TV each year, and I don’t go to any in person. My past experiences at games were so bad that I’d need to be paid to sit in Infocision for three and a half to four hours again. And it’s not just about them losing. I’ve sat through plenty of awful Browns seasons over the years. It’s more that the product Akron football puts out just doesn’t feel worth it to me, and I don’t really see a clear path for it to get better.

And they kept their basketball program?

To be fair, it wasn't just him. We were completely guardable with one man at every position. If we had someone that TT needed to double team, that would have freed Hardman for some open looks. But TT had no issues guarding us straight up. To me, that's why the loss Nate and Okonkwo was a killer, and the loss of Sharrone isn't. Sharrone's too short to compete at today's P4 level (NCAA tourney). In the MAC he's fine, but in the tourney he gets exposed. All the Zips did. We needed to get bigger at guard this year. I think we did? Eric Mahaffey (not Fr, but year 2, 3 or 4) is the type of player we need if we ever expect to win an NCAA tourney game. I don't know if that type will ever play at Akron again.

People will always look for return on an investment. I donate and support men's basketball because I have seen my support and the support of others lead to consistent success on the court, MAC Championships, and NCAA Tournament berths. The sad reality for football is we haven't had a winning record in the conference in almost a decade. We've only had an overall winning record in 9 of 40 seasons, and only 1 of the last 20. The ceiling for the program is winning the MAC and playing in a smaller bowl that only matters to fans of the two teams playing and degenerate gamblers. And we are pretty far away from that ceiling. I attend a football game or two each year. I obviously hope they do well. But I can't blame fans/alumni for not giving their hard-earned money to the program instead of giving to men's basketball, men's soccer, or another winning program at UA.

Maybe if they keep receiving $70K from day of giving. I can't imagine those trips are exactly cheap to fund.

I believe some of those cuts were 'strategic' and not strictly due to less than 5 degrees awarded per year. And some may simply be a consolidation of BA/BS options. It has the feel of creepage toward some eventual mergers of some type, Ramaswamy or not.

He couldn't create his own shot which is what we saw vs. Texas Tech. He was completely bottled up.

You guys are way to hung up on traditional positional definitions of who is on the court.

Yes, I think his offensive efficiency is probably even better than the graph shows. He has a very quick release and could get shots off at will. The issue is when he wasn't making 3s he was kind of unplayable as he wasn't able to contribute in other ways.

I'd switch Tahj and Zay & think center is probably MMK with Burton 2A Barre 2B. Barre was on limited minutes, not sure if he still is or not & Burton is pretty mid.

Wow, Hardman. His slice looks like if you asked 100 people what they would do if they won the lottery and his mark on the pie chart is "Give it to Charity".

Here is how I see the line up looking and then you have MMK to Play Center and PF depending on injury and Fouls. I am the biggest MMK fan. he was a great FT shooter and showed signs of a few straight line drives last season. I think he could have an Amani like improvement on the perimeter, and expand his game to the stretch 4

KSU eliminated 19 programs

Bingo. Not to mention closing out is a low harder with small guards vs. larger wings (pun not intended). Miami OH's athleticism was a fraction of Akron's, but they're 3P defense was far superior because the close out was more effective with 6'5"+ players all over the court. Akron wasn't built to play lockdown defense last year; they'll be built for it this year, that's for darn sure.

MMK I'm not sure logged a single minute at PF last year and was ahead of Barre in the rotation. Why would you assume he's 3rd string C? Also, I think several of the other guys can play minutes at the 2. Personally, I like the size. It allows us to switch more on defense without finding ourselves with a 6'7 wing backing down our 5'11" guard in ISO. Having to send help defense as frequently as we did last year was what led to many breakdowns defensively last year.

There is a show on Fox promoting this summer's World Cup. Each episode focuses on a specific host city and its culture, especially related to soccer. Each city has a liaison who is interviewed by the commentator throughout the show. UA's Steve Zakuani is the liaison for Seattle. I thought this was really cool to see and wonderful to hear why he chose to live in Seattle after his career. It is always good to see fellow Zips thriving in other parts of the country and throughout the world. https://tubitv.com/series/300019445/fifa-world-cup-26-stories-from-the-cities