Leaderboard

What are you trying to say about downtown Youngstown? haha... At least they were able to get an arena built!!

What a depressing thread about a needed improvement. I've submitted ideas in the past to try to improve the fan experience without breaking the bank in past years. UA did improve the JAR lighting a few years ago which was a good start. The lobby renovation still looks like a basement work in process area in my opinion. So as not to pile on with more negatives addressed at a program I care about: Sit down with KD and see if it's possible to trade 2 guaranteed win home games for "get paid" games at top 20 basketball powers. Give KD money made for this exchange so he can charter 2 or 3 selected away games so the Zips have a chance to show up rested compared with the plane & ridiculous bus ride to State College where the Zips blew the game due to road wear in my humble opinion. I like the idea of minimal improvements while planning a new on campus facility directly next to the JAR. If a design could incorporate the new team suite and weight training rooms into the new design so that money isn't wasted than so much the better. Currently, most UA students and Mr. Joe Akron don't care much for the Zips. Roll the dice, go get paid to be a patsy a couple of times and maybe surprise a couple of teams. I believe UA is closer than commonly believed. It's time to drop the 20 game wins mantra and go with we'll play anyone, anywhere. Especially, those with $$$ To those of you who want to change conferences.....what are you thinking? Attendance in the two revenue sports is pathetic. In the RED financially. What makes UA such an attractive partner....other some easy wins in sports not named soccer/basketball and rifle, sniper, hunting??

I plan on beating JohnnyZip this year. For those of you who haven't played in the past, I would suggest you make all your picks for the whole season right now. That way if you forget to log on for a week you don't end up with a bad record. You can always go back and change your picks right before the games are played.

Sorry, but there is a difference between football and basketball and their respective facilities. I keep pushing for the downtown arena idea because it doesn't have to be just UA's venue. It could be used for much more, and UA wouldn't have to foot the entire bill. It is also possible to attract better teams to come play in a better arena. WVU played at the Wolstein Center. Akron could offer them part of the gate if we had a decent size gate to offer. I'd play tOSU twice at their place for once at ours, but not once at the Q. It's very shortsighted to focus only on Zips Basketball. I'd love to separate ourselves from the shortsightedness of those to our north. Morons in Cleveland had the opportunity to replace the mistake on the lake with an indoor football stadium, but shortsighted idiots prevailed and built an outdoor stadium on the same precious lake front property as the Depression-era former stadium. The stadium gets used a few times a year in addition to the Browns 10 games there. Had they built an indoor stadium, they could have hosted numerous events (Mens Final Four, potentially a Super Bowl like Detroit did, maybe a new Bowl game, other ...). Had they built it somewhere other than the lake front, they could have developed the lake front property like other cities with waterfronts have done.

Comparing soccer to football or basketball is apples to oranges. The numbers at a soccer game are so low, to use them as an example is silly to me. The cost to build a nice soccer facility vs a basketball arena vs a football stadium are not comparable. The contract to keep the top head soccer coach in the country is dwarfed even an assistant job at a BCS football or basketball team. The number of people required to fill a soccer stadium is minuscule. BTW - when Lolla was our coach - we were consistently ranked in the top 10 (even #1 for a while), consistently beating top teams, consistently winning conference championships and consistently going to post season. Not much difference between he and Porter except for the national championship. My point on MTSU is they are in a conference we aspire to. They are one of the top basketball teams in the conference we aspire to and when we played them we did not have more than 3000 people at the game. Do you think Conference USA is taking notes? We have had some marquise wins under Dambrot - this year we beat an SEC and PAC 10 team. My point is the same as many others have voiced. Nobody give a s%&t. This state is balls deep in scarlet and grey - even local high school football teams out draw our football/basketball teams. If you look at the home/home numbers for us against Ohio U or Can't State, their attendance has been higher and we have won more games. I just don't get it.

Yep. I'd be willing to bet the average St. M grad doesn't affiliate themself with Stanford, Cal, USC or UCLA. The average Akron alum is balls deep on a scarlet & grey dong.