Leaderboard

Does anyone do/have interest in starting a Zips Nation group for a bracket challenge?

Don't you think it's about time the Zips get new uni's? How many years have we been wearing our current whites & blues? I'd say... hmm... 4 years? It's time for a fresh look.

Agreed. Time to work back in the gold. Way too much drab gray. My God, I am commenting on colors. The season is obviously over.

This is a well written, but old article from Hustle Belt concerning the arena proposal which never made the ballot in November. http://www.hustlebelt.com/akron-zips/2014/4/24/5645480/the-proposed-new-arena-in-akron-a-realistic-look Since this article was written, UA has said they're willing to sink $30 million into renovating the JAR. Most on here, including myself, were (extremely) disappointed with that. The article says that the proposed arena would have cost $76 million. If UA is willing to put up 30 million, how on earth can Akron (& Summit County) not come together for an additional $46 million? Goodyear FirstEnergy FirstMerit Summa LeBron/Nike The City of Akron Summit County Diebold Jo-Ann Fabrics Collectively, there just has to be $46 million in there. Name the arena. Name the court. Name the various entrances. Name the... whatever! Come together, Summit County! The Zips, and downtown Akron, need a new arena - not a refurbished JAR.

Just something I wanted to inquire about. What's the chance of getting the 2 like per day limit increased or a limit even removed completely? I feel like I run into the issue all the time where I want to like someone's post but my limit is reached.

I must be going senile because I seem to remember Tarver as being a 2 guard. I'm also thinking that J Wood deserves a spot on that list. And no Bryan Hipsher? C'mon now, this list is totally bogus,.

I'd go with Jimmal Ball over Steve McNees.

Come on, Balsy, wake up! What are you hung over from Pi Day or something??

We hear a few rumors, read a few stories, maybe even have an inside contact who tells us their version, then try to interpret ambiguous terms as best we can. Sometimes we understand that's not enough to reach a definitive conclusion about everything that really happened and sometimes we have a tendency to jump to conclusions as if we know exactly what happened from a jumbled heap of circumstantial evidence. As for who was actually most responsible for the Coach Bowden hire, it was first seriously discussed on ZipsNation way back in 2009 before the iCoach disaster. I think that planted the seed that ultimately resulted in the call to Coach Bowden. Since that has as much relevance as some of the other theories, I'm giving ZipsNation credit.

You can't tell that story without the representatives response to Bowden's response though - “So I tell him, ‘Yes, I’m interested,'” he says. “And the guy goes, ‘Really?'”

I wonder how confusing TeamOhio tweet meetings will get this week?

Can I pick both VCU and tosu to lose? I hope flights to Portland are $1,500 and .....

Spin was implying about whether we should "credit him" with Terry's hiring, and not the AD. I only shared what I know about one of the major players in the process, and the one who actually initiated it. And it was an individual, not the search committee. So, if we're crediting an individual with his hiring for simply being one of the many members of the search committee, that's pretty weak. I'm curious if there's more information that I don't know about.

With 18 TDs vs 22 INT's last season, maybe he's in line for a WR tryout? Doesn't really fit the mold of Bowden's "OUR QB WILL NOT TURN THE BALL OVER" 2015 mantra.

I hear a lot of TW backers ask "what has he done to warrant losing his job?" but I don'thear anybody answering the question "What has he done to keep it?" First we need a definition of what an AD does. I found this "No matter which level, athletic directors oversee all aspects of an athletic program, including hiring coaches, scheduling, budget preparation, promotion, and facility management." at http://sportscareers.about.com/od/careerpaths/a/ADprofile.htm Pretty thorough definition. So let's look at that for a minute. Hiring coaches. iCoach was a disaster. no doubt. Firing him over his cell phone while he was driving to his mother's funeral was just plain disgusting. Many times worse than hiring him in the first place IMO. He lost Caleb (probably more to do with MLS economics than TW's management. Then again, if he fired Ron during that moment in his life, how easy could he be to work for?). He hired Bowden, a move that's still up in the air. Does he get the credit for that, or does The Vest?. He did bring in Coach Rembielak, that's a plus, even if that program is still treated as an intramural PIA. Scheduling. The football scheduling has improved (faster than the team has), but the basketball non-con is still horrible. Something that's well documented in this forum. Budgeting, we don't really know about that, being on the outside. If he returns money at the end of the FY instead of spending it on upgrades and marketing, that might make him bullet proof to the money people. Promotion. Facility Management. I brought this up in another topic http://zipsnation.org/forums/topic/32822-2015-baseball-preview/page-2#entry238844 Come on, how much would it really cost to upgrade that ballpark? Read the review in the last link, and the reply. Is that what you want to read about your university? Granted Zips baseball isn't popular, but how could it be? Overall I don;'tthink he's done crap. Despite the fact he was too far above me to say "Hi" or even nod when I spoke to him walking by, if he did his job worth a crap I wouldn't mind.

Agreed. Sometimes I know I haven't liked two posts in one day, but it says limit up after one...

I only see two names listed on both starting lineups - DeVera and Garcia-Aguilar. So we basically split our squad & tied a semi-pro team and beat another D-1 college team. I'd consider that to be pretty impressive!

Now that our season has officially come to an end, I am inviting any members to post any comments, the good, the bad, or the ugly about the past season. Here are my observations and comments: First, I would like to confess that I was wrong about how I thought our team would perform this season. When Tree left the team, I thought we were going to suck. I did not foresee how good Pat was going to be and that he would be our leading scorer. I never expected Deji to be a great 2 guard and be able to consistently get to the basket. I also never expected Kwan to be a great defender, especially when it came to the MAC tournament. I also did not expect Evans to improve his game, especially early in the season. Big Dog had some great games after Pat went down. These guys improved greatly from last season. I also did not expect Robotham to be a good floor general. We were a good MAC team without Tree. Second, I was really wrong about Antino. When I saw the 2 freshman guards, I thought we had a very good one, Robotham, and a very bad one, Antino. Early in the season he turned the ball over and had a tendency to shoot the 3 without attempting to run the offense. However, half way through the season he really picked up his defense and seemed to play more under control and had some nice penetrations and dump offs. When he took over the starting position, he really played outstanding especially after the Can't game. He had some great chemistry with Big Dog on the give and go. I thought as long as he kept playing good, we had a chance to win this thing and we came close. Third, I was one of the guys who did not like our offense that revolved around the 3 ball. Reggie and Kretzer were frustrating because we did not get consistent scoring from the wings. However, when we shoot the 3 ball at 45%, like we did starting with the game at Can't, our offense certainly looked good. The wings were just fine and they played great defense. If we could have kept that percentage or near to that percentage, we would be dancing right now. I think our 3 ball shooter benefitted by the short roster, knowing they would not be pulled if they missed their first few shots. Finally, I would like to thank everyone for posting this year. I knew I could always find up to date information on the Zips on this site. Each year I know that I will see posting about how the refs suck, the streaming sucks, and the out of conference schedule sucks. However, because we did have a down year on the win column I did miss our discussions about how we should receive an at large bid and how our RPI should be higher. Hopefully, we will continue these discussions next year.

I would hope not. Hurley is good for the MAC. In my brief conversation with him last week, when I indicated my feelings about his positive effect on the MAC, he changed the subject to speaking of how he liked Akron's team. Read into it what you like. I never considered rooting against a MAC team in the tournament for the betterment of the league?!?!

Tough question. I do know we would have beat UB on Friday night with Tree cleaning the glass.

I thought we turned the corner with MAC officiating 3 or 4 years ago with many of the guys doing a MAC game one day and a big ten game the next. That was, until this year…. Now I realize that games are easier to officiate when the ball goes in the net. And when you have games that you are shooting 30% there are just that many more calls to be made. But I thought the league officiating was just awful this year. We were homered at Toledo, the officiating at BG was just bad for both teams, Juice Brown got every call at the JAR and the Miami home game was the worst officiated league game at the JAR in years. While I didn’t have many complaints with the officiating at Can't, they somehow missed a guy taking three long steps for the game winner. Last night brought us back years, IMHO. Once Hurley got the technical, I thought the flow of the game went decidedly in UB’s favor. There was absolutely no consistency with calls on the perimeter, in the post or when players drove to the hoop. How many more “and ones” should we have had? I hope those clowns called their last game last night.

The year before VCU went to the final four, they played in the CBI after a disappointing finish. They won that tournament with a young and talented team. Do you think without that experience they could have made it as far as they did the next season?

I can't believe this is being discussed. We have nothing to win in these "lowly" tournaments? Because we go in there and dominate year in year out? Give me a break! When we create a cupcake heavy schedule every year we complain that no decent team wants to play us...here is a chance to play someone decent. You have an opportunity to play a (most probably) decent mid major, we're going to cowardly run away?!

All that really needs to happen is that an equal number of home and road games is enforced. No more 8-home 4-away schedules. The fact that it's not 6-and-6 with a 12-game schedule is stupid.