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Thank you. Nothing irks me more than when these guys put "forever a zip" in their departing letters. No you aren't. You are a sellout to your teammates. Bye Felicia.

Screw dambrot. Why are so many people on here wishing him luck, etc??? He just gutted the program and is poaching all the recruits we had lined up. I wouldn't be able to sleep at night if I did that, but that is because I actually love this university. Dambrot talked a lot of game, but as soon as the going got tough he took the paycheck and bailed.

72Roo, I think you made a few good points, but a few emotional points as well. First, Dambrot didn't take the first train out of town. He took the second train out of town. South Florida wanted him, and he turned them down. I do agree with you that the biggest factor of getting this team to the NCAAT was Dambrot. He got outcoached in all three games. We just had enough talent to get through the first two. I have no problem saying this now, because he's no longer here. But one of my closest friends was in a class that was being led by Jim Tressel. Dambrot came in as a speaker. I was told that Dambrot compared himself to Coach K at Duke by saying this(I'm completely paraphrasing here. It was obviously a few yrs ago): "I'm a better coach than Coach K. If Coach K was at Akron and I was at Duke, who would have the better team? Of course it would be Duke. I have to do more with less, unlike Coach K." Sure, for the first year or two, Duke may have a better record. But after that, Coach K would be getting better recruits so....Besides, Coach K is Duke...not the other way around... Then, I knew Dambrot's ego was less humbled than I expected. And I've seen it show up numerous times in press conferences. Since then, I knew that all these years of having the best MAC team and not making it to the NCAA Tournament, was going to take a toll on his ego. To me, it was only a matter of time before he bolted. I just never thought it would be Duquesne. I thought it would be a place like Dayton.

The news of KD leaving stunned me, primarily because I had bought into the KD story: Akron boy, Akron mom, Akron grad, Akron success story. I wanted him to stay and be our coach for years. But after taking some time there are a few thoughts I want to share. KD's decision was emotional not logical. He was going to leave when he realized he had his best team and he couldn't get 'em to the NCAAT. So blame everyone but yourself. The irony is that the greatest single factor in getting this team to the NCAAT was KD himself. At the end of the season his team was not prepared. He did not coach what to do if Big Dog is shut down, or what to do if the 3's aren't going in, or how to stop a hot dribble penetrator like Walker, or how to switch to a zone, or how to play with discipline, or how to shoot FT's (a lacking hallmark of his teams) or how to make good decisions under pressure. All those things he controlled yet didn't coach them up. So who is the problem here? It wasn't a lack of talent, it was how he used it and therefore he controlled the team's destiny. A new venue won't change that. He could have had a better job than DU like Dayton, but he was emotional. He took the first train out. At Duquesne the job will be just as hard as at Akron and his chance for an NCAAT legacy is doubtful. That being said he had to leave because he lost the team and the lockerroom. These players stop playing for him. It was displayed in their lack of discipline, their fundamental errors of jumping up in the air and then deciding to pass, their lackadaisical turnovers, their on again off again defense. They were often out-hustled by lesser talent and KD was out-coached at the end of the season by Miami, BG, Kent, and UTA. When they won it was because they had more talent, not heart or effort. This episode proves to me that Akron is what it is... a mid-major in a lousy conference that will be a stepping stone program. That takes some of the romance and hope out of the story for me. I always wanted to believe that we could catch fire and grow to be a Gonzaga over time. Without fundamental change will never happen. The biggest change of all, to me, is getting the students to attend/pack the games. When that happens the games become an event, then publicity, fans, donors and facilities follow. Finally, as we look for a new coach let's cut the crap about us being so financially strapped. Wilson will balance the budget in two years. From there we can grow and not look back. Our credit rating will improve and programs will expand. Give him time. If you made it this far thanks for reading. "When life gives you lemons, make lemonade." Still am and always will be a Zip.

Ohio State's athletic department self funds its state-of-the-art training facilities and its stadium/arena renovations then at the end of the year they still cut a check to the university. As for OSU debt, a huge chunk (about 50% of what you're stating) of that can be attributed to a $1.1 billion (yes, I meant billion, not million) medical center expansion. A building that the Governor of Ohio is on record as saying the cure to cancer will be discovered in that building. Please explain to me how that is remotely related to the athletic department? The reason they have acquired the amount of the debt that they have isn't because they are trying to surpass Alabama or whoever on the football field. It's because they are trying to pass Michigan, Northwestern, and others in the academic field. http://www.daytondailynews.com/news/debt-ohio-public-universities-tops/z8K0gYeFX9rquqmdLAMzOI/

What would be really interesting is PCCC garnishing old Geno's UA salary for their judgment out of the Bradley related litigation.

Who here wouldn't leave their job today if they could take the same job somewhere else doubling your pay? I don't have a problem with Dambrot leaving. I have a problem with how he left. Trying to poach our players is shady. He didn't even have the decency to have a team meeting to notify his players beforehand. Instead he left them in the dark and had his assistants do his dirty work afterwards. As for the players, outside of maybe Josh Williams, none of these guys grew up caring about Zips athletics. These players came to Akron because it was their best and in many cases their only option at the time. As soon as they believe Akron is no longer their best option they move onto someplace else they feel is.

Skip, I like a lot of the stuff you post on this forum. That being said when it comes to anything OSU related you skew facts as much as you can in an attempt to get your personal agenda a crossed. You tried claiming OSU athletic department is 100% responsible for OSU $2.5 Billion debt load when it is the only athletic program in Ohio, and only 1 of maybe a dozen in the country that relies on absolutely 0 institutional support to fund its operations. If you want to turn this into an argument that OSU spent too much money on its student union, medical research building, dorms, etc. I'd actually agree with you. I'd say the same about Akron, Kent, Ohio, Miami, Bowling Green, and Toledo as well.

I understand it's more complex than that. Did I ever say "every time" at all? There's certain parts of the game that adjustments are made. Maybe because I'm a coach at the high school level, I can see more specific details and what adjustments are being made and which ones are not being made. I'll give you an example: Our MAC semifinal game, Ball State was fronting Big Dog and having someone behind him for the help side. That's why we had so much trouble getting it into Big Dog. Our adjustment should have been flashing Big Dog to the high post(near the elbow/free throw line). It would have made Ball State have to stop fronting Big Dog all the way out there. Or at the very least it would open a lob pass to Big Dog because there would be too much space for the help side defender to effectively help on Big Dog while also seeing the person they're actually defending. It leaves backdoors open and possible high low actions. We never really did that. And then when I hear Dambrot say in the postgame that it doesn't matter where Big Dog is, we need to give him the ball, which explains all the turnovers trying to force it in to Big Dog. It frustrated me that we never went to the high post in that game. To me, that was as simple as an adjustment as you make in a game. And we were lucky Ball State couldn't hit a shot in the last few minutes. Also, a lot about adjustments is not reacting to what is going on, but being one or two steps ahead on what's about to happen. A lot of times as a coach, you can see something coming after you spend so much time scouting the opponent and then see things play out in the game. My main point to oldschool was that if he can base off of one game of a halftime score and who had the superior talent be the "better" coach, than I can base my "adjustments" on one play-by-play box score. One of the main reasons why I choose McDevitt over Stewart is the OOC schedule. Stewart has coached against 5 power five schools , and McDevitt has coached against 10 power 5 schools. And if you count Villanova and Georgetown as power 5, then mark that as 12 power 5 schools. Like you said, Stewart has superior talent than McDevitt has, which makes it more impressive that UNC-Asheville has been losing to some of these Power 5 schools by small margins. Like 46-60 at Georgia, 77-79 at Ohio State, 78-82 at Tennessee, and 79-73 win at Georgetown.

I think Antino is making a mistake if he thinks he can go to a bigger school and become a starter as senior, especially if he has to sit out a year. He had a great career at Akron. However, he was not a dominating guard on offense and did not look good in the MAC final or against Texas Arlington. All of our guards had difficulty getting through picks and defending the dribble penetration. If he goes to the next level he will be competing against bigger and stronger guards. I think he will have more success in a lateral move. Regardless, I wish him the best of luck and hopefully he will not regret his decision.

I am mostly on point with all three of you here. Ran out of likes. I never watched the Duquesne press conference and never will. If I'm flipping channels and I see Duquesne is on, my remote will continue to flip to the next channel. Time to move on. Akron will still be suiting up next year, with or without any of the staff or players from this past season. Our goal should be to support those that stay and also the new coaching staff.

I've had this same thing on my mind, LZ. I just have to wonder if KD is salty because a contingent of fans did not appreciate the 21 wins or the trips to the MAC tournament CG or whatever fill-in-the-blank success he accomplished while here. Putting myself in his shoes it would be disheartening to hear complaints about not being able to take the next step. It had to be a heartache. On the other hand, I think you really have to put on your big boy pants if you want to be a D1 coach, but when someone gives you seven million reasons to forsake an unappreciative fanbase it's not surprising. I think we all feel a little betrayed because KD played the Akron for Life card but it turned out to be just words. I appreciate what he did for this program, but I don't feel especially warm and fuzzy about wishing him luck in Pittsburgh. Maybe in time I will feel differently but right now I'm a little sore.

I heard during the season the the Zips had a "morale" problem. I wasn't sure what that meant then and I'm not sure now, but in hindsight it appears that there may have been some unhappy kids on the team and that maybe the team dynamic wasn't great. I wonder if KD's reference to the "dysfunctional locker room" was in part a reference to that. In any event, all hands on deck for 2017- 2018. Good luck to the kids who decide to stick it out or come here.

We often bring up the word "poison" on ZNO... Geno is poison. Right now there isn't a school that wants to touch him as a head coach. He's got a lot of making up to do before he gets another HC job.

This is very much like the discussion thread of early 2015 when similar numbers came out... I think UA's investment in its campus, including the Info, were all essentially necessary. The campus was totally transformed, but at a pretty reasonable budget. There wasn't really any crazy expensive buildings put up and even Info, while nice, isn't opulent or crazily overbuilt (smaller and less spiffy than recent high school stadiums in Texas actually). And it was funded at a time when debt was historically cheap. To me, UA got alot of bang for the building buck and it HAD to-- the campus re-build basically brought the campus up to "acceptable" modern standards, correcting 40 years of under-investment in a campus that when I started there in 1985 still looked like a medium sized city's muni college (which is what it was until it was taken over by the state in the '60s). The shocking thing for me continues to be the idea that the 4 NEO universities-- on top of all the redundancies of administrations and classes and overlap of students and funders and efforts-- spend a collective $90 million on sports every year. That is a large amount of money invested amounting to not much of a return for any of them and certainly not much for the area as a whole. Put another way, just this decade will end up with nearly a billion dollars being spent on state university sports in NEO... and the reality is not many people in NEO care that much about any of those sports or teams (at least in part because they are too busy following OSU to give a damn). The lack of interest and split of the audience and support means none of the teams at any of those universities has the scale and funding to progress in a meaningful and sustained way. Everything is just stuck on "spend a lot, don't get much".

Given the number of scholarship players potentially leaving, I wouldn't be surprised if we have 1-2 unused ones next season, which wouldn't be a terrible thing. If Noah leaves we'll only have 1 scholarship senior, 2 if we give Eubanks a scholarship, which we might as well. It would be nice to set ourselves up with 3-4 scholarships available next year when our next coach would have a full cycle to recruit. An unused scholarship would also provide us an opportunity to pick up a mid-season transfer like Toledo did this year with Willie Jackson.

I don't feel Akron built the student union or rec center to attract athletes. They built those buildings to attract STUDENTS. Akron built the field house and stadium for the purpose of attracting athletes just like Ohio State built Value City Arena in the 90s for the purpose of attracting student athletes. The difference is OSU used self generated funds to pay for their athletic facilities, meanwhile, Akron is using student fees and taxpayer dollars to pay for theirs. OSU has an enrollment of 64,868 compared to Akron who has an enrollment of 26,494 so it makes sense they need more debt on their books as they require more and larger buildings. They also have a greater capacity to pay off more debt as they generate significantly more revenue from their larger enrollment size. Aside from all this they are also the flagship school of Ohio and are a land-grant school. That's why they were granted state funding to help pay for their $1.1 Billion medical center and not Akron or Kent. The reason OSU athletics is ahead of Akron's by the margin that it is has little to nothing to do with anything that you stated. It is because they managed to generate $170.8 million in real revenue, meanwhile, Akron generated $11.6 million if you exclude institutional support.

Who is paying for what they don't want? What burden? There are no fees to the students, and no general $ are moved from the University to athletics... the dept is self sufficient. I think OSU came into this conversation because Akron should not worry about what ANYONE else is doing, and that OSU is the only school in Ohio that can do what they want salary wise because their business model is the only one that works.

Let's take our time and get the right head coach for the next 5-7 years. Worry about the players and assistants later. KD has left our program with a good reputation, and with playing time available here I don't think we'll fall off the cliff.

Would MUCH RATHER bring in Geno Ford. Successful HC experience in the MAC. Struggled at Bradley, but who hasn't?

But think of all of those fencing and tiddly winks national championships and All Americans.

That's a loser mentality. Akron's run of success should have been making other MAC programs try harder to catch up, improving the MAC as a whole. It's not like Akron was like Gonzaga and miles ahead of everyone else and uncatchable. With Akron's demise the bar is now lower in the MAC and the conference is weaker as a whole.

I know what OSU has built, how it attracts coaches and players... I also know that the Athletic Dept alone can service the debt at OSU. "Can you imagine what Akron Athletics could have if they were the athletic department of a school that was irresponsible enough to TRIPLE their debt load in the next 10 years"... Akron would never be able to service that debt, so whats the point?....Akron athletics cant service its debt with $24million in University support. Im not worried about OSU's athletic model. "So much is left over after paying the athletic bills, OSU each year transfers some money from its athletic department to the academic side of campus. The transfer was $8.6 million in 2013-14 and $8.3 million a year earlier, according to the school's last two financial reports to the NCAA."

You can add coaching staff to that as well.

One thing is for certain and that's that I was extremely impressed with how Ivey developed between last year and this year. To me he should be the key player next year. He is a freak athlete. Hopefully Utomi stays as well because to me those two are guys you could build a team around. I bet the rest of the MAC is ecstatic right now.

Williams better use the time in Arizona at the Final 4 wisely. That's a chance to get with everyone and make some serious strides in finding a new coach. If we're here in another week having these discussions, the Zips are going to be reduced to recruiting the bottom of the barrel and leftovers.

Let's see, who are our tight ends now?

To be honest I'm not surprised. I'm kind of expecting Noah to transfer too assuming he's able to grad transfer and play immediately.

Feel the Bern !!!!

I am in total agreement with Balsy on this topic. As you might know, I am a UA employee but an Ohio University alumnus and fan. I love following the Bobcats and Zips but cannot defend any MAC school's continued financial escalation in this losing war. These institutions exist to educate students and we are diverting precious funds from that mission to feed the egos of a VERY small group of alumni, trustees, etc.

https://mobile.twitter.com/collegeinsider/status/793132851860533248 Read this MES102. Very impressive dude. Not that Mc Devitt isn't. Tell me what you think. You make some good points MES102. I do like the fact that he's local and won a Ohio State Championship at Hoban High School. I'm also holding out that if he were to get the job he would be able to persuade his son to be a Zip. His son is a High Major recruit committed to play in the SEC. Saw some clips on him. WOW???? Also read on the after game article that 2 starters didn't play for UT Martin against Asheville. They accounted for 25 points a game and 17 rebounds between the 2 of them. So Stewart did make an adjustment.

After thinking about all of this for nearly a day, there is one thing I can't get out of my head and it scares me to death. I do not want to go through all the years of torture again that I experienced when Huggins left Akron and we brought in Coleman Crawford. Those were the worst years of Akron basketball and I never want to experience that again!

My philosophy is that the stadium is already built and the money is already spent. Regardless of how you feel about the stadium, the people who made the decision are no longer here and bulldozing it or cutting the program won't make that annual ~$4.4M cost go away.

If you want data on last Saturday's closed scrimmage see: Scrimmage