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My long-winded thoughts regarding John Groce if he is our coach: There were two "high profile" names brought up on this thread in the early hours of our coaching search. Tom Crean and John Groce. The fact that we are coming away with one of them, to me, is a home run! We could have hired Anthony Stewart, Jamion Christian, or even the McDevitt guy Mes has been gushing over, but all of those guys have never been a head coach in the MAC and cannot be looked at as anything else other than high risk and high reward candidates. There is no guarantee they would have had any success here and they do not have names to generate buzz for instate players. I do not know all of the intricacies as to why Groce was fired at Illiniois. I did look at his record and he had one losing season, one season with 19 wins, and then had 20 or more wins in the other 3 seasons, including this season. I know how much this board likes our 20+ win season streak! The only difference is that Groce was doing this against the 1st or second best conference in the country in any given year. Now it isn't great, it just apparently wasn't up to a program like Illinois' standards, which is fine. It is certainly not bad I would argue his results were average to slightly above average for a P5 coach. What I do know is that there is quite a bit more politicking at large programs than there are at mid-majors. Some coaches can handle the change, others can't. Exhibit A - Charlie Strong. Charlie Strong was a failure at Texas even though he was a great coach at Louisville and put them on the map. Most probably thought it was a no-brainer that he would succeed at Texas, but the outside influences were apparently a change he had trouble managing. Does that make him a trash coach? Hell no. I would take him in a heartbeat over Bowden and most probably agree considering he was hired immediately at South Florida and I bet he does great things there. Speaking of Texas, our beloved Shaka Smart is down there for basketball and isn't doing too hot. As a matter of fact, he is coming off of a worse season than Groce ever had at Illinois. Now I will call bullshit to any of you and nothing you can say will make me think otherwise if Texas fired Shaka and you said you didn't want him here because he failed at Texas. I've seen Indiana fans want him on their staff. I've seen OU fans pissed about us probably getting him. They now think we will dominate the MAC for another decade. Do the fans on here who are unhappy think we know better than everyone else? Well you probably are smarter than the hillbillies down in Athens, but you all are going against the grain so much that it just looks questionable. I think the irrational dislike, whether some want to admit it or not, is because of the success he had at OU. Point out his regular season all you want. He still had a winning record (6-4) against the regular season king in Dambrot in his 4 years. Groce has great connections all throughout Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. Groce is a low risk and high reward hire. We know what he did at Ohio. Its hard for me to hold anything against whatever happens next season as the cupboard was already pretty bare and KD poaching players and other player leaving only makes it worse, but besides from that, AT WORST, I cannot see how we are just a step lower than KD's consistent regular season success. Meaning most seasons you get your 20+ wins, maybe a 19er here or there, but the upside is so much more. He has a history of NCAA tourney success while coaching in our conference and is the only coach to achieve that success in the past 15 years! Better yet, he has done it multiple times! The powerhouse he was on the verge of creating down in Athens before he bolted has been well noted on here. That can be us! What I additionally like is that he has already jumped to the big school and failed. 1) There is plenty for him to learn from that and make himself a better coach and person. 2) Him failing there will make him less likely to jump up again at first chance if given the opportunity. I'm sure he will want to make a calculated move up, if any, to best ensure success. 3) Him failing there will make bigger schools LESS likely to target him if he has similar success here as he had at OU. They have a sample size and it may make them hesitant to pull the trigger on him. All of this means more Groce for a longer period of time, which is a good thing if its all going good. A young up and comer like the names mentioned above could be here for only even a year or two and then gone and then we are back at this point. Now that wouldn't be a bad thing, but if I had to choose I would take the continuity over risking a new hire every few years. While I like the hire, I don't root for coaches, I don't root for players. I root for the name on the front of the jersey no matter who is playing or coaching. I hope you all do the same. Put your personal vendetta that exists because he owned our best coach in history aside. We were all concerned about being able to at minimum maintain the status quo and that is very reasonable with him, and his known upside is obviously a huge plus. Go Zips!! (hopefully this negotiations don't fall apart and I typed and thought of all of this for nothing).

My favorite tweet about all of this:

Josh represented UA well one last time. He was just named to the All-MAC Academic team. The only Zip to receive the honor.

I love KD but we just took a step up. I'll forever be grateful for what KD did for us at Akron. We were a pretty lousy program when he took over. He elevated us to being a top-tier, nationally-recognized mid-major program & his success put us in a position to make a hire like this.

In all of the articles about Ball, we still know very little about him - what was his journey to UA like? What was experience like as he joined the team as a transfer? What was it like sitting out last year and watching things fall apart? What role has his family played in helping him navigate 6 years of a collegiate career? We know he came via OSU, but there is just no depth to anything GT writes.

Welcome to Akron Coach

An OU grad's tweets about Groce to Akron

This really comes down to recruiting. KD recruited role players. Get a big man, regardless of actual ability (Zeke, Hughes). Not that Zeke was not a great player, but he was a rim defender. Not too much offense, considering he was 7 feet tall. Tree was the inside offense in those days. Big wings who were three point shooters (Reggie and Jake). But not much inside play. Role players. Groce seems more likely to recruit ATHLETES. That makes a big difference in a tournament. When George Young was the GM of the NY Giants, his philosophy was always to draft the best athlete available. LAWRENCE TAYLOR was the best athlete available. The rest is history. IF Groce can bring in some good athletes, the rest will take care of itself.

You can make an uneducated guess, but history guarantees me how many NCAA tourney games we would win with Dambrot.... ZERO!! I want nothing to do with Keith Dambrot or any of his assistants. He wanted a divorce and I am gladly giving it to him.

Jim Christian (or Jamion)? Well even if it was only done to annoy Bobcat fans I'm OK with it. I hope it's simply analogous to another situation about ten years ago when another respected and successful coach bolted Akron soccer because of frustration of being "unable to win in Akron". And then ...

Good article on an Ohio alum point of view on the hire. Let's get this thing going!

Okay, I got you now. He must have like Groce enough though to have all those offers and want to play for Groce at Illinois. Maybe that would carry over to here. IF(and that's a huge if) Tilmon comes to Akron, can you imagine what Groce can do in recruiting in the next few years? It would definitely send a message and foundation for future recruiting.

Winning championships in any league with a relatively equal playing field is tough. MAC programs have an equivalent budget, talent pool, etc. And Dambrot was always at, or near the top of the MAC. He's a good coach. No one can deny it. But Groce is a different guy with different strengths. And those strengths have translated to consistent post season successes. That is something that eluded Keith Dambrot for 12 years. I will trade a MAC regular season championship for a 3rd place regular season finish and a nice post-season tourney run any day of the week.

Is there such a thing as a Twitter Tantrum?

That video actually erases much of the "antics" that I dislike about Groce. Very humbling, and makes me kind of excited for him to come here.

Here's Groce press conference AFTER he already was let go at Illinois:

Groce interviewed Sunday, Akron started preparing an offer Monday. Williams never seriously considered any of Dambrot's staff. Jamion Christian was the only other major candidate.

Let me get this straight, now some Zip fans are making excuses for Groce winning in the tournament. I'm was just getting used to the excuses for KD losing in the tournament. I'm going to have to have some adjustment time. ?

To be honest, on the surface, this isn't appealing to me. However, if he can recruit like he has and connect with the community(aka HS coaches, etc.), then I see this as a win-win. It's a win for Groce, and a win for us. If Groce leaves, then that means we won an NCAA Tournament game or two, and our head coaching job will possibly be more enticing than it is right now.

NCAA tournament wins are what we SHOULD be expecting when we hire a new coach. Otherwise, why hire him? Will it happen? That remains to be seen, but if we want to move forward as a program, we should be setting our sights higher.

FYI, the dad has an Akron JD. So I would have high expectations from the Williams kids!

If they duplicate their recent JAR attendance and enthusiasm, no one will notice they're there.

I'm hoping they will have those Kangaroo cut out cookies.

So basically the same thing we had with KD, no change. I'll take a chance on no-change basically the same, with the possibility of elevating the program because of something new. In fact, I think I'm a little more energized/excited about Zips basketball (on the anticipation alone) to see what is in store for the Zips. I enjoyed KD's run while he was here, but now that he's officially gone I'm looking forward to something new.

Guys(and gals), there's a reason why I said "Future Zip?" I doubt it happens too. This is a huge coincidence to most people. I'm one of those people that don't believe in coincidences though. All I'm saying is the timing of this, makes me have to question it. He's had three weeks to request a release from his NLI, and decides to announce it after Groce lands the Akron job officially? It was just a thought.

At least I'm not the only idiot that thought this since he posted it on his Instagram at 12:21pm today, AFTER Groce took the head coaching job here at Akron. Tilmon has had 3 weeks to request a release from his NLI. Why wait until after Groce got a head coaching job again?

If Groce was going from one major program to another it would make sense for a player to transfer. But nobody is going from Illinois to Akron because of the coach....

Offers to Indiana, Kansas, North Carolina, Purdue, and UCLA so it seems very unlikely. A man can dream though.

I hope we don't need to poach Robert Morris' recruits. That would be a bad sign.

Nice gold jacket. Who knows? Maybe we'll get a uniform in the actual school colors now.

Shoot really hate to lose a kid like that. Now that Groce is a here maybe a reverse full court press and convince his brother to come here? The one thing about those teams is you usually don't see a lot of the top players in the league on it so have to hand to James Thompson IV. The only MAC player to be named to any of the postseason All_MAC teams and also the academic. Also have to admit he'd not the first guy that would have come to mind for that so kudos to him.

And this is where I quit reading

If you asked me how many NCAA Tournament games Dambrot would have won if he coached at Akron another 13 years...I'd say 0.

You'd think with all the advantages they think they have they would beat us a little more often

Agreed also love some of the angst coming from Athens over it. Should make the rivalry even more fun. I loved one of their posters who stated the difference between Groce and Dambrot could be that they'd rather have Mr. March coaching than Mr. February. I think that was always what frustrated Zips fans, fantastic starts (with the exception you could almost always count on one head scratching early season loss) followed by fizzling finishes. But what really makes me want to have this work is the arrogance on the Ohio board. Most think we've made a good hire but some are convinced that because of facilities, city, "lesser education" that Groce won't do as well as well here. Hate that elitist attitude, quite frankly education at most schools is what you make of it and almost every school is roughly equivalent now. There are really only a few true standouts. As though they are somehow the Ivy equivalent in the MAC. I will give them the Ivy equivalent of the Appalachians if it makes them feel better. And this from someone whom I may have mentioned had a great uncle who was once President of OU.

Nice work on the photo Dr. Z.

I recall when Huggins left for Cincinnati, he recommended Anthony Buford stay at Akron. Buford may have been the best basketball player in Akron history, so it was admirable that Huggs didn't try to poach him. Buford stayed for his Junior season, and then transferred to Cincinnati for his Senior year, where he was the starting 2-guard on their Final Four team. Different era I guess...

LZip, wadszip, and ValpoZip, +1(I'm out of likes) The year they made it to the Sweet 16, they had to face #1 seed North Carolina. Even though Kendall Marshall was out, UNC had a ton of talent on that team. You can argue and say they had more talent on that team than the team that won the national title this year. John Groce and his kittens took the Tar Heels to overtime. - Beating Georgetown in NCAA Tourney - Beating Michigan and USF to make it to Sweet 16 - Taking North Carolina to overtime in the Sweet 16 - Beating #1 Indiana on an out of bounds play(while at Illinois) And a lot of other magical games for him. He finds himself in those games on a consistent basis, and majority of the time, he finds his way to be in them and pull out a win. I much rather have that than have our 20+ wins per season streak continue and lose in the MAC Championship game(or get blown out in the NCAA tourney).

Lol, you've been spot on with the Groce stuff. Wake me now when Antino says that he has a change of heart (he should look at what Groce did with Cooper, seriously) and Noah confirms he is staying. I'm assuming that Jimond and Utomi were always solid. Somehow bring those four back, with Poke, maybe Hughes, Parrish and the kid from Stivers (blanking on him and don't feel like googling) and I don't see any falloff from what my expectations were with KD (18 or so wins). And if Groce could work some late magic and get a contributor or two, this team could be in business year one.

I don't feel strongly one way or the other. I can see both sides of the story. I just like the Zips are still financially invested to want to continue and build on the success that Dambrot brought. How this hire works out we'll have to wait and see.

So he took Tim O'Shea's players and got them to win a NCAAT game over Georgetown? That's a Helluva feat. Then took his own players and went to the Sweet Sixteen two years later.

Well, I can't say I am overly enthusiastic about the hire, but they certainly could have done worse. I'm not a fan of his sideline antics or his regular season record. That being said, I'm generally much more tolerant of coaches acting like children when they're the coach of my team, and he did a good job of getting his teams ready for the post-season. I am looking forward to a change. As I've said before, I think we'll reflect fondly on the KD years after the sting wears off, but change is good and I'll be there next season in my Zips gear rooting on the team.

If he wins they will get over it. Plus maybe some new people will open their checkbook.

I have a suggestion for fans that "despised" him. Quit being sore losers!

1a. A great recruiter 1b. A great recruiter 1c. A great recruiter 2. An aggressive style of ball, both offensively and defensively. We will be able to employ a more athletic and exciting style of basketball because he is such a great recruiter (see points 1a -through- 1c.) As someone else mentioned, watching the Zips recently had been akin to watching paint dry. 3. Someone who will cultivate relationships w/ the HS basketball coaches of NEO and & erect a fence around the State of Akron to keep local talent local. As TB now appears to be doing w/ the FB program (HALLELUJAH!!!), the BB program will be the hip "place to be" for local athletes. 4. A good developer of talent. 5. Someone willing to spend 15 minutes on YouTube looking at inbounds plays.

If Gonzaga wins the National title will teams be more eager to schedule us since we played Villanova last year?

Being a huge Browns fan, I have always hated Pittsburgh. But losing all these guys to Pitt area schools is adding a whole new level of hatred.

Josh is transferring to Robert Morris