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Hello Zips Nation, I am first and foremost an Illinois Fighting Illini basketball fan. However, I am still a believer in John Groce, the man and the coach. In all of my time following sports I have never seen anyone or any team experience such lousy breaks as he had here. And through it all he fought with grit and grace. You have a decent man running your program. You will never have to worry about NCAA violations and his family is an asset to any community. You also have a fighter who will have your teams playing their best basketball at the end of the year when it matters. I am personally frustrated because I didn't get to see his vision come together so I have decided to adopt Akron if you will allow me. I know absolutely nothing of the MAC Conference and even less about Akron basketball, but I intend to learn. I can share my experience watching the Groce system for 5 seasons for those with questions, but remember I am just a fan like yourselves. Go Zips!!

It's funny really, the few people on this board that were so bored with winning the MAC and just missing those NCAA wins, have now turned Keith Dambrot into some kind of villain. I don't get it, but to each their own. The guy did unimaginable things with a program that was mediocre at best for decades. Imagine a football coach coming in and winning 8 to11 games per year for a decade. He moves on, are you mad we didn't win a New Years bowl?

A Keith Dambrot led team losing an early season game against a team it probably has no business losing to? What!?!?

This was a dominating start-to-finish performance by the Zips. Seattle had very little possession and few chances. I watched a handful of the NCAAT games yesterday and none of the top teams were dominant like we were.

I'm confused...Akron "won the MAC every year?" I'm pretty sure the last time we were MAC Champions was in 2013 (4-long seasons ago). That's winning the MAC as far as i'm concerned. I know we're splitting hairs here, but winning the MAC in the regular season literally means nothing when you subsequently lose the conference championship game, or don't even make it that far in the Tournament. It's sad but true. I will equally be critical of Groce if he drops a game against cupcakes. So far, it hasn't happened.

C'mon now. You know it's true.

Right now I would rather be us than them. And if Groce can take us to that elusive next level, maybe just maybe we can get out of the MAC.

I think one thing we have to look forward to with Groce as a coach is players reaching their scoring potential. Or should I say that is what I am hoping for.

This is true but I do seem to remember at one point winning your division would automatically put you in a bowl if you had at least 6 wins. I don't think the MAC specifies any certain bowls for winning a division though.

http://getsomemaction.com/news/2017/5/10/FB_0510172825.aspx has Mac bowls & tie ins

What worries me is that we take our foot off of the gas a little and the staff coaches to not lose. We saw some of this, to a degree, in the 2H vs the kitties. Stay aggressive.

STILL!

We have at least 3 base helmets (white, gold, blue) and then they update them with decals for each game. I think there is a 4th base helmet that is gold metallic, not sure though. Updating logos gives us a ton of options each week.

Here I go being the pessimist again. We need to win Tuesday. Per the current count: 70 Bowl Eligible Teams, 23 teams could still gain eligibility. This week there are 4 games that feature two 5-win teams: Purdue/Indiana, ODU/MTSU, Cal/UCLA, and Utah/Colorado. That puts the total at 74. Chances are that either FSU (beat Florida and ULM ) or Florida (beat FSU) will fill another spot. There are 13 more teams that could possibly vie for those last 3 spots (ESPN odds of winning): **Louisiana vs GASO (63.6%), @App St (14.1%) *NM St vs Idaho (73.1%), vs South Alabama (70.8%) Louisiana Tech vs UTSA (44.6%) UNLV @ Nevada (40.3%) Florida vs FSU (36.2%) Temple @ Tulsa (35.6%) Duke @ Wake Forest (30.2%) Buffalo vs OU (30%) Tulane @ SMU (27.8%) *Florida State @Florida (63.8%), vs ULM (96.3%) Texas Tech @Texas (25.4%) Georgia Tech vs UGA (21.3%) Ole Miss @ Miss St (13.0%) Minnesota vs Wisconsin (10.6%) *UL Monroe vs Ark St (32.7%), @FSU (3.7%) *-two games remaining, needs two wins **-two games remaining, needs one win We're a couple upsets away from a 6-6 team staying home. I don't want to see Akron be that team.

Pretty cool... https://www.masseyratings.com/game.php?s0=296546&t0=Akron&h=0&s1=296546&t1=University+of+Wisconsin

Kent State beat us 35-3 in 2011. It's time to return the favor. Zips 42, Kent 6.

LeBron still follows him and they remain close. Duquesne became a LeBron/Nike basketball school almost immediately after KD accepted.

Correct. A total oversight on my part. I like WMU's chances. MSU is good, but not great. It's really hard to beat the same team twice in one season. That's another reason I'm glad to see Wisconsin rather than ND.

Poke needs to look for the alley-oop. That was his bread and butter last season. There were at least 2 occasions where the Zip ball handler was looking for that play, and Poke was not paying attention. Groce seems like a very detail-oriented guy. I'm sure Poke's offense will be addressed.

And yet you have time to read and post here in the KD thread...

Wagon Wheel Mac n Cheese. Love it!

And shooting 65.5% from the line to boot. Assuming our current free throw percentage trend continues, I won't miss the days of 60% being the norm. It's incredible the night-and-day difference in fundamentals so far...

I tend to think the oddssmakers generally undervalued the MAC underdogs, but in reality, it would be awesome to see us up far enough to get some seniors who do not usually see the field in the game in the 4th.

Life is way too short for me to check for the Duquesne score. I wish Keith the best but I couldn’t care less about his career with the Dukes. I even heard that LeBron James stopped following him on Twitter.

It was nice seeing current LA Galaxy Head Coach (former Seattle Sounders and Columbus Crew Head Coach) Sigi Schmid in the house this afternoon. I love the attention our powerhouse team draws.

Damn we look good.....really good. I have a really good feeling about this team.

I was thinking this earlier and never posted it. Losing your job because of suspension is a totally different animal you would think. Especially if the suspension was, idk, something that might come across as "me" and not giving a damn about your team or the position your team is in.

Wisconsin went thru Maryland, Michigan and IU (on PK's) in the big ten tourney winning on the road at UND after playing Thursday night ...is impressive... will be a great battle on Saturday ...Go , Zips....It is Stewie and Sam Time !!!

Kato will be starting. You can make book on it.

who had fordham,new hampshire and colgate in the final 16? colgate knocks off michigan...will probably face louisville next fordham....rocks Virginia out of the tourney new hampshire advances past 15 dartmouth smu knocks off 14 georgetown and butler knocks off 16 vcu if wisconsin can knock off notre dame 11 thru 16 seeds are all gone

Check out his completion % for the entire season in the MAC. I don't think its anywhere close to that number. Like I said. Bowden better not overthink this. If the offense had really been hitting before Woodson had his brain cramp that MIGHT be different. But it wasn't. No next year. Start Nelson and see what happens!

I am still thhhhhhhhaaaaawwwwwing out. Can just now feel my fingers! It really wasn’t all that bad really. Stopped on the way home for a couple adult beverages with fellow zippies who drove up from Dover amd coshocten. I made em chose a designated driver.

Nice win, three pretty goals, excellent defense. Go Zips!

There is an old cliche in sports that “you don’t lose your job to injury” yet many jobs are lost to injury when the replacement is an upgrade. I’m not aware of any sports cliche that says “you don’t lose your job to suspension”. Let’s hope Terry has his thinking cap on here.

Depth chart hasn’t been updated all year unless a season ending injury.

The Akron Beacon Journal

I think the real story is that the receivers finally started catching the ball more consistently.

Thanks to the great JAR sound system, I have no idea what the hell Terry Bowden just yelled for the last 3 minutes, but I think I am supposed to have been whipped into a frenzy.

Can't we be supporters of both of their Zip eras?

I agree, this is how I'd like to ideally schedule.

I know this is tongue-in-cheek but I sense it will be a theme for many moving forward, so I'll say this and then move on: Akron was a mediocre program when Keith Dambrot took over. He and his staff built it into a consistently winning program with 3 NCAA Tournament berths along the way. When KD left, he left the program in FAR better condition than he received it. Even the biggest KD critic should be able to admit that he took the program to a higher level than it had been before. In fact, John Groce is not Akron's coach today if Dambrot didn't build it into a program with a winning reputation first. Dambrot took us as far as he could, and now I believe Groce will take us to the next level in finally getting that NCAA Tournament run. It's OK to be excited about Groce and what he's doing while still having great appreciation for 13 years of hard work KD gave us. Keith Dambrot will one day have a banner next to the one belonging to Bob Huggins in Akron. I think we can all agree on two things: #1- That banner better be hanging in a new or renovated arena, #2- It'd be perfect if John Groce fulfills what we all believe he can here to have a banner up there as well. Rant over, back to scouting awesome prospects. Go Zips!

Man, Groce has brought in as much highly-regarded talent in one week as KD did in 12 years. Once again, I'd like to express my deeply heartfelt thanks to Duquesne!!!

We've clearly passed over into "who gives a $h!+" mode.