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Then I am afraid you're waiting for him to be a miracle worker. Given the circumstances of KD leaving and the related fallout, this was at best going to be a 15 to 18 win team. This team is young and thin, especially at the bigs. What we're seeing should not be unexpected. If they're here in a couple of years, they hired the wrong guy, but to give up now is woefully premature.

You can't say the first statement in bold, and follow it up with the second statement in bold. "KD bashers", if that's what you want to call those who were/are critical of a stagnant program, were tired of the 21-win-seasons & consistent trips to the MAC finals; those accomplishments were meaningless in the grand scheme of things. Talk to "KD bashers" in 3-4 years. If there are NCAA tournament wins, big regular season victories, etc., we'll be very happy; if not, then we probably hired the wrong guy to replace KD, but that doesn't disregard the fact that the program had become stagnant. This response might be , and for that I am sorry. My expectations of the end result for the Zips have come down a bit this year, simply because we are very young and are missing the extra 1-3 players to give us the boost. That is what is leading to our woes on the road, I believe. We'll see how we fare at home, but I'm still excited. As previously mentioned, I'm having fun. I'm enjoying this brand of basketball, as frustrating as it may be at times, more than the previous 3-4 years. Also, is there any difference from this season and the previous 13? The only thing that matters is Cleveland, right? Go Zips!

Me too. I picked 15 wins in the pre-season poll/survey here on ZnO. And while I hate losing as much as most, I am still enjoying watching these guys play. Yeah, there are times I've thrown my tuna-fish sandwich at the TV, and been asked to leave my abode by She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed, but then I remind myself of just what kreed said above....still having fun.

The Zips played better the 2nd half. You could tell the coach talked to them about their effort on the boards. This team needs to learn to find a man and box out. Utomi had a better 2nd half. We got just about nothing from the center position. Poke had a couple of nice games with post up moves and haven't seen an offensive move from him all night. Sayles has to be more aggressive. We are so young that it did not suprise me that we will have troubles winning on the road. Groce needs to teach this team to be more physical and tougher on the boards. The main positive for tonight is that we played a better 2nd half for the first time on the road.

Campbells Arena Starkist Court?

What we're seeing now is the team I expected out of Akron this season. I said when Groce was hired however many months ago that I was going to give him a free pass for this season as I don't think any coach in the country could have assembled a MAC contender given everything we lost and how short of a time frame we had to assemble a roster.

In honor of ZipsVoice......I would like to nominate Tuna Fish Sandwich and Condensed Tomato Soup as the Official Lunch of Zipsnation Members. Maybe we can now pick up Campbells as a corporate sponsor?

I am not as pessimistic as others on this board and still think this team can win 20. You can teach players to box out, to rebound, and to play with toughnesss. However, you cannot teach athleticism and quickness. We have guards that can penetrate to the basket, we have big men that are athletic, and we have guys that can shoot the 3. Our problem is that we do not have any experience. The college game is quicker and more physical than in high school. Our guys cannot relax on the court and forget to box out. We have to play well mentally. We finally get the lead to single digits and Jimond launches a 3 ten feet behind the 3 line. Just a stupid mental error. Most frosh are not great rebounders. Zeke, Kwan, Big Dog, Pat, were not good rebounders there 1st year. We have 3 experienced players, Utomi, Duvivier, and Jimond. Last night, Utomi had a terrible first half. We need him to play well to win on the road. We need to get the ball to our center and get them involved. We have gotten almost nothing from our center the last 4 road games. Groce should design some plays for them. We had one play to the center last night and it was a turnover. This team will get better as long as the team keeps listening to the coach and do not lose their desire to win.

I think you and 1981 Grad are both right. WMU had control for most of the game and seemed to be cruising to victory, but Akron stayed assertive even when they were down big. And as a result we had a short window of opportunity at the 2:55 mark in the second half. We went on a mini run and were down 9 points. Then Ivey went for a steal at half-court and got called for a foul. If that call goes the other way and Ivey takes that steal in for a dunk, we are now down 7 points with a huge momentum swing, Things could have gotten very interesting. The end result is still the same, but 1981 Grad is absolutely right that our guys were locked in all the way to the end.

I don't believe we've ever given anyone that big of a halftime lead to play with either, so maybe they were coasting in the 2nd half? Considering that we never got closer than about 10 in the 2nd half, I'd guess WMU was never playing with much urgency? I'm inclined to compare this to the football theory of feeling good about winning the 2nd half, even though all of that happened after the game was already essentially over. But, I hope you're right that we just played much better. We'll take whatever positive we can rest our hopes on right now. However, this WMU team should be very beatable when Wilder only shoots 3 of 18 for the night.

I'm guessing you're seeing what you want to see in terms of looking like an athlete, but he's just not good enough to play. Who knows if he ever will be. We're way too far into the season to be experimenting. The coach already knows what each guy can do at this point, and he's going with his best options. Even if guys don't fit the prototypical profile for each position. At this point, I'd encourage you to pray that we get much more capable big men in here over the next couple of years, rather than hoping that he somehow becomes the "future of this team"

Could have sworn you were all welcoming the Zipmeister back from his multi-year self imposed hiatus from ZipsNation during which time a bet required him to routinely tune in but prohibited him from replying no matter how stupid a comment was made. It was a great lesson in restraint. There were so many really dumb posts that almost made him lose the bet, but the one that came the closest was the post that suggested a good addition to the MAC would be Northern Kentucky. Anyhow, bet won, good to be back. Go Zips.

Should we post that Survey again about our first road win? I'm still surprised that a predominant number of people thought that this one would be our first. I'm sure there will be more beatable teams that this one, to give us a chance to steal a few road wins this year.

Tracker is updated to include Arslanian as a scholly player. Per a source close to the team, he was a "blueshirt" commit last year. Estimating 10 scholarships left over now for 2018. Quick reminder on what the different "shirts" mean as well. https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/ncaaf/recruiting/2016/01/31/college-football-recruiting-redshirt-greenshirt-grayshirt-blueshirt/79603750/ Zips Football Scholarship Chart.xlsx

The future looks bright at QB...

How do you get only 7 total rebounds in an entire half?