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This is the worst schedule I can remember since the Rubber Bowl days. I hate the 5 home games thing to begin with, but the MAC home games we do have are unfortunate too. Kent on a weeknight should be illegal. Ohio on Black Friday sucks. It’s just a shame. The MAC is bringing in all of this money for now while killing its fanbases and not giving students the opportunity to build their own fandom. Once the contract is up and ESPN no longer wants these games, there will be no fans left. I don’t think the MAC ever thought about those consequences.

Mine is this: Toledo will lose in the MAC tournament, but I'm not sure when. The 43-year history of choking is too much for me to look past until they figure out a way to get to and win on Saturday.

Words can't express how much I hate this schedule. If anyone can help me see it differently I'll at least listen, but I don't see how this schedule benefits the players, students, alumni, fans and greater Akron community. Awful, just awful.

This is my philosophy as well. Coach K is a great regular season coach, but in his 21 years as a head coach, he has never taken his team to the NCAA tournament. He's the Frank Solich of MAC basketball. Consistently good in the regular season, but fails to get the job done when it matters.

Evan Wilson is primed and ready to drop a 20 bomb on the Flashes

I can't imagine the buyout is millions? Probably $700k would do it. We could "buy" YSU for 250k as a replacement, and have a fun "local" home game with a good chance of a "W." I don't mind Kentucky fans coming up to Akron. They know how to tailgate, and it would make for a fun game day environment. Better than the typical morgue that InfoCision has been since its inception.

Great kid who has more home responsibilities than any kid his age should. We’d be fortunate to land him. Already has P5 offers from Kentucky and Boston College.

They do it this way because the 4-5 game winner has to play the 1 seed in the 2nd round. If you gave the 4-5 seed the late game then asked them to play the first game the next day, that would mean they're playing the 1 seed on ~19 hours of rest, meanwhile, the 1 seed would be on ~28 hours. That's too big of an advantage.

Take heart that 2024 and 2025 are full of absolutely winnable P5 road games, assuming we continue to improve as a program.

Incredibly horrible decision. The MAC office is brain dead to take the most heated rivalry in the MAC and reduce it to mid-week oblivion that no one will see. This is so stupid it defies logic. There has got to be something that can be done to change it. Neither school fanbase wants this.

Watched a replay of the last minute because Phelps said Groce will want to watch the tape and find out why that Ball State player was wide open for 3. The answer: As Ball State inbounded the ball, a Cardinal ran directly across the key and knocked Clarke to the ground. Simultaneously, another Cardinal was literally holding Tribble. This happened directly in front of "Lerch the ref" who waved off the contact Tribble received.

Kent on a wednesday is a crime

On a side note, Mrs. GP1, the luckiest woman in the world, and I went to the Music City Bowl years ago and Kentucky played Clemson. Kentucky fans came in force...and I mean in FORCE. They started early and finished late. It was the first bowl game of the day and I'm pretty certain was on a Saturday. There were reports the next day that there were bars on Broadway (the main bar street in Nashville) that ran out of beer that night.

I’d rather Kentucky just pay a few million and buy that game out. I don’t want to see Kentucky fans turn InfoCision into a home game. Maybe if the Zips are rolling in 2023 like I expect, Akron fans will hang on to their tickets when that game comes around.

SC finished the year ranked #23 and beat Clemson and Tennessee. I would expect them to continue on a similar trajectory if not improve.

While I appreciate the optimism (and some here would probably call me an optimist) Akron is not going on the road and beating a South Carolina team in front of 85,000 fans (at least not while Shane Beamer is there). I’ll be at that game and I hope most Zips fans also make the trip. I can tell you from experience Williams-Brice can get to a fever pitch and cause the stands to sway. It’s one of the best venues in the SEC and they are still sinking millions of dollars into the stadium and surrounding areas. If anyone is interested, take a look at the upgraded facilities on YouTube when you have a chance. Carolina is quietly becoming a power in the SEC (similar to Illinois in the Big 10). To give an idea of their momentum, their 2024 recruiting class is ranked #8 with five 4 star prospects already committed.

Kent on Wednesday is bad. No way around that one. Ohio on black Friday .... I don't dislike it. Gets out from under the OSU-Mich. shadow that really is an abyss for the casual sports fan. If we are having a good season we can actually get some spot light that Friday from the local media. Is black Friday even a thing anymore with online shopping? I'm confident (maybe naive) that Kentucky will play here. That contract has been edited multiple times and we have kept that as part of it and in fact they are paying us now to come here as part of the payment plan type structure that both schools came up with. It's not a uncommon for the non top of the hill P5 schools to travel. Iowa State has come here to play and Kentucky is probably lateral on that level. The Hurricanes played Toledo at the Glass Bowl, these kind of games happen every year. https://www.kentucky.com/sports/college/kentucky-sports/uk-football/article260410282.html

I looked at the schedule again just now and I'm in even more disbelief than I was last night. I know there is nothing we can do about the ooc schedule and can only hope our Athletic Department can use it as a lesson in stupidity, and stop the insanity. Kent stands out the most. Tradition is important in college athletics as the tradition attracts people to games. Is there a bigger game on the schedule that can accomplish the task of benefiting the players, students, alumni, fans and greater Akron community than this one? It checks the boxes for both schools. Throwing it on the trash heap of weeknight ESPN football is morally reprehensible if you look at it like I do. The only possible positive is if they somehow salvage a nice day for people and play the day after Thanksgiving game during the afternoon. A nice day in possibly sunnyish weather, off of work with family and friends during the day would be a nice treat for a lot of people. Since I don't live in Ohio any longer, I look for one game I might attend and this could be that game as I'm normally in Ohio anyhow. Play this game at night and I'll be looking towards 2024 for a possibility. This schedule is absolute trash.

I wonder how much Kentucky will offer to buy their way out of that visit?

when multiple teams have the same record they do a "round robin" between all of them. who had the best record of the three against the other two.

I remember it like it was yesterday. Didn’t even click it and I can already see Francis Kiapway making the play. Crew last night was disappointing. 1981 is right, those are 3 good refs and had some horrid misses. Goaltend was obvious and the foot on the line was obvious.

It occurred right in front of me and I could not believe the no call. They were literally blocking. Tribble who is former linebacker motioned to the bench he was blocked off his man. They also missed a goal tending and a Ball State guy who had his foot on the line before a Zip got called for a foul. This is usually a good crew.

I'm mainly disappointed the biggest game of the year - KSUcks - is going to be played on a Wednesday night.

We care about WSOC. But the program has never realized it’s potential. Same resources as MSOC. Same facilities. Some of the very best high school programs in the nation are a short drive from Akron, not to mention the various academies in the area. It should be very doable to recruit at least red chip talent - without ever boarding a plane. Hopefully, Simonetti can do that. If she cannot, I know coaches who can. Give her some time.

But...that Wednesday night classic against PCCC will be televised to a national audience on ESPN27.

All-time Series is tied at 80-80. https://kentstatesports.com/sports/mens-basketball/opponent-history/akron/25

If I am doing the math right (and we can't assume that after my comment above!), LBJ's Zips could have faced UConn, the champion of what would have been his freshman year. Emeka Okafor, Ben Gordon and Charlie Villanueva. Pretty solid. They beat Jarrett Jack and Will Bynum's Georgia Tech team in the final. The LBJ-less Zips were 13-15 that year with Derrick Tarver, Romeo Travis, Drew Joyce and Matt Futch. WMU rep'd the MAC in the tournament.

This took me a minute to wrap my head around as well! So, we would be looking at whether or not a LeBron-led Zips team could beat UCONN w/ Okafor and Ben Gordon? Yikes. How confident are we that Derrick Tarver would catch fire in the title game? Dru and Romeo were solid MAC freshmen, but hard to imagine they could carry the load at that point. From what I remember of those years, Hollingsworth was a hell of a guard in stretches, so who knows?

I also thought our team was lucky to have a true point when Camp came in. It didn't take much time to see that discipline was not her strong suit. As the season went on she played more and more out of control and her TO's mounted up. MJ was faced with a huge dilemma, play Camp and tolerate her or turn to Thorpe, who proved to be Inadequate for D1 play. I wish the staff could have coached up both of them but we all see how that has gone. Neither seemed capable of improving.

Great point. Early in MAC play, I thought to myself that Camp saved coach's job. That went downhill quickly.

The nonconference schedule was set years ago. The MAC determines the MAC schedule and was not going to give Akron an extra MAC home game to make it 6. So yes, I am going to direct blame at Williams. Firing Arth was just the beginning of cleaning up that mess. I’m sorry that it’s taking a little longer than you may have hoped.

The problem is that no one cares about the woman’s program. So if they signed players or didn’t sign players….it doesn’t matter.