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Hello everybody! Since were in a "bye week" in basketball I decided to get everyone excited about the baseball season. Your Akron Zips finished 21-34 last season despite the coaching disaster to start the year. Now am I expecting us to win the MAC? Hell no. However I think .500 should be a goal for this season to continue to improve off of the best season the baseball program has had since they returned. A new era begins with Bryan Faulds taken over as head coach so I am curious how the zips will come out this year. They start out the year with Illinois in a neutral site and will return home on March 8th for a game against Toledo. The softball team is coming off of a 28-23 season and received a first place vote in the MAC preseason poll and were listed at 4th I believe. They start out on February 16th and will be back home on March 15th. Wanted to include them in case they make some noise in the MAC. I am not an expert though. Happy for baseball to be back this week and I am very excited to see Akron and other College Baseball games (gotta find out who the guardians will draft at number 1 this year) this spring!

I guess this is worthy of beginning a new thread. Spring news, observations, rumors, & Spring Game takeaways.

Please rise: O Canada! Our home and native land! True patriot love in all of us command... The Zips head off to Buffalo after a week off to face the Bulls next Saturday afternoon. Buffalo comes in at 3-20 fresh off of an overtime win over Georgia Southern in the MAC/SBC Challenge. The Bulls sole MAC win was over CMU on January 2nd. 6'8" 5th year forward Sy Chatman leads Buffalo scoring at 18.5 ppg (6th in the MAC) and is second in rebounding at 6.5 rpg. 6'9" senior forward Jonnivus Smith leads rebounding at 8.8 rpg (3rd in the MAC). 6'6" senior forward Isaiah Adams averages 13.2 ppg and 3.9. They are 10th in offense (67.4) and 11th in defense (80.4 ppg) in the MAC. The Zips beat Buffalo 76-59 at the JAR on January 12th. Chatman led the Bulls with 23 and 7

he sucked

Yeah, the article only took information from our Early Signing Day. They still listed Robert Morris transfer CB Jermarian Jackson as a commit.

Bump for update. For the most part PWOs are not on this list. There are a handful of players on the departures list that may have earned scholarships by the time they left. There are so few in that scenario that I’m not going to reach out and ask. All signings should be scholarship players. I’m also still waiting on some type of confirmation on the verbal commitments. As of now, we are tied for 3rd place in Rivals Comprehensive Rankings. We finished tied for 1st last year. In my opinion, bare minimum expectations should be a bowl game in 2024.

If Wally was playing today there is little to no chance that he would have returned to Miami for his senior season. Someone like Kentucky, UNC, or Duke would have offered him low to mid 6 figures to transfer. If you're a mid-major, you have to win with team basketball. In reality, Freeman is probably the closest thing we'll see to Wally in an Akron uniform for a long time.

Hence the reason why most people no longer subscribe to the Beacon. Hard to believe that’s the place where the likes of Chris Broussard, Michael Holly and Brian Windhorst were writing.