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I would like to give Groce and the Zips credit. Reading forums around the MAC there is much discussion about the Zips NIL, and what their particular program needs to raise to compete. We'll see how it goes, but this is what happened when Marshall came into the league in football and started to dominate. At least a few MAC teams in the era - NIU, Toledo, Miami, Ohio, CMU - stepped up to various degrees to compete. The difference now, with NIL/Portal, the key to success is keeping good coaches with staffs that can recruit. Losing a head coach can be devastating. Look at Indiana State. They were the Cinderella darlings of college basketball last season. The head coach leaves for St. Louis, where that team was no better. Back at Indiana State, that first-year coach and team struggled and now the entire roster is in the portal and the new coach has to rebuild. No program. No culture. Just ashes. The top half of the MAC has some strong/solid coaches. If these administrations step up even a little bit, keep these coaches in place and add to the NIL, the league can make some noise. At least credit Groce/Zips with jump-starting that trend.

I wish ours was a little more user friendly, if you could just log in and click donate $X/month, I think we'd get some more activity

Kent was promoting their NIL website yesterday. It's so poorly done with formatting errors galore. It was so bad, it prompted me to go to FearTheRooCollective and buy a Groce vest.

Amen. The #14 guy on the Zips bench will never see meaningful minutes. Spots 13-15 should be reserved for walk-on’s.

Zips recruit Kailee Bransford, Cincinnati Mount Notre Dame, 5-7, sr., 14.7 (points per game) was just named first team Div 1.

I've been reading up on the changes to the scholarship limits and one thing I found is that the roster cap is 15, including walk-ons. So, while it's true that Akron is able to offer 15 total scholarships, they can not have both 15 scholarship players and walk-ons. Given that Halligan posted that he was returning, I believe that means we only have 2 roster spots available. 1-N. Johnson 2-T. Johnson 3-Okonkwo 4-Lyles 5-Scott 6-Young 7-Hardman 8-MMK 9-Mahaffey 10-Brisco 11-Perkins 12-Henderson 13-Halligan 14-? 15-? Source: https://www.2adays.com/blog/ncaa-scholarship-and-roster-limit-changes-for-2025-26-what-athletes-need-to-know/

I pay virtually no attention to any other games other than the Zips.

Every school in the MAC has similar resources to UA as well as wealthy alums. As such, I don't want to hear their whining. Produce a product worthy of an alum's interest and investment and make some effort and maybe they'll buy in. Why would an alum want to invest in season after season of garbage? That knocks out about half of the MAC programs. As for the rest, like PCCC, Ohio U, Toledo and Miami...if you can't figure it out that failure is on you. Spare me the Dodgers analogy and engage in some introspection.

Maybe a banner at the top of ZipsNation that leads to the collective's website would be helpful.

Posted in another thread, but wanted to put here as well: There is now an easy option to contribute directly to the MBB NIL fund on the collective’s website.

I think what you're looking for just got added this morning. Incredible timing.

Would it be possible to use some of our NIL money to keep him at PCCC? LOL.

Turned out to be more minor than originally thought. Hopefully she should be available next season.

This right here from Izzo. Gem.

You definitely have to go back several years to find wins like this: 2016-17 - Houston 2015-16 - Arkansas 2014-15 - USC and South Carolina 2012-13 - Penn State 2007-08 - Florida State

If he's good enough to get 20 minutes a night on a team that was in the bubble conversation, he's good enough to see the court at Akron. Someone with his size, athleticism, and motor will help on defending opposing wings. Suder probably doesn't torch us with a ~20 point half if we had Evan following him around the court. This is mid-major basketball. We're not going to get guys who check every box. Some guys find their way onto an Akron roster because they're a little too short, were a late bloomer, or their game is unrefined. It's a matter of the staff looking through the list of potential recruits and finding the ones they think fits and they can develop to be a star in their role. If Evan was a more polished scorer, we wouldn't even be having this conversation about him potentially coming to Akron. He checks so many other boxes that P5 schools would be lining up for his services.

I hate to be a Debbie Downer but ... Under both Dambrot and Groce which teams of note have the Zips beat? Not just majors, but quality mid-majors as well? There have been near misses - Nevada, Dayton, Ark. State - but nothing of note comes to my mind. At least Boals and another coach close by have some notches on their belts. Zips don't just need to step up scheduling, ... BUT ALSO BEAT SOMEBODY. PS -- All this talk about 'nobody wants to play us' is pure smoke. Who has Akron defeated in men's basketball that would put fear into these power conference teams. Kent? Miami? Omaha? Does Akron's loss to Arizona strike fear into Indiana, Illinois, West Virginia, Cincinnati and others. C'mon folks. The program is rock solid, not a one-year wonder. It truly is time to full tilt boogie. Dance on the edge. Step up to the plate and take some swings.

Just to emphasize it further, here are the starting lineups of all Sweet 16 teams by the players original schools. A ton of mid major players (I count 27 out of 80). Look at Alabama on bottom four from the left. Some of these I can't even tell who the school is.

Still makes me all warm inside. https://x.com/MACSports/status/1901084000845762665?ref_src=twsrc^tfw|twcamp^tweetembed|twterm^1901096441008869771|twgr^7081e24e91602c2b0a0a3384f9941b8429ee5373|twcon^s3_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fzipsnation.org%2Fforums%2Findex.php%3Fapp%3Dcoremodule%3Dsystemcontroller%3Dembedurl%3Dhttps%3A%2F%2Fx.com%2Fmegdonovan44%2Fstatus%2F1901096441008869771%3Ft%3DM4QSVLZsvgxX4neyp47Eew26s%3D19

Michigan State is little brother to Michigan in their own state. They obviously have lots more resources than us at Akron, but relative to their peers (OSU, Michigan, etc.) they have to make their money stretch.

i made a post Saturday about the collective. I tried to make a donation Saturday and had issues. Thanks for those on here that made comments today. The site is working fine now. As I said Saturday, I am not a fan of NIL/Portal at all. But I do believe WE HAVE A WINDOW HERE WITH COACH GROCE AND WENTZ. I decided to donate now!! Who knows how I will feel in a year or two about all this but i figured what the heck GO ZIPS!!

When I tried last week on my phone it tried to prompt me to email. After reading your post I went onto the website and it now seems to be functioning. I'm not sure if the site was recently updated or if mobile just isn't user friendly. Signing up now for recurring donation.

That was easy. I just signed up for a recurring monthly donation.

WVU's AD, Wren Baker, was at NT when Ross Hodge was the Associate HC for 7 seasons at NT.

WVU just hired the North Texas coach.

If Kent basketball is as poorly funded as Sendy claims it to be, I think he has Kent basketball competing at the highest level it can reach (sustainably) in this NIL era. If he leaves, Kent likely regresses to the bottom half of the MAC.

2012 NIT

I could see how it might become burdensome for a sport like football as you have to add ~20 scholarships. 2 extra scholarships for basketball (4 if you add women's as well) shouldn't be much. Tuition + room/board costs are $28k/yr. That's the stated cost. The marginal cost of actually housing (in a dorm that is already built), feeding, and having them sit in a seat in a classroom that would have otherwise been vacant isn't much. Maybe 5k-13k/yr per scholarship.

I got confused (which happens too often). I had DeVries mixed up with the Drake coach.

I think I saw she had an injury that led to surgery, can't recall specifics though.

I've seen some discussion about current walkons getting grandfathered in, but can't confirm that anywhere. I've also seen some debate on if mid-major schools will even use the extra scholarships, as it will obviously incur extra cost and commitment.

Devries left WVU for Indiana. I believe WVU job is still open.

Not specific to the MAC, but NIT related. Just a kid being honest about his experience. I know there are mixed feelings about NCAA or don’t play any post season at all, but if NIT is paying expenses etc. seems like a no brainer to participate. He talks about being able to keep playing as a team and now have the experience of being on a magical post season run even though it’s not the NCAA tourny.

I did see this and you are probably right, but I was waiting for things to shake out.

We aren't the target audience anymore.

It’s hard to run the offense we did this year if defenses can sag off of someone. He doesn’t need to shoot a high volume, just enough to keep teams honest. Just like Tribble his last year. Edit: That’s only if the plan is for him to play the wing. If he plays the 5 in small lineups then he should be completely fine.

Here's a video of Mahaffey OSI highlights. It demonstrates he's deadly from inside the restricted area. He'd be a nice add.

I do think the biggest factor is relationships and favors. If 2 ADs are friends or 2 coaches are friends that helps. I know Groce has ties to Butler and Thad Matta… I would love to pull a favor and play Butler at Butler

Young's size and lack of strength and this point can be taken advantage of my a larger offensive player but I was impressed by his perimeter on the ball defense. He was really good at pestering a dribbler.

In addition, soon we will be at a point where the best of the best of the best end up annually at 5-6 schools. Those schools will win the championship every year. Same in football. There is nothing interesting about it. I can't even dislike a lot of teams I used to because I don't care enough to dislike them. I find myself increasingly uninterested in college athletics and it's more than the NIL. I enjoy going to Wake Forest games, even though that's getting increasingly difficult, and watching the Zips from afar. Other than that, I really don't care much for it and I used to love college athletics. Maybe it's because it's now minor league sports and I don't like minor league sports.

100%. I remember when Groce couldn't play Tavari b/c of him being such a liability on defense (reminds me of Young). Tavari just had the biggest stop of the MACC.

I don't know if it has much to do with being scared or not. I would imagine @ZipsFan31 is correct regarding the payment. I'm just saying that Bud Wentz has blatantly told Zips fans we've tried for bigger opponents, but they don't want to play us - whether that be risk assessment, payment terms, scheduling terms, etc.

I might be in the minority, but I'd prefer not to have a 7 footer slowing down the tempo. I'd be perfectly content with another 6'8 big that can move the court. We can then slide Amani over to play PF while also targeting a wing that can play both SF and PF. There are ways of us adding size without adding someone who has cement blocks for legs.

During this period I turn into a little kid, constantly refreshing my phone hoping to see what Santa Wentz brought us.

Entire active* roster. There you go

will have to deal with center Raynaud, the nation's best double-double producer with 24 and averages of 20.1 points and 10.6 rebounds per game. 24 games with a double double is nice and all, still I think 31 is better. 🙂

That kid's a player. I thought he was the best player on their team. Athletic 6'6" with a nice outside shot.

Does any of that fall on the shoulders of the head coach and his staff - IMO it can’t all be blamed on bad luck. Lack of depth going in had to contribute to some extent, no?

I don't really follow swimming and diving much but 11 titles in 12 years is unreal. Congrats yet again.

So much for my high hopes. Off to a very slow, discouraging start to MAC play. Stranded 11 in 8-2 loss to Oakland today.