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Worth noting just 71 players have filed as early entry candidates for NBA Draft 2026, the lowest total in over 20 years. With the player pool much smaller than usual, maybe there's a shot? I would think a summer camp invite, at least.

Zips add Buddy Hammer Jr.

The Zips could play a little Ten team on the Road.

Hopefully one for Akron.

https://akronzippedup.substack.com/?utm_campaign=pub&utm_medium=web A superb edition of Zipped Up! Lots of good stuff. Clears up a few things for me.

Hopefully, coming off the World Cup and the Zips Elite 8 run last year, there will be some decent crowds.

I was on a Caribbean cruise last week. There was a large group of passengers at the pool one day who were wearing outfits that had both the US and Canadian flags intertwined. Everyone at the pool ended up loudly singing both countries national anthem. It was a fun afternoon.

I think it's possible to be argued that we can become as good or better in March, but I'm with you we will almost certainly take a step back during the regular season, particularly November/December. It will take us some time to be firing on all cylinders. Last season it just took us 1 half of basketball to work out the kinks. That's not going to happen this year.

I do believe that the team in Columbus.......is still recovering from the beatdown last fall.

Spurred on by the posts from Zips 1991 and Sgt Zip I watched snippets of the Zip LAX team vs EMU. Elaine Jones has one exciting team. They started 5-0 against EMU. Sienna Hinchcliffe is the real deal. She can flat out score anytime she has the ball. If the ladies tighten up their D they have a real chance against a superior UMass club. I hope the fans travel to Pittsburgh to give them a boost. Go Zips!

Thanks, I thought that was a done deal. His failure to sign now makes sense. It is weird in that before the college money, players could not wait to make money and left college early. Now they want to stay in college to make more money than they ever could as a pro.

According to an email from Coach Embick about Day of Giving, the 2026 home schedule features matches against the following (potentially more as he said they are finalizing some dates). Dayton, Army, Wake Forest, Syracuse, Creighton, Georgetown, Xavier, Butler and Robert Morris

I am about as big of a soccer fan as there is, and my enthusiasm for the World Cup is modest, at best. I initially intended to go to several games in at least two different cities; Now, I won't be attending any. Politics have ruined it for most people already. I think the residual enthusiasm for the program from the Elite 8 is more significant.

We're done now aside from a walk-on.

Thank you as always @Illini Zip

The nuts shrivel every time they think of playing Zips Men's Soccer, especially in Akron.

I don't have a negative outlook at all. It would be pretty hard to not take a step back from a 29-win team who went 17-1 in conference. I think we'll be good. I think we'll contend in the MAC. But I don't expect a team as good as last year, and that's OK.

TJ, Amani, and Scott all deserve flowers. They are all timers. I think we assembled a good roster of guys. Now it will be up to Ford and the staff to Gel the team and build an offensive identity. As there is no clear order of who will be the leaders. I assume that will get worked out in summer works outs

I won't stand for TJ slander

Eliminate conference tournaments. Regular season winners get automatic bids. Let AI decide who gets in after that. Watching AI decide will be about as exciting as watching the P4 tournaments.

My primary concern is that the majority of the roster was somewhere else last year. Two of the reasons we have been so successful are player development and a winning culture passed down from class to class. Freeman to Lyles. Castaneda to Tribble to Johnson. We don't really have any of that going into next year. The other thing we just don't know is how these guys will play in big games. I think we'll be OK, because I think every other MAC team took a step back and are dealing with the same issues. But I think it takes some blue and gold colored glasses to believe we'll be better than any of the previous three years. I'd love to be wrong, though.

Zips win in 2OT!!

This is a fantastic home schedule. We will see some of the best collegiate soccer in the country. I am so glad we got out of the MAC and into the Big East. We need big crowds for each of these games to cement our reputation as a near impossible place for visiting teams to win.

NCAA tournament to go to 76 teams. All the 16 seeds and half of the 15 will play in the opening round. Just another excuse to shove the automatic qualifiers down further so they can shove a few more P4 teams in. I hate college sports more everyday.

Zips Baseball sweeps OU in Athens to improve to 20-24 and 10-14 in the MAC. Both are the highest winning percentages since the program returned. Baby steps in the right direction? The downside is they have 9 conference games left against three very good programs (Kent, CMU, and Miami).

Softball won two more yesterday and are now 19-4 in the MAC with 4 conference games left. 2nd and 3rd place both have 14 wins but have more games remaining so I don't think we've quite clinched the regular season title but are getting very close.