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Jason Carter is leaving? Fire Jeff Boals. Program is a joke. Total disarray.

Anyone leave the program today? Asking for a friend

That was their only DI player. Roster is a total joke.

All the other state universities are being affected by this other than OSU, UC and Miami, and Miami is only holding on because they relentlessly recruit out of state students. It's hitting Akron the hardest because of years of Proenza's reckless spending binge followed by mediocre or worse leadership that only cared about getting to the next job. This is undoubtedly going to feed the element in state government that's long advocated consolidating programs and even campuses and instituting a much more rigid, structured system, and can you blame them? Proenza's building spree will be exhibit A in the argument to reign in "empire building" within the system. This is a system that funds more public law schools and the same number of public medical schools as California. It's been heading for this cliff for a long time.

The below link will update you on all of the MAC's moves as they happen. Of note, Jason Carter is leaving Ohio. Not really surprising given the coaching change. http://verbalcommits.com/conferences/mid-american

6 years ago tomorrow the season ended for KD’s best team with a 44 point loss to VCU. Some of the best players on that team (Aberu, Tree, Harney) left Akron/ we’re kicked off the team, eventually quit on the team (Pat F) or should have been on the team, but were suspended for the year (Diggs). This day started the decline of Zips basketball. Williams & Noah were leaving whether KD stayed or left. The program has had problems the last 6 years not 2. Lets support what we have instead of wishing we had something the we don’t.

I had the opportunity to interview Josh Ward after last Saturday’s practice. Yet another great representative of Zips football! Thanks as always to Dr. Z for the nice layout and great supporting photos! Article

I think what you'd be looking at is a merger of Kent, Akron and NEO to create a Cincinnati type school. I don't buy into this notion that you can create a "STEM school" that is taken seriously as a national or even regional university. Even MIT and CalTech have respected history and economics departments. If you're truly talking about a California style system, then you're talking about OSU as the flagship of the system, then a tier below that of UC, Ohio U., UA/KSU/NEO and BGSU/UT with regulated grad/professional programs. These schools' role would not be to become OSU any more than it's UC Davis' role to challenge and compete with Berkeley. I'm not sure how you fit in Miami without more thought. The next tier down would be relatively easy admission, campuses with little or no grad programs (YSU, KSU, WSU) and beneath that the community college system. Schools would be funded differently based on their roles in the system.

The one thing that you have to accept with implementing a California type system is that not everybody gets to be Berkeley or even a UC campus. Schools play a role in an overall system that doesn't allow them to change lanes and start empire building to seek prestige. I don't know whether Ohio is capable of that. They can't even take the simple step of calling OSU the "flagship" when it's as plain as day on the ground and historically. And of course the great irony of that is that OSU hums along above the fray while the schools that have most strongly advocated the spread the peanut butter evenly and let every school determine its own course model are the ones heading off the cliff.

We've placed you in the transfer portal.

The point is that UA football does not have the support of the community. I know of many people who have never been to a UA football game at Infocision but have been to many high school games there. That's Arth's challenge- get the area interested.

They did, but the the channel name "Comedy Central" was already taken.

Shhhh... Don't let facts get in the way of their misery. _______________________________________________________________ The Zips this past season were 8 deep. Even with the departures, I'm looking at a roster that's 9 deep and that doesn't include the incoming freshman or the 2 open spots. It's ridiculous to say there are only 2 DI players on the current roster, when the rag tag group of 8 were consistently competitive against teams like Clemson, Buffalo, and Nevada, and finished in the middle of the pack in the MAC, while blowing out the #2 team in the MAC (BUGS). Scoring is a fixable problem, and probably the best problem to have, especially for a rebuilding team. I'm going to keep pounding this point. We have the right system in place to be successful. We focus on the key fundamentals - defense, effort, rebounding, free throws - and have built that foundation. Dambrot's system was and still is entirely flawed. It ignores nearly every basic principal in the sport of basketball. This very board had people constantly talking about the lack of ball movement, defensive breakdowns, free throw shooting problems, etc. We eeked out a lot of close victories against sub-par MAC squads despite being more talented (usually). Those issues have carried over to Duquesne. Read their board; "will this team ever emphasize defense" and "free throws are an issue". I'd be curious to see the opinions of the Dambrot apologists when looking at the Duquesne roster. Is it full of so-called DI players? If so, what was the cause of the early 1st-round exit in the A10 tourney and not dominating/being more competitive in a weaker A10 Conference as a whole? In the first round game, they scored 86 points, shooting at a 47% clip. How can you lose a game when you make shots?! You don't play defense, give up 92(!) pts, and shoot 68% at the line. What's going to be easier to fix: having gym rats hit the gym and practice shooting (including free throws), or getting a team to buy into 40 minutes of tough-nosed, heady defense? My vote is the shooting, which again, gives me hope for this next season. Lastly, let's stop crucifying this team and Groce for a 40 pt. loss to Buffalo and 24 pt. loss to a motivated O-BooWho squad. Of the 16 losses we had, 11 were single-digit losses, and an additional 2 losses were closer than their final score (@ Buffalo and @ Toledo). That means there were 3 games we simply weren't competitive in. Heck of an accomplishment for a team with only 4 DI players at the time. I wonder if Arizona had the pitchforks out for Sean Miller for losing to Buffalo by 21 last year, or Boeheim for losing by 12 to Buffalo this year. Do BUGS and Miami want to fire their coaches for losing to a team with 4 DI players by 24 & 29 respectively? The Clown lost to a team with only 4 DI players by 19. We had 1 extreme off-night (O-BooWho) and one off-day that was aided by being inferior to one of the better teams in the entire country (Buffalo at The Q); clearly that's not the norm. So much good to focus on. The sky is not falling. In fact, I feel as if the ceiling is higher than ever before, considering our previous ceiling had a MAC Finals record similar to LeBron's Finals record (oh look, another similarity between Dambrot and LeBron, to add to the excuses and now neither of them making the postseason), and arguably 0 marquee wins (unless you include the few NIT wins against Houston, FSU, and Temple).

The Ties That Bind: Akron Expects New Coach Tom Arth’s Northeast Ohio Roots to Pay Off By Jason Kersey

I'm optimistic that with a full year under their belts and another full off-season to improve their craft, our offensive base will be much more solid. Throughout the season we saw growth tremendous growth from numerous players - Riak & Cheese were the two most notable - and I trust the individuals on the team will put the work in to improve for the betterment of the team as a whole. It needs to be noted the system Groce has implemented on offense and defense. They are very fundamental. They require personnel that will dedicate themselves to the fundamentals, something AAU has largely killed off. We have lots of movement now when executed properly, and that goes for both sides of the ball. Two factors have led to the exodus - players not buying into the system, and players simply not fitting in. It happens, and it has been magnified by the state of the program when Groce took over. All season I had next year and the year after next circled because those are the seasons that start to feature the core of Groce Ball with the majority being his personnel. Whatever we accomplished these first two seasons would be whatever, and I was simply hoping to see the basics implemented. I've seen that and way, way more. With the departure of Utomi, it accelerates the roster turnover to becoming mostly Groce guys. As I mentioned, a lot of the fundamentals in basketball have been killed off by AAU ball. It was very encouraging to see so many guys this year buy into those fundamentals again, especially on defense. Seeing that gives me a lot of hope this off-season will yield big improvements all the way around. Also, are we forgetting the MAC is about to potentially enter the stage it was at when Dambrot took over? It depends on what Buffalo does; otherwise, it's completely up for grabs. Fret not. Go Zips!

Finally someone with "Common Sense" I been preaching this all along. The fact that we settled with Ohio U's leftovers that couldn't do squat at a Big Ten School infuriates me to the core and now we are back to defending and capping for mediocrity. Groce needs his own guys this Groce needs his own guys that. Yall gonna say the same BS after we get the same results in year 3? smh The fact that Groce ended the season with more timeouts in his pocket than Wins should tell you right there what he is and will continue to be.