Leaderboard

Merry Christmas to all on this board, even those who I have blocked! I am very grateful for this forum. Thanks to the creators, moderators and thoughtful posters. I look forward to accessing this site each day. I believe the best is yet to come. And yes, Virginia, there is a winning football team coming to Akron.

The bad news is the men's game isn't on ESPN+. The good news is that the women's game at #6 Michigan isn't either.

I was not expecting Coach groce to be out there signing autographs but I was surprised to see he was! Not enough good words can be said about him, he was telling all the people in line “thank you for coming out” and was just very appreciative of all the support the fans have for the team

There is a silver lining: Akron has the best facilities in the MAC, a great FBS opportunity for players to showcase their talent, and a competent president/ athletic director. Under Nemer and Goodrich, those advantages will pay dividends sooner rather than later and the only direction to go is up!!

All things considered he played well & showed huge potential. He probably only finished with 10 points but I actually found that encouraging because even though St. Ignatius is one of the more complete teams in the state, it was obvious from the opening tip that Coach Dru was solely focussed on not letting RJ beat them. STVM has a player named DeCarlo Prince who is 6-4 and supremely athletic & already has a grown man's body. This year & last I'd say DeCarlo has been one of the two best players in the city - along w/ Garfield's Rayshawn Hamilton, IMHO. Anyway, Coach Dru had DeCarlo sticking to RJ like glue all night long. All. Night. Long. Hounding him. Denying him the ball. Fouling him. Any & everything. Played RJ extremely physically all night... literally every second RJ was on the floor. Coach Dru was going to let anyone but RJ beat them. That's the first I'd seen St. Ignatius play and so even though it kept RJ's numbers down I left the game excited that Coach Dru centered his entire defensive game plan on denying RJ the ball. RJ's going to have to add muscle to contribute at the next level as he's still pretty skinny. So he'll almost certainly redshirt next season. But I think most of us expected that anyway. He's a legit 6-6 and can jump out of the gym. He almost had two head-at-the-rim highlight dunks but was fouled pretty hard on both attempts. He can handle the ball & has a left hand & often ran the point & brought the ball up the court to initiate the offense. He didn't shoot a 3 all night, which I wanted to see, but in warmups he's got a smooth stroke. His free throws are kind of knuckle-balls, but they went in. He's a good and willing passer. He's got super quick feet, can move side to side on defense & gets his hips low without effort. (He was also usually assigned to guarding DeCarlo on defense, so those two kind of negated each other). You can tell he's an Akron Zips-type of personality. During warmups & even during the game he was smiling a lot & encouraging his teammates; appears to be super friendly. So John Groce got another high-caliber young man.

I feel the talks of this being Groce's best Akron team was premature. We've been able to run up the score on the bad teams we've faced, but haven't been able to beat the good teams on our schedule. Our best win is against #161 Iona. Hopefully Groce can use this as a teaching moment as this is the worst Akron half-court defense we've seen in maybe 5 years. I think we have the bodies and athletes to improve, but we need to play smarter defense and be more disciplined.

Embick deserves everything for his loyalty and commitment to Akron for all these years. Incredibly thankful for him.

Just jumping in to say that this season was a pleasant surprise and the post season run was incredible. You could see the on- field chemistry. So gutted for the guys. If the ending was hard to see as a fan, quadruple that feeling for the players. And I don't blame Stefan one bit for continuing what was working for him - how many PKs did he successfully convert prior to this one? No player has a 100% conversion rate even at the pro level. Eventually, an attempt will be saved or will go wide or high. As for the SLU game ...sheesh...as long as I've been watching soccer (a long time) and playing (maybe too long) I can't recall that many unfortunate occurrences in a single match over such a short time period and to such detrimental effect. Lady luck must have been on a cruise. These are the types of games that can propel a group forward. I'm happy to hear that the incoming class is talented. That taken with the now experienced returners should produce another good year. Congrats to the players and coaching staff for getting Akron soccer back on the map. Onward and upward!

I agree, and I think a starting lineup matters more than some believe. A team can absolutely set a tone early that dictates the rest of the game, and we saw our squad do that multiple times last season. I think Sharron performs better off the bench at this point in his career, too. Personally, I'd like to see more Stankovic and less Halligan. Nothing against Halligan, who plays really hard, but Oggy's ceiling is just so much higher. Evan Eric Lyles Scott Johnson Young Hardman MMK Stankovic Once Barre returns, he can take minutes back from Stankovic. But right now, I'd love for him to get more court time.

Miami after last nights action currently sits at #58 in NET. Akron slightly improved to #48. On paper this has to be one of the best mid-major matchups of the season across all of college basketball. It's a shame that it wasn't picked up for TV. Edit: It was also a failure on the MAC's part as they should have made sure these schools played twice. There aren't many opportunities to pick up Q1 & Q2 wins in conference play. The MAC should strategically schedule to maximize the opportunities.

It's been said many times on this site but replacing all the bleachers with chair backs would be the biggest possible improvement for the JAR. It's not like the slightly reduced capacity is gonna be an issue.

Omitted is Groce's "putrid defense" explanation - opponents aren't "feeling" the Zips defense. We are undersized, soft, and disorganized. It's easy to shoot three's when you have zero fear of getting one swatted back in your face...when your opponent is sagging off and not respecting your range, when defenders are unnecessarily double-teaming and leaving great shooters wide open for corner three's. The Zips can phone-it-in on defense and out-shoot a lot of mediocre-to-bad teams. If that's our defensive MO I still think we're 16-2, or better, in the MAC. But we can't beat a high mid-major or decent P4 program with the pedestrian defensive efforts we've seen so far. That's a recipe for an NCAA Tournament 13-seed, and a 21 point round 1 loss. It was a gift to get Yale and Murray State on a neutral court, free from biased referees and raucous opposing crowds. And we didn't take advantage of it.

Washington is a very deserving national Champion. They are the best team that I have watched this year. 6 wins.......none of them at home win at Oregon State in round of 64 win at #5 SMU win at #12 Stanford win at #4 Maryland win over #16 Furman in college cup semis win over #15 NC State in finals has any team defeated 5 seeds and won all of their matches on the road on the way to the title?

Back with Minnesota

WR - ODU transfer Titus Myers was on campus today. The staff was big on him coming out of HS.

My guess would be - Joe needs to win next year, and you don’t win with Freshmen.

Knowing how the game ends still didn’t prevent me from stressing for the whole 13 minutes of highlights. But the payoff is so worth it again, thank you!! Our guys had a ton of grit that night. Also, I’m not going to miss Ipsaro this year. Just saying.

My son and his friend stuck around for post-game autographs and the players were great. Really makes it easy to be proud of the program.

I’m loving seeing the youth showing up to the games. Been seeing a lot of youth basketball and football teams coming to games and filling in for the students. Great for growing the game and the fandom

I also like the in-conference aspect. It means they've been able to see your program up close and like what they see.

Joe and coach Rodriguez do seem to find talent. But the unfortunate thing is It always seems to take 3 or 4 games to figure things out . We are competitive after that but having 3 or 4 losses before jelling makes a 6 or 7 win season pretty difficult

Bump for updates and a few notes. - EMU signed the largest class in the first signing period, with many of the signees being freshmen. - Toledo has lost nearly half their freshmen signees due to the coaching change. I don’t think that matters much anymore with the portal having become the more relevant recruiting source, but I thought it was worth mentioning anyway. - Supposedly, UMASS has used their NIL funds towards retention of 15 players, and 13 of them have indicated they will stay at UMASS. - I’ll continue to update this thread as I see more activity.

It's no coincidence that the two kids who play the hardest on defense started tonight. I suspect the message got through.

I look at all those Q4 wins for the Zips and it makes me scratch my head. The names of those programs are far from what I think of as programs that are typically Q4… hopefully a bunch of them build their numbers going foward.

Reminds me of the old Jerry Tarkanian line: "The NCAA is so mad at Kentucky they'll probably put Cleveland State on probation for an additional two years."

I understand defense is going to be a point of conversation, but it's really hard to get mad when our only 2 mid major losses have statistically ridiculous box scores. Yale and Murray State could run simulated games in practice with zero defenders, take the same shots they did vs us, and not shoot nearly as well as they ended up shooting vs us. 56% from 3 on 32 attempts is unbelievably absurd. That's 54 pts from 3P alone. If Murray State shoots an above-average 40%, that's 13 3P which is 15 less points; Murray State won by 15, and they're a 36.1% 3P shooting team on the season. Murray State committed 18 turnovers; I know some of those are probably self-inflicted, but Akron was doing something right on defense as well. Yet again, a team needed to have a historic night to beat Akron and they did. Akron wasn't nearly as efficient offensively as they were vs. Yale, hence the 15 pt deficit, but they still put up 100 pts. If we start seeing MAC teams shoot ~50%+ from 3P vs us, then I'll be concerned. Until then, hats off to Murray State for an incredible shooting performance. Regroup and beat the feathers off EMU.

Kent had, in some cases, multiple degrees for the same subject area. Most of the subject areas are still available but without multiple degree designations (i. e. B.A vs B.S.). They are not eliminating nine study areas. They are, however, still Kant State and offering many degrees without viable career paths and without the intern, coop, research, club groups that create opportuntunies that have become a signature feature of many of Akron's options. Note the last edition of Zip Insider where Allen, the pole vaulter with a degree in Biomedical Engineering and now pursuing a Master's in statistics mentioned the importance of internships even with the stem degrees she is getting. The importance of having degrees in job-oriented fields with good experience opportunities was also cited in this week's Board meeting by the Provost as being a factor in the increased number of 2027 applications even with a smaller student pool. She mentioned that Akron is doing a better job of telling that story to prospective students and finding more who are listening to that set of factors in their decision making. I hope that is true because students need to consider these items. Students too often pick colleges for insane reasons. Akron needs to continue down this road of making their degrees produce job-ready graduates in as high a percentage as possible. GO ZIPS!

Okay, we need 20 guys to all kick in a buck and we're going to @kreed5120's to watch the stream. He's providing the grub.

Well, the Akron coaches aren’t providing all the same services to JoeMo that she was providing to Sherrone!

The Zips get a 10 days Christmas break before Concord comes to the JAR on December 29th. Concord currently stands at 6-3, playing a bunch of teams that belong on Captain’s list of teams he’s never heard of, including Frostburg State. In the confusing geography department, they’ve also played California of Indiana and Indiana of Pennsylvania. Kraig Gilbert, a 6’8” sophomore forward leads the Grapes in scoring at 19.2 ppg. 6’8” junior forward Boubacar Djigo averages a whopping 14.2 rpg to go along with 14.2 ppg. He played for Lutheran West in high school.

Imagine showing up in a foreign country just before the beginning of training camp. You barely speak the language. All the other players have been part of the program for month or even years. Everything is different. The food, intense practices like you have never experienced with a demanding coach, classes in subjects you never imagined and not to mention American women everywhere! I would call that culture shock!

The last memorable EMU game for me was a couple of years ago when Emoni Bates was 1-12 from the field and I think we were beating them by 50 points at some point in the 2nd half.

Neither Shammah, nor either of the Mahaffey brothers had strong games vs. Murray St. Yeah, we still put up 100 points but our defense is concerning. And Murray St. looked very good.

And maybe directing some looks toward the north east…

Murray State is a quality mid major. Akron isn't going to beat anyone worthwhile without effort and intelligence on D. That's just a fact. Giving up 97 to Yale was a red flag. Allowing Murray State to put up 115 in 40 minutes is flat out embarrassing.

I’m getting a good feeling about this game!

Athletics starts around 1:10:00. Footballs APR jumped significantly

Saturday is a very fun slate. Akron v Murray State UMass v Florida State CMU v Stony Brook (old buddy Geno Ford) Toledo v Robert Morris Ohio v St. Bonnie in Cleveland Miami OH and NIU also play but their games don't count in the "very fun" category.

Single-Year APR Scores for Football: 2024-25: 962 (pending an upward adjustment; 2nd highest in program history) 2023-24: 920 2022-23: 908 2021-22: 885 2020-21: 943 2019-20: 953 We would've been bowling this year had we won 6+ games. Guarantee it.

Iona is now 8-3 after beating Bryant.

Tougaloo's total enrollment is 622. All I want to know is how they escaped Miami's OOC schedule?

People still watch the NBA? It's unwatchable.

https://gozips.com/news/2025/12/10/general-akron-athletics-launches-zips-fan-council Don't really know where to put this, but I really like this idea

At the moment anyway, 2026 looks like one of the best recruiting classes to ever come to Akron.

Congratulations to Mitch Budler. He will participate in the pre draft showcase..... The MLS draft will be held on December 18th.

This should be a high-scoring affair with the Zips averaging 96.2 ppg and Murray State averaging 89ppg. Murray State leads the MCV in 3-point shooting. Will the Zips be able to guard the perimeter? Recently, it seems to be a struggle. Murray also focuses on offensive rebounding to get extra possessions. They've had games with 19 and 16 offensive boards. Can the Zips limit second chance points?

That's because you're hearing what you want to hear. You keep just saying move on from JoeMo and it will make us magically better. Others are saying we need additional resources regardless of coach. Just because someone points out that the program is underfunded doesn't mean they're saying the program can never succeed in the MAC. They're saying that if we want to have success in the future we need to find ways of increasing resources. Whether that falls on getting more donations, playing more buy games, or whatever else. Replacing a coach is just a bandaid. I'm not even opposed moving on from JoeMo. I just want there to be a plan in place for how we're going to be financially competitive with the other MAC schools. Without it you will be here in 2-3 years demanding we fire another coach.