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Whoa.

The Kent board seems convinced that Sendy has coached his last game with the team and that he's already accepted the Fordham job. Kind of odd that he was just on social media promoting Kent's collective days ago when he likely already knew he wouldn't be with the team next year. The Fordham job is pretty terrible. He must really want out of Kent badly. If he thinks Akron is the Dodgers, he's in a rude awakening when he faces the AL All-Stars (Dayton) and NL All-Stars (VCU) every year.

Zips add Evan Mahaffey.

Square peg, round hole.

It's just a general comment. It's great to want new seating, better scheduling, better players, etc... All of those things cost money. The administration is telling us more cuts are coming. If you are a fan, you can do your part to make up the difference. Buy a better seat. Make a donation to the Zip Athletic club. Make a donation to the collective. UA is not a P-4 school with large numbers of rich alumni. LeBron is not going to come rescue us. My experience in this world is you get what you pay for.

We just got a guy who played Wilson/Lyles/Okonkwo like minutes on a bubble Big 10 team. Worse case scenario he’s a great bench player. I see him as a Gray-like player with high major size.

Also, give credit to @Hilltopper who adamantly said he wasn't going to leave. Even after several media sources said he was.

And now they'll face it without Kenni! https://footballscoop.com/2025/03/27/kent-state-kenni-burns-administrative-leave

Charles Guthrie got his man

What a great sentiment. Might not be our favorite thing happening to our sports (it certainly isnt mine) but either we have to adapt and support, or die in the dust of other schools. Lets step up!

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

It’s as plain as the nose on your face…Power Conferences take the best and brightest mid-major players…and give us their unwanted table scraps in return. We get the best and brightest of the D2 crop, but that doesn’t nearly offset the NIL/Portal talent loss. If this system were in place 25 years ago, the MAC would never have seen the likes of Bonzi Wells, Brandon Hunter, Gary Trent, Chris Kaman, Earl Boykins, Wally Szerbiak, Antonio Brown and on and on. The Zips have some good fortune in having a great coach and someone to pay a few player’s NIL funds. But that can end tomorrow, and we’ll be fielding teams that have zero chance of ever being more than Round 1 NCAA tournament fodder. I hate it.

Probably the only way we'd get someone like Cincinnati or Xavier is if our "home game" is in Cleveland and they get a share of ticket revenue. Although that would probably only work for an OSU as I'm not sure there are many Cincy or Xavier fans in the Cleveland area.

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.

Zips will be playing in the Paradise Jam next season.

Dear Santa- Please bring us a decent big and the reincarnation of Xeryius Williams.

Zips in the UFL* Former Zips RB, Lorenzo Lingard is starting tonight in the UFL season opener for the Houston Roughnecks, on national Television (Fox).

Enrique had 16 and 9 for the mad ants last night. We are going to the last regular season game in Grand rapids Saturday.

there goes the 15 man rotation.

This led me down a wikipedia rabbit hole of former Kent coaches. Last season Geno Ford won 8 games coaching Stony Brook and Jim Christian won 3 games all season coaching Canisius. Hopefully pinky takes a similar career path as these two awful individuals.

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.

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

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

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/

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

I remember Groce telling a story at some event about how they played a P4 school closely and in the handshake line the opposing coach leaned in and said "we're never doing this again."

fortunately, we don't have to worry about that for another year. but we can worry about: attendance, home and homes with Villanova, John's next endeavor, keeping up with John and Dustin, facilities, red pandas, and lack of a viable and serviceable big.

The best matchup we had the last couple years IMO was the Bradley home and home. Of course we got smoked there and we beat their banged up squad here. But anything in the Missouri Valley, A10, or Ivy league would be beneficial

We finished the season with a 91 net rating. I would think if we can just get into the top 75 consistently there will be teams like Cincy and Xavier who might want a road test game that can’t hurt them. Worst case is it would be a Quad 1 loss for them. We are not far off.

I think the only thing a bigger name wants less than playing us at the JAR is having a neutral site game at the JAR

I think this is a leverage play. Groce knows cuts are coming at UA. I'm betting he wants to avoid complacency from the program in regard to that plus support of the Collective and the program in general. UA took KD for granted for a long time, and I'm sure JG saw that play out. I'd be stunned if he left now, personally.

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

I think the Jersey and Vest are priced very well. the listing does say an authentic Nike Jersey. if you buy a Cavs Jersey it cost $120-130... $159 is only $30 more for a piece of clothing you can't get anywhere else. I am assuming it a game jersey and the school is just purchasing more from Nike. Plus it helps Nate and Tavari as the proceeds are going to them. it's like thanking them for the hours of fun you spent watching them, plus you get a Jersey that might be 1 of 100. a Nice Vest like that is worth $40 to $50 but you are helping the school.

Would it be easier to just list the MAC players who are not entering the TP?

Glad to see this. I thought his lack of PT against good teams would have him looking. Unless he was on fire from 3, JG couldn't play him due to his defensive and rebounding issues. I will say he increased the intensity on the defensive side of the court as the season progressed and I think he can be a real contributor next year.

I mean I guess it's good if we schedule a P5 or two outside this tournament

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. 🙂

And just like that, most things about the NCAAT that appealed to the casual fan are gone. If this continues into the future, there will be viewer apathy, and ratings and advertising will suffer. The suits are always so short-sighted. I was only planning to watch games featuring Cinderellas. Since there are none, I've lost substantial interest. There are other things I can spend my spring weekend days enjoying.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NCAA_Division_I_men's_basketball_tournament_all-time_team_records Interestingly, of all the teams to play in the men's NCAAT and not win a game only Boise State (10) and Eastern Kentucky (8) are more than our total of 7 without winning, and we are tied with Long Island University, Nebraska, and South Dakota State So, we are due to win a NCAAT game! 😁😆

This is fair. Here’s another great idea that won’t get funded. Sorry, but seriously. I wonder if it would be beneficial to have a crowdfunding page on Fear the Roo where we could all see the basketball program’s wish list with their set priorities and goals. I think visualizing each line item might give perspective and motivation. I know a new stadium costs tens of millions, but I have no idea how much a Thanksgiving tournament costs. People feel their $50 - $100 is a drop in the bucket, but if they see a line item slowly progress towards 100% maybe there would be more involvement. Edit: I just want to add that I would like one of the line items to be a general fund specifically giving Bud Wentz permission to use his financial talents to invest and grow a nest egg for the long term.

Abandon all of the cupcake games in the ooc and schedule high paying opponents on the road. It works great for the football program. Seriously, shooting better Friday night wouldn't have cost a penny more. I don't know what Jeff Gillooly would cost these days, but diverting some NIL money to hire him to kneecap some of the Wildcats would have helped.

Everybody has all these ideas about what is needed to move the program forward but nobody wants to help pay for those things.

This is exactly where college sports is now. It was not lost on me that Bud sat with the team and next to Ford at the Selection Show Watch Party. Not that I have an issue with that - I don't- but I don't think that's something you would have seen 5 years ago. These wealthy alums are semi-formal parts of the program now.

Go Creighton. F the SEC and their 14 bids (6 of them have already been eliminated!).

To look at it a different way, we were the only Ohio program to make the 64 bracket, and the only Ohio public college in the tournament. There’s that I guess.

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?