kreed5120

Kenpom this early in the year is mostly weighted by preseason expectations. As more games get played they fade the preseason expectations out. I'm not saying whether or not UNCW is good, but I wouldn't place too much stock in kenpom this early into the year. We should have a better picture by mid December.

It's up to Akron to produce the games. If it's not on ESPN+ then it would be because for whatever reason we didn't decide to produce it.

Arkansas State and Marshall are the two that jump out to me.

I made a comment before, I think a good compromise is for the MAC to have 3 midweek games per week. The rest being on Saturday. That would make it so that each team would only have to play midweek twice (once at home and once on the road). That would allow midweek TV spots to be filled and will give fans 1 more Saturday game to attend.

Remember after BG beat Toledo some said we should fire JoeMo and look for the next Eddie George?

I would expect to see us play more zone and send hard double teams to force Purdue bigs to pick up their dribble. We'll then have to rotate as best as we can on the perimeter. The reality is they will end up with some wide open looks, but we need to pray they have an off shooting night. That's kind of our only hope. Edit: I don't have much hope for a win, but if we can stay competitive for a full 40 minutes, I'll mark it down as a positive performance.

Yes, not like it's in an undeserved area either. Its like 25 minutes away from YSU. About an hour outside of Akron and Pittsburgh. There are plenty of other places for those students to go.

Yes, I don't understand it either. Especially since there are a lot more games in a college basketball season.

New Haven is in it's first season of D1. Penn State probably felt it was easy practice for their players to get experience playing on the road without the risk of losing. Edit: I can't imagine it has much, if anything, to do with money. Pay games in college basketball aren't 7 figure costs like football. Penn State could have found a home game for under $100k if they really wanted, which to them is pocket change.

Remember he won 3 NCAA tournament games in a span of 4 years at OU. I also think you forget having NIL money is only part of the puzzle. UMass has significantly more money than Akron, but from what I've watched they look pretty mid. A coach still has to be able to identify talent, develop players, and get them to fit in their system. Tod meanwhile is in his 24th year as a D1 coach, 16th at Toledo, and has never made the Big Dance. NIL has only been a factor for 2-3 years so that can't be an excuse. Even if you exclude his Akron tenure, Groce had more success in 4 years at OU than Tod has had in his 24 years as a D1 coach.

We're two games into the season. The teams ahead of us are going to mostly all still be 2-0. A few might be 1-1 with a ranked loss. It's not like we've beat anyone that would catch voters attention this early in the season. Generally voters don't drop teams that win.

No

It looks like March has come early for Toledo. They blew a double digit half-time lead and currently trail Marshall by 10 with under a minute left to play.

Brisco looked even worse. I can see why MMK is the main backup for Lyles at the moment. I haven't looked at the boxscore yet, but I did notice a few key plays MMK made again today.

Yes, I imagine Princeton is on par or better than half the MAC.

Barre sighting

Akron football definitely has some amount of money. Bud helped setup their NIL a year and a half ago. He talked about it in an interview. It's just a very small amount they have, perhaps smallest in the MAC. I've said it before and I'll say it again. Now that the NCAA allows schools to pay players directly Akron needs to schedule 3 P5 paycheck games a year. Take half the money collected from games 2 and 3 and invest it in the roster. That would generate an additional $1M-$1.5M in NIL. The MAC is garbage. We can go 1-3 in OOC play and still go 5-3 to make a bowl as can be seen this year.

UMass also just hired the AD from Rhode Island to be their 2nd AD for them. They're pretty much paying him ~$380k to just oversee football operations. Their current AD will oversee the other sports. They're very much stepping up financially to try to compete on the field. Hopefully the UMass football coach is as inefficient at spending his war chest of money as Frank Martin has been with his.

Yes, athletes careers are relatively short. If he's able to live off his overseas basketball income until he's ~35 that money should grow enough that he could be in a position to retire (if he wants to) without needing to get another 8-5 post basketball.

I'm obviously an avid Zips basketball fan. That said, if I had a son who was gifted enough to play D1 basketball and was on the Zips and some school came offering him that kind of money, I would be the one packing his bags. That's life altering money at a young age. Assuming he's not stupid with managing it.

I don't know how accurate it was and don't remember who posted it, but someone here posted he got ~1 million.

From the articles you shared it sounds like the program is in a rebuilding year. Their top player transferred to Florida and their second best player is sitting out this season. They're going to be relying on a lot of players who are either incoming or only played ~10 minutes/game last year.

A lot of the guys that are leaving also aren't transferring up. Some are going down to the FCS or never find another school as they weren't good enough to play at this level to begin with. Key contributors that are leaving for greener pastures are likely getting $50k or in that ballpark. Some much more. I think you would be surprised by the amount of NIL money P4 and top G5 schools are spending.

Money talks. I like my job, but if a recruiter called me and offered me an additional $50k to do the same exact job elsewhere I'd have my 2 week notice submitted tomorrow. Edit: You have to remember we graduated and/or spent decades being fans so we have loyalty to the school. These kids have come from all over the country. Maybe have spent 2-3 years in Akron at the most. They don't hold those same loyalties.

He would make a lot more in Europe over the G-League. The top players there make in the millions, but it's unlikely he would reach that level. He will probably make low 6-figures somewhere overseas after graduation, which would still be far less than he is making at Kansas State so your point still stands.