kreed5120

Personally, I'm not a big fan of the sit one year to play one year players. I'd much rather get a grad transfer who can play right away or a player with multiple years of eligibility left. That being said, I think he should be a productive player in the MAC. He has good size and athleticism. From what I read he's a defensive specialist. I would expect his offensive numbers to improve some playing against MAC competition instead of B10. How much they will improve is to be seen.

Yes, I'd say the likelihood of us losing an assistant to become an assistant at a larger program is far more likely than one leaving us to be a D1 head coach elsewhere.

They hired one of Oats assistants.

We would have gotten a lot of free tacos had they had that promotion this year.

Attendance honestly can't look any worse than it already does for those games. Honestly, I think it's a great idea. It might convince a few people who were on the fence about getting season tickets to actually get them.

I ventured back to the Duquesne fan forum. Apparently 9 of the 17 players he recruited to Duquesne have already transferred. Add in the 2 players that he inherited who decided to transfer and he is on average losing 5 players per year.

Out of curiosity I went over to Duquesne's fan forum and this gave me a chuckle.

I wouldn't place St. John's anywhere near the same category of those schools. All those schools have built a brand that the recruits come to you making it much easier to rebuild a program that is down back into a power house. Not to mention none of those programs are ever down that long. St. John's hasn't been relevant since the 1980s and even then its not like they were some power house. Hurley has the opportunity to take advantage of a downturn PAC-12 and legitimately build ASU into a top 3-4 PAC-12 program. I give him next to no chance of turning around St. John's. Villanova, Georgetown, Xavier, Marquette, and Creighton are all more committed to fielding competitive basketball teams. It's why St. John's has finished in the bottom 1/3 of the conference 12x in the last 16 years.

I'd agree if I felt he could actually win at St. John's. The Big East is pretty brutal right now and its not like his performance at ASU has been all that impressive in a much weaker PAC-12 (11th, 8th, 8th, & 2nd place finishes in his 4 years).If he moves I'm going to say he gets fired within 5 years. I would agree that moving closer to home could be the deciding factor in what otherwise looks to be a fairly lateral move.

I'd think it would be easier for Hurley to have sustained success at ASU. The PAC-12 is really down and wide open for the taking. St. Johns has a much tougher battle as the Big East is filled with a lot of really strong programs.

While we're discussing hypotheticals, I'd love to see us negotiate some home basketball games into these P5 body bag games we play in football. Obviously someone like Kentucky isn't going to come play at Akron, but maybe if we were willing to take a little less, we could get someone like Penn State or Northwestern. I know Kent has done this type of stuff in the past to get Oregon State to the MACC.

I believe we still have 2 years left on our Marshall deal so @Marshall is the only OOC game that I'm aware of. I find it odd in college basketball you don't see more OOC games scheduled in advance. It seems every offseason all teams are scrambling to fill holes in their upcoming OOC schedule.

Akron to play at Indiana in 2023 https://fbschedules.com/indiana-adds-indiana-state-akron-to-2023-football-schedule/

Ohio lost another starter in Antonio Cowart.

Jeff Goodman did a piece yesterday identifying the best players he felt were currently on the transfer market. He breaks out which ones are grad transfers and which ones aren't. Surprisingly I didn't see Ohio's Carter on the list (I may have missed it), but Utomi is included. A small scouting report is given for each player. https://www.google.com/amp/s/watchstadium.com/news/these-are-the-best-college-basketball-players-transferring-this-offseason-04-01-2019/amp/

Even in Utomi' "bad shooting year", he shot 37.3% from 3 on a high volume number of attempts. Its not the 40%+ we're accustomed to, but that's still pretty damn good. You combine that with his ability to guard multiple positions and being a key piece on a top 25 defense and its no surprise UNC, Xavier, and UVA has shown interest. He possesses a skill set that literally all 351 in D1 would like more of. He won't be a featured scorer on any of those teams like he was there, but there will be a spot on a lot of rosters for him if he's willing to accept being a role player.

Fire Groce for letting players graduate.

You act as though Akron is the only D1 school that is generous with heights.

Outside of LCJ and I suppose Roscoe, I felt we had pretty good size at the perimeter positions. Particularly for a mid-major. IMO it played a large part in why according to KenPom we were a top 25 defense. Being able to guard multiple positions while also being able to disrupt shots and passing lanes is valuable on the defensive end. Ivey - 6'5 Utomi - 6'6 Cheese - 6'5 Toles - 6'6 Banks - 6'4 LCJ - 5'8 Roscoe - 6'2

When you're consistently losing coaches to P5 schools it means you're doing something right. NIU has had 3 coaches hired away in football in the past 10 years and I'd say over that same time period they've been the best football program in the MAC. Next man up.

Hence why the coach was fired and why expectations are low. Bama also made the tournament every year between 2002-2006 so its not like they haven't shown the ability to conistently make the tournament. I don't know if Oats will succeed or not. Plenty of guys have tried to make the jump and failed. Look no further than our head coach. I just view it far from being a dead end job. The right coach could quickly have them as a top 5 SEC team.

Its not like the Alabama job is going to come with lofty expections. I believe 7 SEC teams made the tournament this year. As long as he can make the tournament most years and sprinkles in some tourney wins every now and then, he should be fine. Its not like he's taking over Boston College and has to compete with a bunch of basketball blue bloods. The SEC has some good programs, but the only powerhouse is really Kentucky.

The league in itself seemed completely rushed. The league was announced in the spring of last year then 10 months later they're playing actual games. In those 10 months they had to pick cities, find venues, organize/negotiate tv deals, get corporate sponsors, build rosters, get coaching staffs, and sell season tickets. I'm sure there is plenty of other things I'm missing. I don't know if a spring football league will ever work, but this league was way too rushed and obviously lacked a large financer from the start. It's honestly no surprise this league is on the verge of failing.

They still have some highly touted recruits on their roster. I have to imagine they will be promoting from within to avoid the mass exodus of players.