kreed5120

Given how gloomy the men's team is looking I figure I'd look to see how the lady Zips are doing. They're now 11-3 overall and 2-1 in the MAC. The lone conference loss being against CMU whose just sitting outside the top 25.

This is what I saw as well. When they went cold offensively in the 2nd half they started to look like they didn't want to be on the court. NIU got every 50/50 ball plus some they had no business getting. NIU played with a lot of confidence and hustle. We quit.

If we want to be a 3 point shooting team how about we get some players that can shoot a 3 pointer...

We're going to have to make a 3. They're packing the paint to prevent dribble peneyration.

NIU scoring a lot this 2nd half off broken plays.

Risk is getting buckets, attracting defenders, and creating open looks for teammates. Where has this been all year?

Attacking the basket early, I like it.

EMU just pulled their starters up 37.

PCCC is also down 20 to EMU

The Keith Dambrot years aren't the problem. It's all the years the proceeded those. Let's look at the number of tourney appearances by the schools ahead of us and see how well they did in those appearances. Miama - 17 appearances, 4x Sweet 16 Ohio - 13 appearances, 3x Sweet 16, 1x Elite 8 PCCC - 6 appearances, 1 Sweet 16, 1 Elite 8 Ball St. - 7 appearances, 1 Sweet 16 CMU - 4 appearances, 1 Sweet 16 Toledo - 4 appearances, 1 Sweet 16 WMU - 4 appearances, 1 Sweet 16 Akron - 4 appearances, 0 tourney wins I don't see how anyone can argue against Miami, Ohio, Kent, and Ball St in those top 4 spots. After that it gets a bit clustered, but the teams ahead of us all have 1 Sweet 16 run.

I thought Mexico was going to pay for it?

Budget wise, having Akron at #2 is pretty accurate. Ohio and Akron pretty much go back and forth year to year on who spends the most money on men's hoops. Below are the most recently published numbers. The JAR is still serviceable, you're right. It wouldn't make much sense for an athletic department that already runs deep in the red to spend money on a new arena when the current one is still structurally sound. That being said, I'd definitely say there are 9 MAC teams who have a nicer arena than ours.

It actually sounds fairly accurate to me.

Stadium conducted a survey of league coaches to determine the best coaching jobs in the MAC. Overall they had Akron as the #3 rated job in the MAC. Below I have a link a long with a graphic which shows what 8 categories they used to rank the programs. Personally, what I'm most surprised to see is Miami at #9. Had this survey taken play 20 years ago they'd probably be #1. https://watchstadium.com/news/mac-college-basketball-coaches-rank-the-best-jobs-in-the-conference-01-10-2019/

Does anyone know if we're busing to the game or did we charter a flight like we have sometimes done in the past?

That's correct http://www.vindy.com/news/2013/sep/01/why-doesnt-ysu-play-mac-teams/

There is no requirement that we have to play an FCS opponent. We don't have one on our schedule this coming season. If we need the money bad enough that we're willing to sacrifice a home game for it let's at least make it worth our while.

I really hope that idea of playing at Chattanooga was just something that was tossed out as an idea, but then quickly scrapped. You only play 12 regular season games and 4 OOC games. If we're that pressed for cash, just schedule (insert P5 school here) and collect the ~$1.3 million. Pay Chattanooga their $300k and use the other $1 million to pay down debt on Infocision.

Looking at NIU 2018 roster and the only Ohio player I'm seeing is PK Andrew Grantz from Dayton. Looking at their 2019 recruiting everyone is pretty much from IL, IN, or WI. I don't see any of these guys finding their way onto Akron's roster.

Yeah, I'm not going to lie, I'm a tad disappointed we're inheriting the entire UTC staff. There has been a lot of talks of us wanting to recruit NEO/Western PA. I was expecting we'd see a staff hire or 2 to show that.

There is no way I want to see K-Lac on the floor outside of garbage time. I feel people are using revisionist history in an attempt to find a solution to a problem. K-Lac played in 30 games last season and scored more than 4 points a whopping 1 time while shooting .492 from the field. Meanwhile, he's a turnover machine who averages a foul every 4 minutes on the floor and is slow on rotating in defense. Do you guys not remember how terrible our defense was last season when he was anchoring the middle? Personally, I feel our best option at C at the moment is Riak. I'd take him over K-Lac at both ends of the court. K-Lac might be a marginally better post scorer over Riak, but K-Lac commits way too many offensive fouls. On the defensive side Riak is a stud. Sayles IMO isn't far behind Riak. He's a slightly better offensive player, but not the defender Riak is.

Honestly, with the way we play defense if we somehow have a night where we shoot the ball somewhat decent , I think we'd have a chance of beating Buffalo in 1 of our potential 3 match-ups. That being said, with our inconsistent offense (can I really call it that since it's actually consistently bad?) and inability to win tight games, I don't give us much of a chance of winning 3 games in 3 days.

This is a well articulated post and I agree with pretty much everything said. Utomi and Banks are our only above average 3 point shooters. Roscoe may be one too, but it's hard to say given his limiting playing time. Ivey is a career .316 3 point shooter and is putting up nearly 5 attempts per game. LCJ is putting up over 7 a game while shooting .315. These are very poor averages. Both have shown the ability to cut the basket. That's where they need to be predominately getting their points. I have no problem with them taking a 3 here or there when they have a wide open look, but 12 a game is too many.

Thank you, Clark . I was about to tag you in the CMU thread asking you to create the NIU thread. The way we finished down the stretch was flat out disgusting. I want to move on and look ahead.

I wonder if we'll ever learn how to close out these close games because all these last minute losses feel like a swift kick in the nuts