kreed5120

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Poke, Kostelac, and I suppose Sayles (if he's still committed) our only bigs eligible next year? It seems PF/C is what we should target, not adding (retaining) a 4th scholarship pg.

After this year Bowden would have 1 year left on his deal. Given our financial situation, it would take something much worse than 5-7 for him to be fired. It's very probably he would go into the last year of his deal as a lame duck. Edit: At 8-4 he probably gets a 2 year extension.

Just stop it. It's easier to reach top 25 status in football as you only have to be better than 103 schools opposed to needing to be better than 326 in basketball. It's why generally quality wins in basketball are stated in top 50 or top 100 wins instead of top 25 wins used in football. There are heavily resourced basketball programs and conferences that don't bother with FBS football (Big East, Wichita State, Gonzaga, etc.). The MAC East division is arguably the worst division in all of FBS. MAC basketball meanwhile is a well respected mid major with the MAC East carrying the conference. We play in the 14th rated conference out of 32 conference which places the MAC in the top 44% of basketball conferences, meanwhile, we are at the 80% percentile as a FBS conference. We compete with similar resourced programs in both sports and are at or near the top of the MAC in spending for both sports. One sport we are the cream of the crop for the MAC. The other we are the laughingstock.

When you are 1-11 there is only 1 way to go and that's up. My biggest complaint is we are at the same spot after year 5 that we were in year 2, 5-7. We have plateaued under him never finishing better than 7th place in the MAC. I refuse to accept that 5-7 is the best this program can do when we have peer programs winning 9-10 games per season dispute having inferior facilities and who play in areas where talent is harder to come by. Akron is too poor to fire Bowden so he'll have 2 more years to prove himself. I'm not buying we'll be MAC contenders either of the next 2 years and ultimately I'll be glad when we bring in a fresh new face.

I wouldn't be opposed to having an available scholarship at the start of the season. Every year there are a few players that transfer mid season. That would put us in a position to snag one of those or we could just use it for an incoming freshman next year. Either way I don't see the need of offering a scholarship for the sake of offering a scholarship.

We should not have an arena as nice as Dayton or Cincy. Those schools have much better fan support than we do. In fact, it may be an unpopular opinion but given our putrid fan base the JAR is all we deserve. We have some tremendous fans like Hilltopper, but unfortunately we don't have enough of them. Let's start filling the JAR before we talk spending ~$50M on something nicer. So many people are quick to jump to the defense of football. I don't understand it. If fans are content making 1 bowl game in 5 years, we'll never progress to being consistent contenders in the MAC. I'd be complaining about Zips basketball if it was in the state that Zips football is in. I want to see Zips football succeed and that's why I'm so vocal in my displeasure regarding our current state.

There are plenty of teams at the FBS level to pad win totals against. We just happen to be the Coppin State and Ark Pine Bluff of the FBS level. The 128th best team in FBS (aka worst team) does not equal the 128th best team in division 1 basketball where there are 2.5X as many teams. The 128th best team college basketball can actually contend with and even beat a top 10 team from time to time. In FBS the 128th ranked team would lose by 40+ to a top 10 team. College basketball just has a lot more competitive teams than what FBS does. Edit: We went 15-6 against our peers in basketball, however, went 3-5 against our peers in football. Those are the only numbers that matter to me.

It would take tourney success IMO for us to crack a 4k average.

Weird you're the one that made the below comparison, which is what I initially responded to. Overall, I've just grown frustrated with the football progrum and despite being happy when Bowden was initially signed, I have lost faith that he can turn Akron into anything more than just a middle of the road MAC team.

And our football program has generally had a losing record in the shitty MAC East. There is an easy way of ending the debate. Actually having Zips football make bowl appearances regularly and at least contend for a conference title every few years. In the FBS nearly 2/3 of the teams make the postseason yet we consistently find ourselves sitting at home.

Basketball since 2010-2011 school year 7 Seasons with a winning record 7 postseason appearances 2 Conference Tournament Championships 4 MAC Regular Season Championships Football since 2010-2011 school year 1 Postseason appearance 1 Season with winning record There is no denying our football program in it's 25+ year history has been a joke. Our program record for wins is 8. Appalachian State won 11 games its 2nd year FBS and followed that up with a 10 win season year 3.

A guard that can defend...Based off my experience watching Zips basketball, I didn't think such a thing existed.

We finished tied for 6th place in the MAC. I fully expected that by year 4 considering we have the best football facilities in the MAC, play in the most fertile recruiting ground in the MAC region, and signed a coach with a recognizable name. I was also expecting we'd be contenders in the weak MAC East by this point, which we haven't been and don't foresee us being this season.

I'm expecting another 5-7 season as has become tradition.

I say he makes practice squad and gets called up at some point during the season due to injury.

It's very possible for him to get picked up by someone this early into camps. I'm just selling him having any chance of a prolonged NFL career. I'd be willing to bet he won't be on an NFL practice squad week 1 of the regular season. Would you be willing to take that bet?

I'd be willing to bet he won't make a 53 man roster opening day...

Yeah, there is always the CFL.

I agree tuition costs has little to nothing to do with this. The difference is college basketball is a big deal in the Dayton, Cincy, Kentucky, Indiana area and it takes a backseat to the NBA in the NEO area. Not only does Dayton attract 13k+, but right down the road from them Wright State attracts 4,000+ despite playing in an inferior conference and being far less successful than Akron has been. Edit: Even the t-shirt OSU fans don't care about college basketball until March Madness and that's even when OSU was good at basketball.

I can't believe I'm saying this, but I'm actually agreeing with Skip on this. Half his shots come from 3 and he shot a modest .361 from there and he shoots ft nearly as bad as Big Dog. Neither of those should be impacted by level of competition. I'm still happy about the signing as he fills a position of need and should provide us some productive minutes to help make the Zips look at least watchable this season. I'm selling him coming in being an All-MAC player and leading us to a deep MAC tourney run.

Thanks for the good laugh.

Their fans deserve it. They sell out nearly every game and average over 13,000 fans per game. http://www.cleveland.com/datacentral/index.ssf/2017/03/ohio_college_basketball_attend.html

It's also possible that now that he has his degree and little to no chance of playing professionally, he'd rather just get a jump start on life instead of spending another year on a graduate degree he won't be able to complete before his eligibility runs out.

The NCAA can't restrict pay. You're probably too young to remember this, but they tried in the 90s and got hit with a hefty antitrust lawsuit. Akron or insert whatever university paying their coach 500k-$1M when they realistically should only be paying them ~$100k has nothing to do with Saban making $11 million. He makes it because he brings large amounts of revenue to the university. Alabama would cut other sports, which profits from football funds, if it had to just to keep their cash cow. http://www.cbsnews.com/news/ncaa-to-pay-coaches-545m/ In regards to the IRS it's tricky. There are currently ~20 that reportedly earn "profits". Realistically there are probably 40-50 that are capable of running a for profit athletic program. There are 351 D1 schools. That means 85+% of D1 athletic schools in the NCAA are truly non-profits. Edit: If anything his salary is inflated because Bama is paying semi-pro athletes ~25k/year when those athletes would be worth way more on the open market in a for profit league that didn't restrict pay to only room and board + COA.

The NCAA wets its beak off the NCAA tournament.where it generates 80-90% of its revenue. The P5 cartel runs FBS and the NCAA has little to no impact on what Bama or any other team for that matter decides to pay its head coach. In fact, the NCAA biggest fear is that the top 40 or so teams, the ones that are capable of running without huge subsidies and rise the tide for all the other schools, elect to leave the NCAA and form their own league.