kreed5120

I feel due to the nature of the two sports expectations is what drives MAC football attendance, meanwhile, current season performance is what drives MAC basketball attendance. The football games that attract the most people are the August and September games when the weather is nice and games aren't played mid-week. If the team is expected to be good, it gets even more people out. In basketball with so many more games you don't see attendance pick up until February or March when you already have a sample size of 20 or so games to determine how good the team is.

Not disputing there is a if you're not 1st, you're last mentality surrounding 1 bid conferences like the MAC. Still doesn't mean we haven't way outperformed our competition. We've won 3 MAC Tournaments in the past 11 years, finishing 2nd place 6 times. The other 11 teams that comprise the conference have won it 8 times combined or about .75 times per team.

At same time I feel it hurts attendance as it destroys the atmosphere. People are so spread out that even when we pull a decent crowd, the stadium looks empty. Not that it matters for football as we'll always have a huge surplus of tickets available , but in sports like basketball limiting supply can actually positively influence demand.

Just in general fans are always craving for more (myself included). I feel a lot of people took the success Dambrot achieved here for granted and will now realize it since he is gone. Akron isn't all that attractive of a job. We have poor facilities at a financially strapped university. We have no historical success outside of a 10 year Dambrot period. We have a small fan base (Despite an unprecedented run of success making 9 out of the last 11 MAC Finals we still can only get ~3,500 fans to show up to games). In a way he is a victim of his own success. If I told you today that you could sign a paper that guarantees that Zips football would make 9 of the next 11 MAC Champions, winning 3 of them, who here wouldn't sign that?

I could be wrong, but pretty sure you just have to average 15,000 every other year. I'm counting 15 FBS stadiums that seat under 25k https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_NCAA_Division_I_FBS_football_stadiums

It's a 27,000 traditional seat stadium with 3,000 SRO. One could argue (I wouldn't disagree with) that perhaps it should have been only 22,000 with the 3,000 SRO for a total of 25,000 available tickets. I'm not in the construction business so I'd have no idea how much that would have saved costs. In the grand scheme of things universities are in the business of spending more money than they need to on projects, but at same time Infocision is still relatively cheap compared to what other modern FBS stadiums cost so the university did show some restraint.

If what you say is true about him being the one responsible for the turnaround, then yes he seems much more appealing.

I actually agree it isn't preferable. There was a noticeable dip in our ability to get a rebound when Utomi was in to give Kwan a breather. It was even worse when both Poke and Utomi were on the court together. Maybe as Clark mentioned we get a JUCO player in, but until then Utomi has to be our 4 as we really just have no other options.

Yes, he got outplayed by a 6'8" center. Our roster is devoid of depth at the moment and we still don't know if Antino or Noah (perhaps both) will seek grad transfer. Assuming both stay and you elect to sit one to move move Ivey to the 2 and Utomi to the 3, whose going to start at PF and C for us next season? Aaron Jackson? We really aren't in a position of luxury. To win we need to have our 5 best players on the court as many minutes as we possibly can.

Obviously Terry Pluto hasn't read ZN.o where several fans have stated they are bored with winning and are looking forward to our 15-17 win seasons ahead.

If we're talking UT-Martin coaches, Heath Schoyer would seem the better choice. He inherited a team that went a combined 21-71 in the 3 years prior to him taking over and in year 1 he turned them into a 21-13 team and 41-28 as his 2 years as head coach before taking the assistant job at NC State. Stewart inherited what Schoyer built.

How about PayDay Loans Arena? https://goo.gl/images/S6ZVwl

I've seen some good suggestions. I'm kind of torn on which route we should go. Do we bring in someone the players know for damage control and prevent us from hitting rock bottom? Do we go with someone with local ties to keep the steady flow of local recruits coming? Do we just bring in someone random and hope he can convince kids to come to NEO to play? I'm not sure what Dru Joyce makes at SVSM or what Akron pays its assistants, but I wonder if he'd be interested in a job as an assistant coach?

Yes, and he's taking our players to free up scholarships for better ones.

+1 Out of likes.

How many at-large bids does the MVC have since 2000 and how many does the MAC have? How many NCAAT wins does the MVC have this century compared to the MAC? When was the last year the MAC was rated higher than the MVC? Accept it or not there is a decent sized gap between the two conferences. You asked a question and I answered. Yes, they complain about being in the MVC and yes they are wanting to be someplace better.

Yes, I do. Despite both playing in much better conferences than the MAC, Wichita State is currently in negotiations to join the AAC. Gonzaga would have already bolted the WCC but there is no conference they can geographically join. I'm not advocating for Akron to leave the MAC. What I'm advocating is for more MAC teams to invest into their basketball programs.

$308k is way too much for a sport that attracts ~300 fans.

I'm going to guess corporate dollars (selling naming rights) and private donations. No way is tax dollars going to get spent on renovating the JAR.

Well for starters, and most importantly, I'd like to see the MAC as a whole work together to improve the basketball profile of the conference. B&G generously posted the budgets for all D1 schools. Ohio and Akron each spent about $3.1 million which placed both programs at #122 and #123 nationally. The next best was BGSU at #162 spending ~700k less. Last place was CMU at #240 spending $1.65M or about half of what Akron and Ohio's budget. As for scheduling I'm okay with us collecting 2 paycheck games like we did last year. How I'd like to see OOC scheduling improved is with more home and homes and teams like Belmont, MTSU, UNC-Wilm, Valpo, etc.

I don't think people realize how hard it is to win on the road in college basketball. Georgia Tech spent most the season on the bubble by going 7-2 at home during ACC play. Their road record during conference play was 1-8. Syracuse nearly got in off of solely their 8-1 conference home record (compared to 2-7 road). Spending your OOC going to Creighton, Gonzaga, UNC, Kentucky, Louisville, etc. and expecting to win nearly everyone of those games is delusional and will never happen.

There are 13 OOC games and between the MAC tournament (if you make it to the finals) and the regular MAC season there are 21 conference games so not even close to half. Gonzaga and Wichita State have helped prop up the WCC and MVC to provide at-large opportunities to schools like Northern Iowa, Illinois State, Saint Mary's. This year outside of Akron there were 0 MAC schools even in the top 100 for RPI. If the MAC was better as a whole you wouldn't have to go out and whore yourself out for 3-4 road games and pray that winning 2-3 of them is going to be enough to compensate for how much the MAC drags you down. Edit :I've already stated this wasn't an at-large caliber team. The fact is if the only way for the MAC team to get an at-large is to go on a trail or tears OOC schedule, we'll never see a MAC at-large in my lifetime. Teams need to be able to at least pick up some top 75 wins in conference play

So if we went 18-0 in MAC play? No team in MAC history has ever gone 18-0, 16-0, or 14-0. This team wasn't deserving of an at-large, but the fact you state Akron would have had to run the table to get an-large tells you all you need to know about the MAC... Edit: I agree we could have used a better OOC, but you still play >2/3 of your games against your conference.