kreed5120

Northwestern will never be Michigan or Ohio State, but they have made bowl games playing in a competitive conference in 7 of the past 9 seasons. You don't do that by not caring. As Zippy 5 pointed out Nebraska is damn good. Iowa State is just now heading into year 2 with Campbell and I believe they have started to recruit better since he headed to town. Hard to forecast where that program will be in 2018. I hope we can find a way to win 1 of these 3 games plus whatever FCS scrub team we face so we can go 2-2 and st ourselves up for a winning season. It won't be an easy task.

Toledo-WMU had like 5,300 in 2014. There are a lot of Ohio alumni living in NEO. I'd say Miami-Ohio would at the very least meet that.

You are right we did. 6,856 was their attendance.

Like that we allowed a team like Northwestern buy us instead of a Oklahoma, OSU, or Wisconsin. That 2018 OOC schedule actually scares me. We need to string together winning seasons to build our program. I'm not sure we're ready for this tough of a schedule.

Figured I'd post some of the attendance figures for the MAC and of its competitors in regards to Championship game attendance. MAC - 10,376 C-USA - 6,176 SunBelt - TBD (Played in 10,000 arena that was not even close to being full) CAA - 6,342 Horizon League - 5,929 WCC - 8,179 B1G - 12,902 MVC - 11,744 The B1G only beat us by ~2,500 fans (can blame Kent for not pulling their weight) and we outperformed our peers besides the MVC who we were a shade behind. Good job Zips Nation.

Good, if they leave cable it could open up more and better time slots for us. I do think streaming will grow to become a viable alternative down the road, but still too many people rely on cable television to abandon it completely.

I'm with you. There are MAC teams that I would cheer for if they were to make the tourney (Ball State, WMU, Bowling Green, etc.). Kent and Ohio don't make that list.

Elton Alexander. I stated that because you joined hours before that article was published and you follow a broad array of Cleveland sports. Figured I'd try to resolve my curiosity. My evidence is unsubstantial and it is vastly more likely you're not than you are him. I'll take your word for it. Anyways welcome to the forum. Edit: Sorry for the extra posts. My computer must have acted up.

I wonder if @Blackburn is EA in disguise?...*strokes beard* Edit: I do agree that 99% of us agree Dambrot shouldn't be fired (damn that 1%). I just have been arguing against those who have tried to minimize what he's accomplished. He put Akron basketball on the map.

We've made it to the big time fellas. Edit: Link to this thread in his article.

I'm not sure what's happened to the MAC but outside of Ohio the last MAC team to win a tournament game was CMU in 2003. Weird for a conference despite being a "1 bid conference" is regarded as a respectable mid-major.

Teams are given 4 fouls and on the 5th the opposing teams shoot 2 free throws. At the 9:59 mark team fouls are reset to 0. It should help the Zips considering they had to be among the nation leaders in misses on the front end of 1 and 1.

Who honestly knows how that season plays out without the losses of those 2 players. Maybe we beat Kent with Abreu and get a better seed therefore not having to play VCU. Maybe Abreu has another 4/15 shooting night like he did in our loss to Buffalo and we lose to Kent in the semifinals. Personally, I'm not going to dwell on what could have been as there are just too many moving variables.

I actually feel Big Dog against their bigs is the one advantage that we have and will need to exploit if we have any chance of winning. Here are their F/C that play regularly along with how much they play: 6'10 200 23 MPG 6'9 235 11.4 MPG 6'10 230 16 MPG 6'7 230 20.3 MPG

It appears we have some competition in the coveted 21 win department.

They had some pretty terrific promotions, including that LBJ jersey giveaway. I myself have noted there are some changes I'd like to see in the Gameday experience, but overall I feel they do a great job. Short of paying people, which they have somewhat did in the past with free tuition giveaways, I don't see how they'd consistently crack 4,000 at the JAR. Tickets are already about as cheap as they get. A new arena I agree would probably provide a short-term boost, but attendance would eventually trickle down to today's numbers. Short of becoming the next Wichita State or Gonzage I don't see that changing. Edit: It's more likely Dambrot has taken this program as far as it can go given the constraints of playing in the MAC and our less than ideal facilities. Every year he puts us in a position to succeed, but we still need the ball to bounce our way a few times if we are to win. Our 3 point % against Kent showed "luck" wasn't on our side. This team was always going to need offense to win. I could have told you they were going to lose given their % from 3 and the free throw line.

*sigh* enjoy your like.

We are at the top of the MAC and as Zippy5 has pointed out we have distanced ourselves in recent years as the MAC #1 program (Winning 3 out of the last 5 MAC regular season titles). We've won 52 games and still counting the past 2 seasons combined and I'm pretty sure Big Dog/Kwan will be the winningest senior class in UA basketball history. The problem with being at the top is there is only 1 way to go.

Amen. This kind of mentality is why Dambrot has "only" 3 COY awards. People just expect us to go 15-3 in the MAC and win the tournament. Victim of his own success I suppose.

Stagnant is our perpetual 5-7 football team whom you always make excuses for. I distinctly remember you saying you'd take a Solich Ohio over a 2-3 year Fleck reign. Now you seem to be back tracking from that as Dambrot, unlike Solich, has won both the MAC regular season and title game multiple times while still being competitive year in and year out. Of course I want more as does everyone else. Dambrot has shown his loyalty multiple times by passing up more money to stay with his alma mater and we have people like you trying to criticize and minimalize what he's accomplished.

https://mobile.twitter.com/RossBjorkAD/status/841352257622929409 Illinois State head coach tweeted out that he was looking for a home and home next season against a P6 team. Ole Miss AD responded that he'd love to work something out. Edit: Looks like a done deal. https://mobile.twitter.com/DanMuller/status/841366488791552000

A good place to start is to awknowledge that a $40M-$45M 5k-6k seat arena is more practical than a $80M 9k seat arena. Now only if we can find a generous donor...

I take back most of the bad stuff I've said about him...

Wish you were an active member these days. We need more logical minds such as yourself around here.

The only upgrade "available" would be the AAC and they have no desire for a perpetual 5-7 MAC football team that attracts 10k fans on a good day.