kreed5120

You forgot 4) shoot too many 3s

I believe the last time a MAC team went undefeated in conference play was Cincinnati in the 1950s. Based off that I'd say your assessment is fair.

We lost to all the good teams we played OOC. That was my point. Several we were run off the court. Ohio is decimated with injuries and done for. Outside of Miami the rest of the MAC is a dumpster fire, including Toledo and Ohio. I don't deal in hypotheticals. We are what are record says we are. Edit: it's not like I'm arbitrarily viewing the games. We're 11-0 in Q4 games. We're 1-5 against Q1, Q2, Q3 opponents. Miami was our first non-cupcake win. I think it's reasonable to want to see more.

Also, I would say rebounding is very much a counting stat. The faster pace a team plays, the more shot attempts and misses in a game there will be on average. Therefore there will be more rebounding opportunities. Ideally, you would want to look by rebounding margin, which Akron is doing well at #75, and more preferably by rebounding rate. That way you can see what percentage of misses you rebounding compared to your competition. My main concern is you say our numbers have improved in January, which is true. That just happens to correspond when our opponents got conveniently much easier. Miami was the first decent team we've beaten all season. Beating the teams you're supposed to beat is always a positive, but I want to see better consistent play against other higher quality competition before I buy in. If we play the second leg of the MAC-Sun Belt challenge like we did against Miami I'll buy in. Right now I'm cautiously optimistic.

My concern about the Zips this season is over the course of the season you're going to have off shooting nights. Do they have it in them to win a physical, gritty contest when the shots aren't falling?

The Zips traveling to DeKalb always feels like a trap game. We always seem to underperform there. Even our wins often seem ugly.

OSU kind of left Notre Dame in the dust fairly early. They clawed back in midway through the 4th qtr, but by that point many had already turned the game off and went to bed. Had it remained close for the 1st 3 quarter, it likely would have been much closer to last year's numbers. Edit: Speaking of football as a whole, viewership had been trending down. Then sports betting came a long and that created some renewed interest as it gave degens interest in games that they might not otherwise care about. Perhaps a pull back from sports betting interest is what we're witnessing now. I don't know if that's the case or not. My speculation is purely anecdotal as I've personally lost interest in betting regularly like I was before and the same appears to be true for my group of friends as well.

I have a friend that used to be a sales manager at a car dealership. He told me that I'd be surprised to hear the credit score of many of the high income earners (doctors, lawyers, etc) that have come into the dealership. Many Americans are financially illiterate. Lifestyle inflation is very real.

It's not publicly known. Who knows where discussions are at on the back channels. I would think they would have plans at least verbally in place on the back channels before making the move, but then again that just might be me giving them too much credit. If Chicago State could find a home, I'm sure NIU will find one as well. It's more of a matter of where.

I've heard the Horizon or Summit. No way the MVC would touch them with a 10 foot pole. It's a basketball conference and NIU has consistently been one of the MAC's worse basketball programs for several decades.

I think it also helped that we went out and got a proven winner with name recognition. Had we just promoted one of Dambrot's assistants we might have found ourselves in the same boat. Buffalo decided to promote an assistant whose only stint at coaching D1 basketball previously was a 50-70 record in the Horizon League. That doesnt inspire much confidence. They followed up that hire getting another assistant that had no D1 head coaching experience whatsoever. Edit: I kind of understand why they promoted the first assistant. They still had M'balla and a few other players they hoped to build around to contend. An external candidate likely means everyone leaves and you lose the program momentum. Everyone ended up transferring out or graduating after 1 season anyway so they ended up with a depleted program anyway with a coach that had no prior success of building a winning mid-major program.

Exactly this, there is just so much talent disparity between the haves and have nots. During the regular season it's not a big deal as there are 5-10 games on at 1 time so odds are at least one of them will be good.

Toledo must think it's March already

The old saying in college basketball is get old, stay old. That saying is more true than ever this day and age with the portal being more player friendly. You saw Akron lose a lot of seniors this past season and then reloaded with more juniors and seniors. I feel Buffalo or any team that tries to build strictly through high school recruiting is going to struggle.

To be fair, Groce kind of fell right in his lap. A guy with prior MAC success and a guy that came cheap because Illinois was still paying him for his 1st two or three years as a Zips coach. It was more blind luck than anything. There are probably only 4 MAC (Ohio, Akron, Kent, and Toledo) programs Groce would have considered. Dambrot positioned ourselves to be one of the few MAC schools Groce would have considered.

Also, I think it's premature to congratulate ourselves on any "success". The jury is still out on this team. We're 5-0 and have looked better in MAC play, but the MAC is hot garbage this year. The worst it has ever been. Miami or round 2 of the MAC-Sun Belt Challenge might be our first real test of 2025.

Our football program was a clown show long before NIL became a thing. We can't exactly blame NIL for the state of our program when we were a bottom 10 FBS program for the prior ~20 years before it became a thing.

Yes, they had their own fortune of going from Hurley to Oats prior to collapse. I've long said coaching was the most important thing in collegiate athletics as they wear the hat of both coach and GM. It's still the most important thing, but NIL has emerged as the clear second biggest factor.

I don't think this is an Akron issue. I imagine Akron would schedule a home and home in a heart beat if Duquesne had interest. The reality is A10 schools view the MAC as inferior and aren't interested in "scheduling down". Even if it's not true. Outside of Buffalo-St. Bonaventure you rarely see A10 schools play at MAC arenas.

I think covid compounded the issue. I know I personally never resumed my season tickets after. I think people just fell out of the habit of going to live sporting events and replaced it with other things. For the college students that would probably be things like tik tok.

I question Miami's ceiling under Steele. This isn't the same Charlie Cole Miami. Hockey is arguably the #1 winter sport for the Redhawks (well at least it was pre-covid. It looks like the program has since gone to crap) and its not exactly cheap to run. All these MAC schools have a finite amount of resources and the more they spend on sports like football or hockey, the less they have for basketball.

I see nothing wrong with the promotion. No matter what promotion they run someone will find a reason to complain. If they want to have other nights where they mix in $2 hot dogs or what not, that would be fine as well. What's important is getting students to the game. They might initially come for the $2 beers, but have a great time and decide to return for future games. These will be the next generation of Zips season ticket holders. I had a friend take me to a Columbus Crew game a few years back and I went because of a free ticket plus $1 beer & brats. I didn't really care much for soccer outside of the World Cup. A new fan was made that day.

I really wish we had more concourse space.

I think some would be surprised by what some of these players are making in NIL. Someone posted an anonymous MAC basketball coaches survey. MAC coaches were saying departing players were making anywhere between $25k to $200k+. Granted that was basketball and this is football so not a perfect apples to apples comparison.

Looking at volume stats and not adjusting them for pace I think is flawed. I don't know how it would translate, but I do agree with you philosophy that long rebounds do create opportunities for second chance points. Namely, open 3s when the defense is scrambling to get reset.