kreed5120

Fair point. It would most likely be some sort of blend. What sort of blend would depend highly on how far out they feel they could get an arena built. <5 years - very safe 10 years - moderate 15+ years - more aggressive

I like the fact that we have a team of that caliber on our schedule. It's a good recruiting tool in the sense that it gives a potential recruit that was overlooked because he wasn't tall enough or athletic enough or played at a smaller school a chance to shine on a big stage. We get that win and we go from not even being in the bubble discussion to a serious at-large candidate. I just feel it would be a step backwards if Akron views playing a potential top 5-7 team tough for 17 minutes and not losing by 40 as an accomplishment.

Historically the market has returned 8%-10%. Easy in a downturn market to think that is an unachievable mark, but 3 years ago, I would have scoffed at such a pitiful return. http://pages.stern.nyu.edu/~adamodar/New_Home_Page/datafile/histretSP.html

Perhaps if we took them to the wire and lost in heartbreaking fashion, I could see it. BUT I can't imagine Dambrot is going to too many high school recruits houses and saying "Come to Akron we're good. We only lost to Villanova by 20."

It's not hard for a mid-major to hang with a top 25 team for a half. You see it all the time in March Madness. Where those teams pull away is in the 2nd half as attrition settles in and the team with more depth pulls away.

Proper term I should have used is invest. Considering the market just bottomed out, or at least I hope it did, we should expect to see a decent 10-15 year ROI. Edit: Assuming a modest 8% return, 10 million today would be 30+ million 15 years from now. Even adjusting for a 3% inflation that would be 20+ million in todays dollars.

I certainly hope nothing huge. They will be getting pennies back on the dollar for anything they put into that place. I'd rather just see them put that money in a separate account, let it grow interest, and use it 10-15 years from now towards a new arena. Edit: I'd be all for buying those lights and stuff that they had rented for the Kent game. It helped create an exciting atmosphere and is something they can take to a new arena.

Thanks for posting. It really hit home. I really didn't have a team to cheer for in the field, but now I do.

Perhaps a preferred walk-on with chance of competing for scholarship next season?

Yeah, one has to think it would be an attractive tournament particularly to any team on the western half of the US. It has potential to grow into something.

I feel this cheering for all the teams in your conference started in SEC football as fans would flaunt how great their conference is. It trickled to the other conferences as B1G and PAC-12 fans just wanted to shut them up. Go to any PAC-12 message board and you'll see posts about how they are disrespected because they aren't on the east coast.

I'm not disputing the fact that B1G fans cheer for other B1G schools to do well other than UM. I feel that silence you were hearing though was people going oh crap there goes by bracket. They were projected to go deep in virtually every bracket and on ESPN they were the 2nd most popular pick to win the tourney. I know that's what caused my silence.

Virginia last year passed a law that limited the fees schools could charge to subsidize sports programs. I wonder if this is something that you will see trickle into other states in the near future? http://pilotonline.com/sports/mcauliffe-signs-bill-that-limits-athletic-student-fees/article_337e7bec-d46e-5e15-bba6-6fc8de3a5f01.html

Profiting off of football while still being a student athlete put their amateurism into question hence why it isn't allowed and hence why the NCAA came down on them. If the players bad mouthed Bowden and the other coaches, I'd expect them to get punished. We're talking about owning a gun here. There are more guns owned in this country than there are US citizens. I'm willing to venture to guess some player on every FBS team owns a gun, most likely several people. My grandma who is nearly 80 owns a handgun. She hasn't fired it in many years as she owns it for protection. I'm not some gun enthusiast. I don't own a gun and only shot a gun a handful or so of times in my entire life, but I can respect someone's constitutional right. If Bowden or anyone else has a problem with a student owning a gun in a dangerous neighborhood, they can kiss away their chances of me ever donating another cent to the university.

As long as he has a license for it and doesn't carry it on campus or anyplace where it is illegal and isn't flaunting it around in a club, I can't see why there would be a problem with him utilizing his 2nd amendment right. Can't blame him for wanting to own a gun in Akron where home invasion is a legitimate threat. In college I've had friends robbed at gun point in their own house. I don't know the full story so I'm going to withhold further judgment. PS. This is coming from a registered democrat and I'm not looking to start a political debate. Just saying that if he is legally allowed having the gun, there shouldn't be a problem that he owns it.

Just to avoid the vicious cycle of the next response in regards to "but Monmouth had top 50 wins" Monmouth played in a garbage conference with 75% of their games vs. cupcakes. This included them losing to 3 teams in the bottom 1/3 of college basketball. A handful of quality non conference games wasn't enough to overcome this. The MAC actually provides opportunities to pick up decent wins in conference play.

I didn't intentionally leave out any comment. I copied and pasted a full paragraph and provided the source so that you could find it if you wanted to. You do hear analysis mention RPI, but those are the same ones that were outraged that teams like Syracuse and Tulane got in meanwhile teams like St. Bon were sent to the NIT. Advanced metrics are taking over college basketball like advanced metrics took over MLB. Are there some resistance to change? Sure, but year after year more and more people are coming around to them. I do agree that the Zips would get in with a top 25 RPI, but if you won enough games to achieve that, your other advanced metrics would look great too. Simply improving RPI isn't the answer as I already gave you an example of how the Zips could do it, but it would have a negative impact on their resume. Playing and beating better teams or compiling a large enough win total vs. the current schedule that is too big to ignore is the answer.

I said you can't claim bias because St. Bonaventure plays in an as good, if not better, basketball conference (I'll say better) as Tulane and Wichita State and also finished with an RPI that was +17 better than Wichita State and +28 better than Tulane. Both of those teams got in over St. Bonaventure. It wasn't biased that got Wichita State and Tulane in over St. Bonaventure. This was your exact quote. "RPI is certainly well recognized, therefore getting a high RPI score makes an argument for your school. Just do what we have to do to make that number higher." Every year it seems the record gets broken for the highest RPI to not make the tournament. Do you really not see that it has been losing its value every year? RPI is an easy system to game. 75% of it is based off of your opponents winning % and your opponents opponents winning %. Any game vs. a none D1 school isn't included in the formula. Games vs. MEAC and SWAC teams drive your RPI numbers down as they typically have poor records and play a conference schedule vs. teams with poor records. The Zips could instantly improve their RPI by removing those teams from the schedule and replacing them with more games vs. Malone, Hiram, Mount Union, etc. because those teams wouldn't factor into the RPI formula. Do you think the selection committee would view that as more favorable? Edit: Here is an excerpt that I pulled from the New York Times quoting the selection committee chairmen...“The common metrics most of us use are KenPom, Sagarin, L.R.M.C., B.P.I., K.P.I.,” the committee chairman, Oklahoma Athletic Director Joe Castiglione, told reporters Wednesday, sounding like an economist rattling off the names of various federal departments.

Whatever metrics you feel they use, Akron needs to either win more games playing the schedule they played (how many more is still in question) or they need to win relatively the same number of games playing a much tougher schedule (how much tougher we don't know). What we do know is that being a 27 win MAC team with a ~35 RPI and ~80 kenpom is good enough for a 6 seed in the NIT. Do with those numbers what you will. Edit: Some people can continue to believe RPI is the end all be all in the selection committees eyes, but be prepared to be disappointed year after year when a 30 RPI isn't good enough to make the tournament.

Oh ok. So that means he could be redshirted if desired.

It appears he is a TE that recently was converted to DE. It says he has 3 years of eligibility left. http://www.scout.com/junior-college-football/story/1654285-camara-to-continue-career-with-akron

This is the kind of signing that I like to see. Always nice to add bodies to the d-line.

RPI is an outdated stat. The selection committee has moved onto more advanced metrics. Saint Bonaventure won the Atlantic 10 regular season, a higher rated conference than the MAC, and finished the regular season with a top 30 RPI. Teams like Wichita State (47), Michigan (56), Tulsa (58), Vanderbilt (63), and Syracuse (73) were all chosen ahead of them. You can argue bias all you want, but 2 of those schools that I just named aren't P5 or Big East teams. edit: St. Bon finished 79th in Kenpom. Those 5 other schools all finished better despite having poorer RPIs.

I think you are looking at the Big East who went 5-4. The B1G is 8-4 and evidently they should be 15-0 by what others think.

In what was a down regular season for the B1G they have shown they are still the 2nd best conference. I wish the MAC was not that good and did not so good come tournament time if that's what your definition is. If anything they are victims of their own prior success.