kreed5120

For being a smaller article I actually found it to be fairly informative. In regards to a new arena I feel it had to be assumed that the plans are squashed for now. He stated not to expect anything for another 5 years, but I feel unless the city passes a tax for a downtown arena at some point, which seems highly unlikely, or some big donor comes out of nowhere, we won't be seeing much on that front for 10-20 years when we start paying off some of those landscape for learning facilities. I'm curious as to what plans they have in store to better fill the stadium.

I'm glad to see that Big Dog and Reggie weren't penalized for Akron having so much depth. It shows that the voters actually watched the games by choosing guys like Reggie and Big Dog. who help their team win. over guys that filled a stat sheet on mediocre teams that had little to no depth.

I agree 100%. Likewise I'm not going to comment about what the teachers are requesting, but I will say that I feel the teachers hold the leverage as the last thing the University wants is more bad publicity.

SB Nation published a similar article to this back in 2013 around the time the Zips were on their 19 game win streak. They did modify it to include recent events and to include that bit about Robotham. I still found it to be a good read.

A 12 seed looks most likely if the Zips win out. They would almost certainly need Monmouth, Valpo, and SDSU to all lose to get an 11th. They might be able to leap Ark-Little Rock as Ark-Little Rock will face at most 1 RPI top 150 team in their conference tournament, but they are better off hoping for them to lose as well.

You're looking at the Lunardi's February 22 bracket. Its been updated multiple times since. Below is the March 7th version, It has us facing Kentucky round 1. A lot is still going to change between now and then. http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/bracketology/_/iteration/251

+1 this guy gets it. We should also be cheering against Chattanooga & Stony Brook tonight. Akron is probably ahead of both teams if seeding was done today, but them losing eliminates all doubt.

It's a tad disappointing that it took this late into the season for Akron to sell out its 1st game when they play such an exciting brand of basketball and have been successful at home.

It certainly doesn't hurt. In the bracketology that I've looked at they are still seeded ahead of us, but the Zips will have a far better SOS the rest of the way no matter who the Zips meet up with in the MAC tourney. Perhaps the gap between the 2 resumes have narrowed enough that the Zips could be in a position to leap them.

Akron is a combined 17-0 at home and on neutral courts. Every loss came on the road where our opponent was able to feed off the energy provided by their fans.

The big thing that I noticed on how Kent guards us compared to other teams is that Kent is content letting Big Dog back his man down and get shots near the rim while most other teams have sent help defense to force Big Dog to pass which has led to open looks from 3.

I feel 1 fewer regular season loss combined with a MAC championship loss would have made us the highest RPI team to get left out of the tourney. 2 fewer and I feel we could be an at-large team. I missed the NIU loss so I can't speak to that, but the game I wish we could have back was the Green Bay game. It was the 3rd and final game of a 6 day road trip. We didn't look 100% there and still almost came away with the win.

Akron's RPI is currently 40. I wouldn't be surprised if winning out makes it so that we are ~30.

You have to remember there are 32 auto bids awarded. In order for Akron to get a 12 seed they have to be regarded as being better than 18 of those auto bid teams. 10 of those are 15 and 16 seed teams that have no chance of catching Akron even if Akron lost to Kent. From there you have the OVC and Southland conference whose best teams are already decently behind Akron and play in conferences much weaker than the MAC so Akron should only further distance itself. Eliminating the 9 projected multi bid conferences plus the ones I mentioned already that leaves the below. America East - Best team RPI 66 with 212 SOS. SOS will continue to drop as the strongest opponent that they can face in conference tourney is 145. Next opponent RPI 296. Big West - Best team RPI 91 with a 280 SOS. Plays in weaker conference than MAC so Akron would separate themselves. CAA - Comparable conference to the MAC. It's 50/50 if Akron would be higher than top team Horizon - Valpo would be higher than MAC, however if upset Akron would top their auto-bid team Ivy - Best team has comparable resume to Akron, but no conference tournament gives them no chance of boosting it MAAC - Monmouth would be ahead of Akron, but if they get upset Akron would top their auto bid MVC - Wichita State easily tops Akron, Evansville or any other MVC team that potentially upsets Wichita State not so much Mountain West - Sand Diego State is ahead of Akron, but if they get knocked out Akron would top whoever upsets them Southern - Akron should be able to distance itself from Chattanooga whose conference tournament features a bunch of cupcakes Sunbelt - Ark-Little Rock would likely stay above Akron by winning its poor conference. If upset that team would be well behind Akron. Moral of the story is we need to cheer for 2nd and 3rd place teams to win auto bids of 1 bid conference. In cases like Wichita State they would make the tournament anyways, but that doesn't hinder us b/c we aren't vying for an at-large bid.

I think winning out makes us a 12 seed, however, if teams like Monmouth and Valparaiso get knocked out early, I can see us perhaps snagging an 11th.

A 16 has never beaten a 1 seed. We have seen 3 15 seeds beat a 2 seed in just the last 4 years. Perhaps had Duke positioned themselves as a 1 seed, they wouldn't have been humiliated and positioned themselves for a deep tourney run. I feel conference tournaments do a good job of rewarding teams that are playing their best at the end of the season. Perhaps some team was great until their star got injured with 2 games left in the season. That team is no longer as good as what their resume at the end of the regular season suggests. The conference tournament helps correct it some so they more accurately get seeded.

I would by no means say P5 tournaments are as meaningless as you lead on. They do a great deal towards impacting seeding, which can be more impactful than deciding between 2 teams to determine which 1 is going to be a 12 seed play-in team and which ones going to the NIT. Nobody wants the best 2 teams to meet in the elite then have to settle for some dull final as an undeserving team made it because they had an easy bracket. Edit: History shows that no 16 has beaten a 1. We have seen a 15 can beat a 2 (Happened 3x in past 4 years). Winning a P5 conference tournament might be the difference b/w a near guaranteed 1st round win or a humiliating 1st round exit.

Hmm isn't the annual debt repayment on the stadium ~4 million? Convenient that's exactly how much they tried to charge in additional fees.

GS uses their defense to help set up their offense. Notice how they push it when they get rebounds or force turnovers. They are 5th in defensive efficiency. I'd say the Zips are more comparable to the Rockets. They shoot and make a lot of 3s, but give up a lot of easy buckets on the other end.

On a related note is there a rule that stipulates that you can't shoot your free throws from 3? If not, perhaps Reggie should step back a few feet and see if that works better for him.

If we were going to award the regular season champ the trophy, I'd want a balanced 22 conference schedule where you play each team twice or a 16 game conference schedule where you play each team in your division twice and other division once. Under the 16 game format the East division champ would face the West division champ to see who the auto-bid goes to. I agree the team that wins the regular season is more deserving than a team that got hot for 2-3 games. That being said they aren't going to due away with the current system. The conference tournament generates $$$. You take the auto-bid off the table then both attendance and tv ratings fall.

OSU has 3 wins that are better than any Akron win 11 - Kentucky 28- Iowa 58- Michigan They are on the outside looking in still. They probably need 3 more wins between the regular season and B1G tourney to get an at-large. If they managed to do that, I'm inclined to believe 2 of those wins would be against teams with a higher RPI than OU (80). That means OSU would have 5 wins that would be better than the best Akron win. Odds are OSU doesn't win 3 more B1G games and they find themselves in the NIT.

I have to agree. Dambrot is now in his 12th season at Akron and has 1 COY honor. There was some debate yesterday about which MAC program has had the best 10 year run, but when you look at a pure regular season resume, which is what these awards are based off of, Akron has been the clear #1 program. No debate about it. He likely won't win because he is a victim of his own success. Hell it took him a 19 game win streak to secure his sole COY award.

Kenpom is considered to be more accurate.

RPI is just a metric, an imperfect one at that, the selection committee looks at. It by no means is the only deciding factor. If it was the sole determining factor, then no committee would be needed as the teams would seed themselves.