kreed5120

I'm saying Zips return to their 40% 3-point shooting ways and walk out of Miami with a 12 point win.

Yeah, I don't see much of an argument. Campbell is 4th in points, 2nd in boards, 2nd in blocks, and 3rd in fg%.

It's amazing what 5 minutes of googling during your morning coffee can accomplish. I'm certain an ABJ writer could easily gather the information that I did if that's the angle they wanted to take with a piece. The fact of the matter is they want to portray the university as being run by incompetent crooked officials as that narrative leads to more paper sales and web clicks. The fewer the facts they present, the better their argument looks. Edit: To clarify I'm not saying the administration is without fault.

The Rubber Bowl was nearly 70 years old and in disrepair. An independent engineering company estimated that the cost of fully renovating it would cost nearly $60 million. Sure we could have continued to play there for a few more years, but at some point we would have been forced to make a change. I suppose we could have built a new stadium at a slightly lower cost, but it's not like we spent lavishly on it. The below article is from 2014 and lists 7 stadiums that were built in the last 10 years. Akron's was the 2nd cheapest. Since that article was written 2 more stadiums were built and both were more expensive than Akron's. Perhaps the correct business thing to do would have been to disband the football team or drop down to FCS and build a cheap $20 million stadium that wouldn't meet FBS guidelines. Either of which would have forced us to leave the MAC. http://www.coloradoan.com/story/sports/college/csu/football/2014/04/11/college-football-stadiums-built-in-the-last-decade/7439649/

Anyone know if Pat will be back for this game?

Yep, as I made mention in another thread, the reason our RPI improved is because our OOC SOS greatly improved over the weekend. Since February 18th, Akron OOC opponents are 12-4. This includes Iona getting an RPI top 50 win over Monmouth. Of note our RPI may have improved over the weekend, but our Kenpom fell from ~65 to 77.

I'm reasonably pleased with the schedule. Coming off an 8-5 season and heading into next season with modest expectations, I fully expected us to host 2 midweek games, especially since you consider that we had 0 last year. No way the MAC was going to let us get off scot-free 2 years in a row. The 2 midweek games come in November when the attendance would likely be crap anyways. We also finish up our home slate of games November 9th which should be before the weather gets too shitty. For reference our last 2 home games last season were November 21st and November 28th, nearly 2 weeks after our last home game this year.

I can't possibly see what could go wrong in debt financing the acquisition of a failing business when the university itself has well documented financial troubles.

I'd agree to that. Winning the MAC and getting to the Big Dance is always a successful season. That doesn't mean as a fan that you weren't left hoping for more.

I don't see anywhere where anyone said that they would rather not go to tournament over going and losing in the 1st round. At some point you have to hope for more unless you are perfectly content never winning an NCAA tournament game. I get that every year they make the tournament the deck is stacked against them as they are competing against a team round 1 that has more talent, but at some point you want to beat the odds. If this was 2009 again and the Zips hadn't been to the tournament in 23 years, I'd be happy just going. Dambrot in his 11 years of winning 21+ straight games however has raised the bar of this program. This isn't to say that I'm going to demand some witch hunt if once again the Zips fall short. It's me saying if we look back in 5-10 or how many ever years when Dambrot retires and we have 0 tournament wins despite being a dominate presence in the MAC for ~20 years, that would be a shame.

The Zips RPI improved because their OOC opponents combined to go 12-4 since February 18th. It also helped that several teams ahead of them lost to teams that are ranked worst than Kent..

This would be Dambrot's 4th trip to the Big Dance if the Zips make it out of the MAC this season. Another 1st round loss IMO would be disappointing. We've been there, done that. At some point you'd like to see this program take the next step and get their 1st tournament win in program history.

Akron still sits in a good position of securing the #1 seed as 3 of their final 4 games are at home. This loss however does open the door up for Kent or OU to have hope in possibly stealing it.

Big Dog is the only reason we're not down 20

When you rely on the deep ball so much for your offense and they aren't falling, this is what's going to happen. We need to hold kent to 1 shot and need to hope our shots begin to fall.

I agree. The game Tuesday had $1 dogs. Those typically are pretty good draws for pro sports teams. It won't draw someone in that has no desire to attend, but if someone has been on the fence about going, it might get them to click the buy now button.

I'd agree it's sad, especially when you consider at schools like OSU it costs money for students to go to games. I suppose students here pay for it in their student fees, but they are charged that whether they do or don't go. According to the below link $400 of a students $428 semester fee goes towards supporting athletics. Giving away a couple free scholarships is just a small way of giving back. The plan being that people show up initially in hopes of winning a prize, but they end up staying connected to the university long after graduating. http://www.ohio.com/news/local/university-of-akron-students-want-to-know-how-much-of-their-fees-go-toward-athletics-1.554002

Double Post*

I suppose that is where we differ some. I'd consider Highland Square to be near campus, but not the valley. There are about 3500 students that live in residents halls. That alone is 14% of the student body. Now tack on the 401k lofts, 22 exchanges, fur hill, fraternity/sorority houses, all the houses around campus, etc. and we are way over the 15% you have been claiming. Likewise like you I've been saying we need to focus on just artificially inflating 1-3 games. That's why I proposed a lottery a page or 2 back. You could give away more than a scholarship or 2 as well. Perhaps see about getting donations from local campus businesses and give away a $200 gift card to the book store, $25 subway gift card and so on and so on. Hold the lottery the final home game of the season during half-time and make an event out of it and call it student appreciation game.

Despite getting a win over Canada Tuesday, the Zips fell to a 14 seed in the latest Bracketology projections. The team that jumped us lost last night so I'd imagine we'd be back as a 13 seed if Lunardi created the bracket today. http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/bracketology/_/iteration/233

I'd expect the Lebron James bobblehead to provide a great draw. I wonder how many people on campus know who Dru Joyce is and of those that do I wonder how many care enough to actually go to a game to get a bobblehead of him? In reality a free t-shirt might have been appealing to many students. The Zips sold me on the 3 game pack for $24. The bobbleheads were just a bonus.

I was referring to much more than just those housing projects. Spicer, Quaker, South hall alone represent nearly ~1500 students From Grant Street to Route 8 back to nearly Thornton is mostly all right off campus students. When you add in the people who live in dorms, the people who live in houses and apartments near campus, and people who live at home but can still get to campus in a ~15 drive, you still will end up with a very large number. Perhaps it's more like 33% which means ~8500 live on or near campus. The main point I was trying to get a crossed is this isn't your dads Akron. Despite still being coined as a commuter school, it's nothing like what it was 15-20+ years ago.

Then those same people go to a random game the next season and only see 150 students then say to themselves why did I bother to come. My system would provide some sort of boost to all home games instead of a select small number to create that atmosphere where all games could potentially be exciting. Wouldn't it be exciting to have 400 students at every games (excluding Christmas break) instead of 500 at only 3?

I'd certainly hope we have another big ready to enter the rotation next year otherwise we are an injury away from disaster. It also wouldn't bode well for us the year after since we would lose both Cheatham and Big Dog and have 0 bigs on our roster with playing experience.

Yeah, that's definitely the plan. Despite my previous comment, I don't mind the promotions. In fact, I think they are great ways of rewarding fans. I just don't like how it doesn't necessarily reward the true fans. I'd just prefer a system where they announce at the beginning of the season that they will be holding a lottery at the end of the season for 1 free semester of tuition. Every game you attend is an entry. If Jimmy attends 15 games then he gets 15 entries, if Sally couldn't make the Christmas break games and attended 10 she gets 10 entries, and if Tommy got drug to a single game by friends he gets 1.