kreed5120

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.

If you use RPI to compare where teams got in and were seeded, you will only see a small relation, particularly in the 30-100 range. If you use Kenpom, the relation will be much stronger. We should be striving to be a top 40 kenpom team, not top 40 RPI.

They have had better years, but remember they did what they are doing despite another conference going 12-1 and despite only having 1 team with a top 4 seed (the teams the selection committee tries to protect).

7 games the Big 10 was the higher seed 4 games they were the lower seed 1 game they were the same seed I suppose being the higher seed 58% of the time in your mind is being "the higher seed in almost every game". They've actually won more games than what they were the higher seed in. The B1G could have just as easily advanced 5 teams to round 2 as your supposed 3 as it took a 13 point comeback with 3 minutes left for Ark-LR to force OT. They had 3 teams as 5 seeds. Statistically 1 was bound to lose to a 12. UM was the underdog in their matchup and won a play-in game prior to playing. Iowa lost to #2 seed Villanova. MSU was really the lone disappointing team. In the 2nd round the B1G team was the underdog in all but 1 game and still picked up 3 wins. In your mind where you feel the higher seed should win 100% of the games, the Big 10 would only have 1 team left. They have 3, including Wisconsin who knocked off a 2 seed and Indiana who throttled Kentucky. I'd say that is a success.

By other power conferences you just mean the Pac-12? All the other P5 teams + Big East conferences have winning records. Outside of the incredible ACC 12-1 mark, only one B1G team had a seed better than 5, which somehow lost, and they still managed to go 8-4 ACC (7 bids): 12-1 Big Ten (7): 8-4 Big 12 (7): 6-4 Pac-12 (7): 3-6 Big East (5): 5-4 SEC (3): 3-2

Yeah, I don't see it. Dambrot will be 58 by the start of next season and has already turned down big money offers from Duquesne twice. A school where he has family ties. He seems happy where he is and I see him retiring with Akron.

I also went ahead and tracked down RPI teams from my previous suggestions just to see how they compare. Team SFA (47-35-62) Belmont (48-100-96) Valpo (195-56-43) JMU (236-157-104) Of the teams I suggested, only SFA consistently finishes in the ~50 area. They also are the ones that seem most content taking their 28+ wins each season and making the tourney as a 12-14 seed. Predicting which mid majors provide top 50 wins is near impossible, however, finding ones the consistently finish in the top ~100-~125 is achievable. Below is Akron's numbers for anyone interested. Akron (96-123-41) Edit: Our numbers look comparable to Belmont. Let's get on the phone and see about scheduling a home and home.

I don't get a subscription to the Akron Beacon so I only get to see the articles posted online. What exactly would you like to see more of? I saw a decent number of articles, some good others bad, about Akron's bowl game, but you can only hype a bowl game so much that features a 7-5 vs. 6-6 team. The Zips basketball team received a good amount of exposure when they had that 19 game win streak a few years back. Soccer team got good exposure when they won the national title. In regards to other Olympic sports people for the most part aren't that interested in following. Had the men's basketball team beat OSU or made NCAA tournament (especially if they won in the tourney), you would have seen more news. Had Akron football beat Oklahoma or made the MAC championship in football, you would have seen more articles. If Akron wants to make local headline news, it needs to do things that Joe Akron finds newsworthy.

I only mentioned the MEAC games as at some point the athletic department is going to want x-number of home games. If they need 1-2 to meet quota, I can live with it. The current 4-6 of them each season is unacceptable. I feel those teams you describe can be found in tournaments. I'd say that Arkansas game is a fine example. If we played @Nova, @Arkansas, SMU(neutral), Colorado(neutral), @Green Bay, and 2-3 (mix b/w home and away) more decent to high caliber mid-majors, I would have been happy. I'd love to see a MAC vs. CAA challenge or something of that nature.

That schedule is more than what I'd ask for. I don't like all the cupcakes Akron has, but I also don't want to be whoring ourselves out either as 5 of those were true road games. Getting into tournaments like Kent did this year where they played SMU and Penn State(would have been Colorado had they beat SMU) on a neutral court should be a priority. From there you schedule 1-2 true road games at one of those bigger conference schools (Akron actually met this requirement via the preseason NIT). Sprinkle in some home and home games with decent mid majors. Fill out the remaining schedule the best that you can. Overall i was happy with the preseason NIT tournament as it exposed us to quality competition (we did draw the short end of the straw by having Charleston Southern being our home game). I had no problem facing Iona and UCSB, but would have preferred being in the tournament Kent got into. Iona and UCSB are teams that we could schedule home and home with. I'd rather use those neutral court opportunities to face quality teams that would never agree to come to the JAR. After getting a couple home and homes with decent to good mid-majors, fill out the schedule the best way see fit. I'll even allow 1-2 token MEAC games.

These are the guys that I see definitely staying Big Dog - No explanation needed Antino - Shows great athleticism and is one of few guards that can get to the rim. Robotham - Young and shows lots of promise Josh Williams - Out of all the freshman he is the one that made the rotation. Expect him to take a more active role next year as Zips will need his 3 point shooting Ivey - A great athlete. That steal and fast break dunk vs. OSU put that on display. Would have liked to see him play more Kwan - 1 of the few bigs on next years roster that has received legit minutes. He will be a senior and is perhaps our best defender. From there IDK. I'd guess the cuts would come from Eubanks and/or the 8 freshman/sophomore we would have on the roster.

I'd give that 21 win stat more merit if Akron did its part by eliminating a member from the club.

I've had way too much to drink and am way too frustrated to go on a ramble, but we had them where we wanted them. We failed to execute even though we were put in a position to win. Our inexperience on the big stage showed as some of our young players pressed too hard. Overall I was proud of the effort. The shots may not have fell, but I could see everyone was giving the full 110% effort. Had they played with this defensive intensity vs. Buffalo, we would have won.