kreed5120

I'll take it. Illinois is consistently near the bottom of the B1G. Unlike the Oklahoma and Ohio State of the world, this is a team Akron has a realistic chance of upsetting.

Hopefully Pat is well enough to go against Kent if for nothing more than shaking off some of that rust before the MAC tourney.

Isn't Proenza the one that got us into this mess in the 1st place by expanding too rapidly and putting mountains of debt on Akron's books?

Its been a rough 4 game stretch. All our remaining regular season games are at home where we have yet to lose. Hopefully this helps propel us to get back on track before the MAC tourney. I say the Zips win by 7.

Below is the link. It appears Akron was his only D1 offer. http://www.scout.com/junior-college-football/story/1645588-juco-lb-commits-to-mac-program?s=333

Yeah, I distinctly remember vs. Buffalo Antino came up with a steal and had a step on the defender. He held up looking to draw the foul instead of just laying it in off the glass. The defender ended up closing down and finished it off with a clean block.

I've noticed fast break and the transition game in general has been a huge weakness for us all season. In order to get fast break points, you need to create opportunities for your athletic players to get into the open court. This typically requires getting steals (particularly in the open court) or securing rebounds and quickly getting an outlet pass to a player streaking down court, Akron really isn't comprised of speedy athletic players. Also, getting steals in the open court is the easiest way of generating fast break points. Akron is 293 out of 351 in steals. Meanwhile it seems the only turnovers the Zips commit are in the open court. Perimeter players typically have no problem getting into the lane against the Zips which forces the defense to collapse. If there is nobody down court for a rebounder to throw an outlet pass to, there is no chance to catch the defense napping and get a quick fast break bucket.

No, that's not what I'm saying at all. I'm saying they were a well respected team that year and would have had an excellent chance of getting in with one of the last few at-large spots had they lost to Akron. They wouldn't have been given a 9 seed if they weren't believed to be better than the 10 & 11 seeds that were behind them.

If you make the NCAA tournament as a 9 seed after winning your conference tournament, which Kent did, there is a pretty high chance that you would have gotten in regardless. I'm not sure what Miami RPI was, but their resume was built OOC and included wins over Notre Dame, Tennessee, and Dayton.

It would be the 1999 Redhawks who were led by Wally Szerbiak. They finished with a 24-8 record, 4 of those losses came in MAC play. There have been a few times since that a MAC team may have gotten in, but they ended up winning the conference tournament making the discussion mute. Edit: They went on to lose in the Sweet 16

It's a farce that anyone was cheering for the Zips to lose the MAC tournament in hopes that we would be in position for an at-large bid. The fact of the matter is the only way Akron will ever receive anything better than a 12 seed is if they are perceived to be a better team than some of the at-large teams that currently eat up the 10-11 slots. There are typically a couple 1 bid conferences that produce an at-large caliber team each year(This year may be an odd exception). Often times those teams go on and win their conference tournament like Kent did in 2008 and use it to help further improve their seed.

Have to wonder if the Zips peaked too soon and if they can rediscover themselves before the MAC tournament? Things aren't looking good right now when teams like OU are hitting their stride. Edit: Looking at scores tonight across the league. Looks like for the most part all the top teams fell tonight.

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.