kreed5120

You must not have ever ventured to the Zips football section in November

Stop the count 😆

I was looking at the NET rankings today and see that 14 out of Akron's 18 MAC games are against teams with a NET of 200+. This is the worst I've ever seen the MAC.

I enjoy the cheap tickets as well, but I actually prefer when the arena is 90% full compared to when it's only 20%. It's just a much more electric atmosphere. That's why when the idea of a new arena resurfaces on this board discussion every so often, I'm adamant I want a nice 4500 seat arena over a 8000 seat monstrosity that we could never fill. The build it and they will come philosophy just doesn't work.

The thing is students can attend games for free, yet they still don't. I'd say the cost of time is the bigger deterrent. People think sitting at home watching Netflix, playing video games, going to the movie theaters, or whatever else is a better use of their time. That's what really needs to he changed. The cost of the game itself isn't a real deterrent. When I've had season tickets in the past, when parking was free, I couldn't even find anyone willing to take my tickets for the games I couldn't attend. I wasn't even asking money for them.

Outside of Cincinnati/Dayton area college basketball just isn't that big of a deal. Even the Buckeye "fans" I know don't really start following OSU until the conference tournament is about to start. $4 waters, $10 parking, $4 tickets, etc isn't the problem. People pay those prices to see the Rubber Ducks. They pay several times those prices to go to a concert as Blossom. There is just a lot of apathy surrounding the program. Outside of the Kent game, going to Akron basketball just isn't "the cool thing to do". It's a shame because when the Zips have those 4500+ fan crowds, the games are very exciting. I don't really have a solution, but they need to change the perception surrounding Akron sports.

In addition to the ticket sales, the P5 conferences want the home games that way they have more inventory for their TV network, which they have a direct ownership stake in. They're never going to come to the JAR. The best we can hope for is playing them on a neutral court.

That's why having quality assistants is more important today than ever. Conceivably no one man can do everything.

Post covid the game has changed a lot with more freedom for player movement. Groce has done a really great job of both retaining players and going to the transfer portal to plug immediate holes. It seems a good chunk of the MAC is turning over its entire roster annually. You can't win that way. The programs that have learned to adapt will continue to thrive. The ones that don't, won't.

That will depend on who we face in the 2nd leg of the MAC - SBC Challenge

If NET is to be believed on how teams are to be ranked, Gardner Webb would be ranked better than half the MAC. The MAC is also a dumpster fire this year so make of it what you will.

Marshall entered today at #204 in NET. Gardner Webb entered at #222 so that comparison isn't far off, at least for this year.

Some proposals I've seen reported have had schools allowed to pay up to $30k per scholarship athlete. If you have 200 scholarship athletes, that's $6 million. I know we're all sport fans here, but the NCAA keeps making it more and more expensive to participate. I think it's pretty clear at some point the MAC as a whole will have no choice but to say enough is enough and step down.

Keith Dambrot is 94-85 overall and 46-57 in conference play. While a step up from where they were before, I can't imagine that's what they had in mind when they did a $25 million dollar renovation to their arena and made Dambrot one of the higher paid coaches in the Atlantic 10.

I would say this is Akron's last best chance of making noise. With the transfer porter, as long as Groce stays around, I think we will be fine. We will just reload with transfers. Will we be the favorites to win the MAC next year? I'd say that's unlikely, but I'd still expect a competitive team that should finish in the top half of the MAC.

He also spent much of the previous 15 months criticizing Ali and saying the team was better without him... I'd say the main weakness on this team is they lack a LCJ or Castaneda type guard who can both create his own shot and create offense for others at an All-MAC level. Ali, while not the elite facilitator like the previous others I mentioned, has the ability to both create his shot and create open looks for others. Having him at the forward position should help ease some of those responsibilities from the guards.

Looks even worse if you subtract Sammy Hunters numbers from the total. It's not like this team was going to go undefeated anyway. On the plus side this team has an opportunity to quickly redeem themselves with the game tomorrow. Let's see how we can respond.

Free throws are keeping us in this game

Zips, not named Sammy Hunter, are a combined 1 for 11 behind the arc...

We have to go on a run while Osobor is on the bench

SFA winning by 24 is a bit shocking, but it shouldn't be considered that huge of an upset overall. It's not like SFA was a nobody. They went into the game ranked in the top 100 and were only a 4 point dog.

These rankings are heavily weighted by preseason projections since the sample size is very small. I think it's not until early January that the rankings reflect solely current season results and the preseason projections get completely disregarded from the formula. I wouldn't pay much attention to this until we're further along in the season and all teams have more data points. Early season rankings are always extremely goofy and irrational.

The sad reality is that the MAC 4-5 years ago was actually something like the 8th or 9th ranked conference when you looked at the conference from top to bottom. The MAC's strength was that it was a deep conference with few "cupcakes". Now since covid happened, it appears half the teams in the conference have just quit trying. Last season, using the same metrics, the MAC was somewhere in the neighborhood of 15th. Programs like the directional Michigan's and Miami need to start investing in their programs more before we can seriously begin to talk about the MAC being among the best mid-major conferences.

As I understood it, the second leg would match-up teams based off of NET rankings. I don't know if they would permit a rematch or not if the cards played out that way.

When a movable object meets a stoppable force...