Dave in Green

@johnnyzip84, Bleacher Report agrees with you, ranking McCrea the 5th best mid-major player for the 2013-14 season. The only other MAC player on the list is WMU's Shane Whittington ranked 20th. The challenge has been issued to Tree and Q, who have both shown flashes of borderline greatness. But since there are no stars in Coach Dambrot's system, they will ultimately be judged on how the Zips perform as a team. Their individual stats will be secondary to winning games, winning the MAC and winning NCAA tournament games.

As I just posted in another thread last night, Sports Illustrated and ESPN both have really nice things to say about the Zips basketball program. You can't get much better than to have ESPN call the Zips one of "the best mid-major programs of the past decade." If you missed it, check this post and the one immediately following it.

So does ESPN (again, my boldface): It's funny how SI and ESPN think more of what the Zips are accomplishing than some Zips fans posting right here on this forum.

SI has nice things to say about the Zips in this game (my boldface):

We are in agreement on that point.

@g-mann17, I agree with your assessment and appreciate your efforts to bring out the kind of background information required to make informed decisions. Bob Dyer's opinion column (it's not a news story) is defined by its first 11 words -- The silence is deafening. This community should be up in arms ... . The purpose of that column is not to educate but a call to arms. It's a one-sided effort to stir up an angry, noisy mob, which is pretty much the definition of yellow journalism. It was a wasted opportunity to take a deeper look at the issue and make a calm, rational call for more detailed research and investigation into causes and solutions. I'm hoping to see more rational discussion on the subject here rather than the angry mob mentality of looking for a scapegoat to run out of town. As much as I appreciate the value of considering numbers and stats, I'm in full agreement with those who believe that raw numbers and stats alone don't tell the whole story, whether in sports or in graduation rates.

I didn't say there was anything wrong with criticism. I believe in real, constructive criticism. That begins with a true understanding of the origins and nature of the problem.

A little sloppy with the links, eh? Here's the link he was trying to post. Folks used to criticize UA for not having a real campus. So they build a real campus, and it's on to the next criticism.

@GP1, that $10 million athletic budget does not include football, where GCU doesn't yet compete. So it's pretty healthy for a football-free athletic budget, and is rapidly expanding. Point is that GCU is a for-profit university that answers to its stockholders, and therefore must justify return on investment in athletics as well as other areas. It's already documented that for-profit institutions spend a larger percentage of their revenue on marketing and recruiting than student instruction. The business model is so successful that GCU ranks second on Forbes' Best Small Companies in America list. If for-profit universities like GCU demonstrate a successful business model and thrive on the stock market, they will continue to expand regardless of how well they are educating students. If expanding investment in athletic programs and facilities is an integral part of the successful business model, it will only encourage non-profit institutions to do more of the same.

Well, you silly goose, of course you included quantification in your previous post when you stated that the probability was not statistically significantly different from zero. As for your bet, my dad always used to tell me that a man's honor was worth more than mere money. I'll bookmark this thread so we can revisit it after the selection process plays out, and one of us can do the honorable thing and admit that we were wrong. To be clear, my position is not that Tressel is a lock for the presidency, but that he's a leading candidate who will get serious (not token) consideration and has a much better than zero chance.

@Big Zip, you can't call anything sweet on a sports forum without someone else calling it sour. But, seriously, it can be only one of three things -- net positive, net negative or neutral. Most Zips fans seem to agree that it's a net positive to have the world's greatest professional basketball player dropping by for open gym with the team. The disagreement appears to be in the degree of positivity, ranging from a little to a lot -- both imprecise terms. Anyway, it doesn't really matter what fans think about this issue. What's important is what the coaching staff and players think.

Right. UA needs a university role model. How about Purdue University, ranked by U.S. News & World Report as one of the country's top 25 public universities with a current endowment value of about $2 billion. Their search for a new president is summarized on Purdue's website here. And the unanimous choice of the board of trustees was announced on Purdue's website here as "an innovative, game-changing move for Purdue." So a career politician without a PhD is qualified to run a bigger, more prestigious university than UA.

@Zipmeister, thanks for your personal quantification. I'll keep that in mind as I process input I'm getting from the sources who previously assured me that UA was going to hire Tressel even after public statements were made that he was not going to be the next head football coach.

It's human nature not to want to give any credit for anything to anyone we may not happen to like for any particular reason. It's not just you. A 6-9, 275-pound player looks big to almost everyone, and is practically guaranteed to be slower than shorter, lighter players. Isaiah's favorite player is Shaquille O'Neal, who turned out not to be too big and slow to have a decent NBA career. The thing I worry about most is having adequate medical staff on hand for any defender who steps in front of Big Dog when he's driving to the bucket.

Wish I'd been there today to see the look in the eyes of the freshmen when they saw LBJ stroll onto the court.

Some folks on ZN.o have gotten all wound up over the issue of big money in college sports. I just finished reading an article about big money in higher education. To be more specific, Grand Canyon University in Arizona has just moved up from D-II to D-I, joined the WAC and has become the first and only for-profit institution at the D-I level. GCU has hired Dan Majerle as head basketball coach, has increased its athletic budget from $3 million to $10 million and is investing $200 million in new facilities, with athletic facilities getting a large share. GCU can easily afford it, as it's gone from a private Christian school that was $20 million in the hole to second on Forbes' Best Small Companies in America list following its annual haul of $458 million in revenue. The story notes that a recent study showed that American taxpayers provide for-profit institutions more than $30 billion in tax dollars every year. The report also stated that for-profit schools assign a high percentage of their revenue to marketing and recruiting than student instruction. For-profit institutions admit that their primary responsibility is to their stockholders (i.e. making money), not educating students. So does all of this get anyone more or less wound up than the big money in college sports? ESPN Story Link

Regarding whether or not Tressel might return to coaching, I'd think that part of the selection process for the next UA president would be gauging candidates' longterm commitment. I personally do not know the man. But my understanding is that people who are close to him believe he's at a point in his life where he has a much greater interest in contributing to higher education than he does in coaching football. We'll see in the coming months how that works out.

In searching for the most qualified candidate available to carry on Dr. Proenza's success in advancing UA, I'd think that Dr. Proenza's recommendation for a successor would play a big role in the decision-making process. I suspect that at least part of the reason for Jim Tressel being hired as a VP at UA is because Dr. Proenza and other UA executives saw him as a potential future candidate for the position of president. If Dr. Proenza's successor as president is to come from within UA, it's logical that you'd want to be able to measure that person's performance in a key VP role. Tressel's chances of becoming the next president of UA will depend on how much his job performance has impressed Dr. Proenza and other decision makers at UA who will be making the selection from a number of qualified people.

From the ESPN story about Tressel coming to Akron:

Is this the same Josh (Joshua) Williams who's been playing so well for Barberton HS? Is he transferring to SVSM? The Josh Williams from Barberton is a highly rated class of 2015 combo guard who has had interest from Notre Dame, Wisconsin and Miami among others in addition to his offer from UA. Along with being an outstanding basketball player, he also has a 3.9 GPA, according to Michael Beaven.

That fits what I heard earlier this year: When you're already a VP, there aren't many executive positions between that and president.

@g-mann17, I could agree with you if you stated it like this: If Abreu hadn't gotten caught when he did then the University could have been screwed if several other hypothetical scenarios had all come to pass. Similar hypothetical scenarios could occur almost any time any scholarship athlete is in violation of rules. In that sense, almost every violation of rules by a scholarship athlete is just a few rungs on the ladder away from lack of institutional control. In reality, you need to look at previous instances where the NCAA invoked lack of institutional control. It's pretty rare, and I'm not sure if it's ever been used in the instance of a single athlete at a university with a previously good record of compliance.

This pretty much closes the Abreu case for me. Direct quotes from audio tapes of police interrogation don't leave a lot left for speculation. As for lack of institutional control, I suppose it's possible to say that this is several rungs away from it from the NCAA perspective in the sense that a speeding ticket is several rungs away from armed robbery in the judicial system. But looking at the NCAA documentation shows that it's not really that close:

Pat may have joined Jake in the retirement home for burned-out screen names.

Is the following from College Soccer News a reasonably fair summary assessment?