Dave in Green

If there wasn't a problem, the presidents of UA, Can't and YSU wouldn't be meeting to discuss partnerships and collaborations that could help the universities cut costs beyond what have already been announced. In effect they're discussing the merger of certain functions and services. They were careful to say that they are not discussing a merger of the universities at this time, which is a way to keep speculation from running wild. That doesn't make it against the law to discuss that as a future possibility. Speculative discussions like this tend to go on as long more than one person is interested. When it reaches the point of repetition with little participation, it probably deserves to go dormant.

It really should be no surprise that the presidents don't want to speak publicly of a potential merger right now. They know that would trigger heavy pushback from alumni who fear the university they graduated from would be losing its identity. Look at the pushback at UA about something as simple as changing the name. This could be a real problem if the biggest donors objected and cut back on their financial support. It's much, much smarter to take it slowly a step at a time. Educate the public that the survival of some Ohio universities is at stake if the financial situation is not resolved. Start with something simple, non-controversial and non-identity threatening such as combined purchasing. Put it in place, document money saved and report that out to the public. Then pursue similar areas that save money and make all of the cooperating institutions financially stronger. After proving that works, do a study projecting how much more could be saved by a full merger and how that would enhance the longterm viability of the universities.

Merger/consolidation is a long-term option worth consideration at some point. In addition to the Columbus Dispatch article I previously linked to regarding the new presidents of UA, Can't and YSU meeting to discuss partnership possibilities, I found another story on the subject. For the present the focus is on cooperating in specific areas such as purchasing. While there are no immediate plans to move beyond that, the following could obviously change in the future depending on circumstances: University Presidents Discuss Possibilities For Partnerships

Thanks for fact-checking me, Skip. I like to be as accurate as possible and appreciate added input. When I originally looked at the numbers I even checked to see what fields the games were played on and didn't just go by who was listed as the home team. The schedule and box score didn't indicate a rainout for the Diamond Classic.

Good interview with Pluto. That sounded like an audio version of our ZN.o conversations with the language cleaned up. Puts it all in proper perspective. That won't stop the biggest opponents of athletic spending at UA from protesting. They'll just want to drop further down the college football chain to the least expensive option or drop football completely. They exist at every university that isn't bringing more money in from sports than is going out. They tend to get the most media attention in times of financial distress. This is all understandable because the primary purpose of institutions of higher learning is ... (drum roll) ... higher learning. Many people have traditionally believed that athletic competition has a role in higher education. But there's always been a debate about how big that role should be and there always will be. Nothing wrong with a healthy debate as long as it remains focused on facts.

Skip, I just double-checked. Again I went to GoZips.com, Sports, Men's Sports, Baseball, Schedule to get this season's results, then Archives for last season's results. On the 2013-14 Schedule it shows the Diamond Classic for Kids on Friday, May 16, 2014, at Can't. In the box score it says the game was played at Schoonover Stadium with attendance of 127. Looking closer, that game was at noon and there was a second game the same day at 6 p.m. The box score for that one says it was also at Schoonover Stadium with attendance of 564. Since I didn't attend the games all I can go by are the posted results. Further update -- This 2015 story says:

I vote for CK to be AD of ZN.o, an internet sports forum where fans can vent their spleens and talk trash to each other with no real-world repercussions. Oh, I guess he already is.

Good question. The only game this season at Canal Park was against Can't and the announced attendance was 1,265. The next day's game against Can't at Lee R. Jackson Field drew 311. The one at Canal Park was the annual Diamond Classic for Kids charity game. Last season the Zips played 3 games at Canal Park against Canisius, Youngstown State and Wright State, which respectively drew 87, 96 and 109 spectators for an average attendance of 98 per game. Last year's Diamond Classic for Kids, played at Can't, drew a crowd of 127.

The Zips backcourt could be pretty amazing considering it consists of 2 freshmen and 2 sophomores. We know how good Noah was as a true freshman and I think there's a chance that Josh could be every bit as impressive. Bull and Jimond just might challenge for best backup backcourt duo in Zips history, at least in my recollection. They still have to prove it on the court in real games, but I'm having a hard time not getting excited about what we're going to see from the Zips guard rotation this season. I agree it's likely that two of the three freshmen frontcourt players will redshirt due to lack of available PT. Peter certainly has great credentials out of HS. But then so do Daniel and Emmanuel. We'll have to see who makes the quickest transition from HS to D-I college level ball.

I'm really surprised to see that jupitertoo, our resident UA faculty member on this forum who never fails to remind us how superior Ohio University is to UA, hasn't had anything to say about Academic Partnerships. It turns out that OU beat UA to the punch and signed a deal with Academic Partnerships way back in 2008. I would have expected jupitertoo to jump in here and tell us how partnering with Academic Partnerships was yet another area in which OU is superior to UA. I can't really find out a lot about how well the deal is going as I haven't been able to find much recent news about it or even if the deal is still in place. But the original deal was with the OU School of Nursing, and it was supposed to run through the year 2028. So if jupitertoo or anyone else has any information on how OU benefited from the deal and whether it's ongoing, that would be helpful in evaluating what we might expect to happen at UA. For those who might be interested, a copy of OU's contract with Academic Partnerships is available online. It's part of a 2012 story in The Texas Observer entitled Randy Best Is Going to Save Texas’ Public Universities, Or Get Rich Trying. At the end of the story is a world map with markings for all the sites of Academic Partnership's deals at the time the article was written (map link here). On each of the map's site marks you can click on it for specific information about each deal. Clicking on the OU site brings up the Academic Partnership contract (contract link here). Also I just discovered that you can now read The Chronicle of Higher Education story on UA that ZippyRulz linked to by going through Google search's cache feature. It turns out that the UA deal is also going to be for the School of Nursing ("he hopes to generate income by ballooning a popular undergraduate nursing program from a few dozen students to a few thousand"), so that would be similar to OU's deal and make the OU contract worth reading for those interested in fine details. It's a long story that can't be reproduced here without copyright violation. I've now copied and saved a text file for myself in case the cache gets shut down. Anyone else without a subscription who's interested should grab it fast (Google cache link here).

When I tried to introduce OOC SOS into the conversation the OP told me I was off topic. So I'm just trying to stay within the narrow topic defined in the first post as best I understand it. I've said in the past that I would be in favor of trading a couple of the easier home games for a couple of tougher road games as that would give the Zips a chance to build a better overall SOS and RPI.

The original point of this thread was home OOC scheduling. Road OOC scheduling is a separate issue. There's not nearly as big a problem scheduling tougher road games as there is attracting better opponents to the JAR. The Zips coaching staff was delighted to find a quality mid-major willing to sign up for a home-away series when they inked the 4-year deal with Tennessee State. They would like to find more similar teams willing to do that but continue to be turned down. All the people I know who are closer to the team than me believe that is true. But if some folks on here refuse to believe that and continue to believe that the Zips either aren't trying hard enough or aren't trying at all, then there's really no need to try to have a conversation about it. If you don't trust anyone on the Zips coaching staff to tell the truth, there's no way to prove it and it becomes pure speculative opinion that can never be resolved. Merriam-Webster definitions: pessimism -- an inclination to emphasize adverse aspects, conditions, and possibilities optimism -- an inclination to put the most favorable construction upon actions and events

One thing that can be read into a sport that only averages about 250 spectators even with free admission is that there's simply not a lot of interest from either students or the general public. Certainly no one can use the excuse that they can't afford to attend. The top 50 schools in attendance, mostly in the sunbelt, all average over 1,300 spectators according to the NCAA report.

At least we have an official Zips roster to look at now, and Little Bull hasn't gotten any bigger and Big Dog hasn't gotten any smaller. 2015-16 Men's Basketball Roster

Unless someone has actually been a fly on the wall watching the Zips coaching staff's efforts to schedule higher level opponents to play at the JAR, all the opinions here are based on assumptions. If you assume the best then the coaching staff is working their butts off against really tough odds. If you assume the worst then the coaching staff is either a bunch of lazy, incompetent bums or they're deliberately not trying to schedule tough home opponents to try to fatten up that 20+ win record. The one thing we know for sure is who the optimists and pessimists are.

Ndour gets a story in the New York Post: Meet the undrafted rookie who has a shot to stick with Knicks

Cleveland.com reported back in 2011 that Cuyahoga Community College, like the University of Toledo, dropped plans to partner with Academic Partnerships over concerns of diluting academic quality and damaging the institutions' reputations: Tri-C suspends plan for online course following faculty opposition

I'm not a subscriber, but the part you can read says: Back when I was researching Dr. Scarborough's background, I stumbled across some information about his connection with Randy Best's Academic Partnerships that I shared in two posts in the "University of Akron president is Dr. Scarborough" thread. I urge everyone with the slightest concern about UA's future to go back and read those two posts here and here. I'll just quote below from the opening of my first post and conclusion of my second post to give you an idea of what to expect:

I don't really care about BGSU's take, but there's an interesting link to a Columbus Dispatch article that I don't recall seeing before: Youngstown State, Can't State, University of Akron could consolidate some services, presidents say

Controversy sells.

Bingo. Now where did I hear that before ...

Ada Zip is a passionate Zips basketball fan who's as frustrated with the team's inability to lure more highly rated teams to the JAR as are members of the Zips coaching staff who continue to try to make it happen.

Further proof of the following:

Nick may not be playing for the Knicks, but the MAC player who is playing for the Knicks is making a big impression: Maurice Ndour explodes for 23 points in Knicks OT win

Coach Dambrot will not publicly call out all the good teams he's tried to attract to play at the JAR as he still holds out hope of attracting them in the future and doesn't want to burn any bridges. GoZips spoke the truth earlier in this thread. As for UDM, the Titans hold a home scheduling advantage over Akron in that the Detroit area is a large, fertile, urban area for HS players being recruited by visiting teams. Yet they still regularly end up with home game D-I cream puffs in addition to D-II and NAIA teams. Last season Detroit hosted 12-21 South Alabama (RPI 296) and 9-23 South Florida (RPI 268). Two seasons ago they hosted 8-22 Florida Atlantic (RPI 272) and 5-25 Bethune-Cookman (RPI 346). This season's home OOC SOS schedule may look a little better on paper right now, but we won't really know how strong all those teams are until this season has played out.