Dave in Green

Only if you have a poor grasp of the English language or are trying to live up to your screen name. Nothing in my comments came close to implying there wouldn't be any ramifications. UA is in a situation that's been building for years where it had to take corrective action, and any corrective action would inevitably produce ramifications to varying degrees with different constituencies. Baseball fans are unfortunately among those who happened to come out on the short end of the corrective actions that were deemed least unacceptable under the circumstances. Let's be realistic. Listing all of the worst imaginable ramifications doesn't mean they're likely to happen to any great degree.

I don't see how any news story could possibly be more negative than some of the stuff being speculated on these forums. Might as well throw in some speculation that NASA thinks there's a chance the next big asteroid to strike earth might hit in the center of the UA campus.

UA obviously doesn't plan to gut the arts and sciences when the following is prominently posted on the UA website:

I wouldn't worry about basketball as it's prominently featured on the big chart of UA strengths on Dr. Scarborough's office wall. Football is a giant conundrum. While it hasn't traditionally been a UA strength, it represents by far the biggest athletic financial investment and also tends to draw the most external financial support. The recent investment in new facilities cannot easily be written off. I would imagine that Dr. Scarborough understands that Coach Bowden is the best hope UA has to produce some return on the facilities investment, and is therefore willing to give him a fair chance to turn things around. We all need to hope that Coach Bowden and company can move Zips football onto the UA strengths chart.

If it's not true, then Dr. Scarborough just announced UA's withdrawal from the MAC.

Dr. Proenza didn't get it all right. Dr. Scarborough isn't getting it all right. Jim Tressel wouldn't have gotten it all right. The only folks who get it all right are the critics. What we really need is a critic for UA President.

Horrible luck. Sixers' Richaun Holmes fractures elbow vs. Jazz

I think it's safe to say that Dr. Scarborough would be comfortable saying he wouldn't have hired that coach.

Sunbelt schools definitely have an advantage in outdoor sports like baseball. Sunbelt teams have dominated baseball's College World Series in recent years. That makes indoor sports like basketball all the more important for snowbelt schools.

I don't think there'll be enough time on the radio interview to cover all the questions this brings up.

It was at one time, but it's now optional in the MAC. UA will be the first MAC school to opt out. It will be interesting to see if other MAC schools that need to cut costs follow suit.

The budget situation was going to have to be corrected whether or not there was a rebranding.

Outsourcing isn't always a disaster, but the disasters make the news and can be pretty disgusting. Michigan privatized dining services in its prison system, which has produced a number of cringeworthy stories such as Aramark employees having sex with inmates, maggots found in food, etc. Someone at UA is going to have to be responsible for keeping a close eye on the dining services outsource company to make sure corners aren't cut.

Outsourcing dining services would suggest at least one place where non-faculty staff positions might be cut. Read between the lines in some of the other bullet points. Assuming that the athletics department had to share in the overall pain, can anyone think of a more likely thing to cut than baseball? The team is fairly large compared to some other sports and racks up a fair amount of travel expenses for all the away games. Zips baseball also doesn't have the winning tradition of the soccer or basketball teams, and the games draw small crowds. I hate to see UA lose any sport, but this seems to be the most logical.

I don't think there's any surprise in the fact that people routinely misconstrue the actions and motives of others. We have a tendency to assume that others fit a set of familiar blueprints by which we can interpret and predict their thoughts and actions. While we all may share some common traits to varying degrees, there are real differences in individuals. When we're surprised by someone it's just a sign that our assumption glands were working overtime. Age and experience can help generate varying degrees of wisdom to counter our worst assumptions. There will be fewer surprises in our lives if we come to believe in the old saying, never say never and never say always.

Great opportunity for @PresScarborough to be asked to fully explain “I would not have built that stadium.”

After considering the grain of salt that Mo's piece sounds as if it was polished by a professional, like maybe someone in LeBron's camp, I still like it. What I really like about The Players Tribune is that it doesn't leave out anything that might be deemed "not pertinent" by a writer or cut out by an editor for lack of space. For some reason I always liked Mo as a person even though I didn't know him other than what I saw on TV and in news stories. I got that same feel from this piece. Glad to have him back in NEO. I think he will help produce better results than the professional analysts give him credit for because he's good chemistry for the Cavs.

OK, here's a reality check. These numbers are a few years old now, so maybe someone wants to take the time to dig a little deeper for more recent numbers. But these at least give a ballpark estimate of 1-AA (FCS) football budgets compared with UA's 1-A (FBS) budget. There's not a lot to be saved if the Zips were to be properly funded to be a consistent winner in FCS. UA would have to maintain roughly the same budget (minus 22 scholarships) to have a top 10 FCS budget. Top 10 FCS Football Budgets (Fiscal Year 2011) South Alabama $5,963,648 Delaware $5,661,455 Villanova $5,363,135 Furman $5,306,599 Liberty $5,273,826 Fordham $5,113,173 Samford $5,074,283 Montana $5,023,393 Old Dominion $5,020,385 Richmond $5,010,248 UA Football Expenses 2009-10 $5,738,172

Trading 22 football scholarships for a 5% across the board tuition decrease and funding 1,000 full tuition scholarships for high ability students sounds to me like the biggest miracle since The Feeding of the 5,000 with 5 barley loaves and 2 small fish.

If it gets any worse it will be the end of times for UA.

Appointing UA's CFO interim AD will give Dr. Scarborough a detailed analysis of UA's athletic financial situation on which to move forward.

Ada Zip, if you really believe that Detroit's OOC schedule is that much better than UA's, I respect the fact that you're prepared to continue defending your opinion. I'm going to stick with the most widely accepted common measure, which is OOC SOS. At the end of this season when all the RPI and SOS numbers are finalized, I'll accept those numbers as the final measure of which team had the tougher OOC schedule.

For everyone who relied on StatSheet.com to get basketball stats, say bye-bye. They got so good at what they did that they turned into a professional, paid service company and are no longer available to fans. If anyone finds a suitable replacement, please share the link.

Richaun Holmes nearly puts up double-double in summer league win

ZZZips, that's why I said "reported." Here's what we know for sure: 2014-15 seniors Richaun Holmes, Jehvon Clarke, Anthony Henderson and Damarkeo Lyshe used up their eligibility and are gone. 2015-16 seniors Jovan Austin, Delvin Dickerson and Chauncey Orr are reported by all sources to have transferred and are no longer on the official BG roster. ESPN's Jeff Goodman included on his early list of BG transfers Zack Denny, Josh Gomez, Spencer Parker and J.D. Tisdale, but those 4 players all still currently show up on BG's official 2015-16 roster. So they apparently lost 7 players rather than 11. Perhaps the worst blow was losing a high-major freshman talent who could have had a big impact in the MAC. Brady Ernst, a 3-star 6-9 power forward was ready to sign with BG until Coach Jans had his big oops. With Jans out, Ernst was nabbed instead by the Big 12's Iowa State. Here's what Ernst had to say: Anyway, my point was that BG will likely be one of the weaker teams on Detroit's schedule. If the Zips scheduled an equivalent OOC team to the 2015-16 Falcons, some folks on this forum would grumble about the weak opponent. So I question holding them up as a shining example. I haven't taken the time to analyze the 2015-16 editions of the other mid-majors on Detroit's schedule.