Dave in Green

My understanding is that the Zips were not "given" Princeton, but that the coaching staff went out and arranged this game after the Marshall scheduling conflict came up. However it came about, it will be a good exercise to go up against a methodical, disciplined offense like Princeton runs. Since Northwestern runs a similar style of offense, the Zips will have a chance to demonstrate that they learned something from their close NIT loss last season.

Don't forget the Pat Forsythe factor. It would be a travesty if Forsythe doesn't get his NCAA hardship exemption, based on his well-documented and entirely worthy family situation. If the NCAA denies this request, I will join GP1 in declaring that the NCAA doesn't have a clue and needs to be replaced by something with a pulse. Without Forsythe, this season's edition of the Zips still has the potential to be the best-ever UA men's basketball team. With Forsythe, they become something special. How many college teams in the country have two 7-footers with this much talent? The potential is there for greatness. The problem is that every season a fair number of teams assemble potentially great lineups, and only a small percentage live up to their full potential. If this season's Zips team doesn't get distracted, and if they deliver on their potential, they will capture the imagination and support of Akron and NEO. People in this area are not just looking for a winner, they're looking for a big winner on the national stage.

A good case could be made that a Sweet 16 team returning all of its players deserves an even higher seeding, considering that #11 seeds are generally expected to lose in the first round to the #6 seeds they're matched up against.

You our so smart.

Here are some examples of numbers for you: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, etc.

@skip-zip, I appreciate your explanation, and I appreciate you sharing the opinion of a HS coach. One thing's for sure -- there aren't many sure things when it comes to predicting just how well a HS player will do in college. I'm sure if we could poll every HS coach in NEO that there'd be a wide variety of opinions on just how good they think Forsythe can be in college. I can understand how there would be skepticism about him considering that he was a virtual unknown as a junior in HS and then came out of nowhere to have a spectacular senior season. We're all hoping for the best, and I can't wait to see him with my own eyes going up against Zeke in practice. My memories of Forsythe playing against the Zips at WVU last season is pretty fuzzy, as I was so bummed about making the long trip down there only to see the Zips get blown out that I put most of the game out of my mind.

Maybe he knows there's no way he can live up to that MAC Coach of the Year award, and he's cashing in his chips before they all go poof.

Johnson is ranked the 23rd best Ohio HS senior prospect in the latest Rick Bolus ratings, one spot ahead of Kwan Cheatham, the 6-8 PF from Cincinnati who was discussed earlier in this thread. Even with Pat Forsythe onboard, the focus is still on bigs. Ohio's Top Senior Prospects For 2012-13

Will be interesting to get more details and see if this is the result of petitioning the NCAA for a medical hardship waiver, as four years of eligibility definitely does not fit the standard scenario laid out earlier by InTheZone. However it happened, it's great news for all involved.

The one question I have about Turner's eligibility is whether he might be a good candidate to petition the NCAA for an additional year of eligibility based on not having completely recovered from his gunshot wounds when he first enrolled in college. Talk about medical hardships, this kid was lying near death in a hospital bed not that long before he enrolled in junior college. He may have technically started the NCAA clock ticking. But, realistically, he was still recovering from a near-death experience and was likely not physically recovered enough to play football. Seems to me that the NCAA medical hardship exemption to gain an extra year of eligibility would be a pretty reasonable expectation here.

Don't know that I've seen anyone here say that because a few guys from big name schools transfer here that a winner is assured. But I think we all believe that the more bigger name players the Zips get, the more likely they are to win more games.

University of Illinois comes in at #93 with new head coach John Groce, who will now be ranked not only below his old team (OU) but also below the Zips.

Corsairs would be a well-connected Akron name. Thousands of Corsair fighter aircraft were built by Goodyear in the shadow of the Rubber Bowl during WWII, and the Corsair is generally recognized as the best US Navy fighter of the war. Corsair is also defined as a pirate or a swift pirate ship. Al Davis would have approved.

@skip-zip, I hope you aren't ignoring my previous question to you because you're taking my question the wrong way. You originally said some positive things about Forsythe, then you shared a more negative opinion from your old HS coach friend. I'm just asking which you're trusting more right now -- your original opinion and the opinions of folks like Thad Matta and Bob Huggins or the opinion of your HS coach friend? I'm still planning to attend a Zips practice when Forsythe joins in (which I understand will be after fall classes start) in order to try to get a better handle on what to believe about his abilities.

I was not directly comparing the Zips' situation to LSU's. It was just a random example of a team that has had great success playing two QBs. We don't know that Pohl and Williams are the "same player" because we haven't seen them play for the Zips under game conditions. If Coach Bowden sees in practice that each QB appears to be better at certain aspects of the game than the other, and that they can both produce good results, there's at least a possibility of him playing both QBs. Odds are against it, but it's not out of the question. I'm just saying that if Coach Bowden makes a controversial move like that, I won't be among those second-guessing him.

Right, Jefferson and Lee had two different styles of play. The previous season, Jefferson started in 13 games but shared time with Lee, who got PT in 12 games. No one really knows if LSU would have been better or worse if one of those two had been the only QB to play in every game over two seasons. Point is, the coach thought that, depending on the situation, the team would do better using both QBs rather than just one. The result was that LSU went 24-3 over the last two seasons in the toughest conference in the country (SEC). Two QBs can produce good results, but it's pretty rare. Coach Bowden is one of the few coaches I would have confidence in making it work if he decided it would be a net benefit to the team.

I think of Les Miles and LSU using two quarterbacks and finishing second to Alabama in last season's BCS championship. It doesn't work out that way very often in college football. But the best coaches will make the most of what they've got, and if that's two QBs who can both help the team win by playing, then why not? Two QBs are better than one for LSU

This is really good news. I continue to believe that Egner has the physical tools to be a major contributor to the team, and hope that an extra season might allow him to better develop his all-around performance.

Really good insights on team leadership. I think the prefix "un" may have been inadvertently left off of the word "realistic" in the following statement: ..... while thinking the Zips will make some fantastic leap in just one year is realistic ..... I'd be happy with a moderate leap.

I understood your post the first time. You said your old HS coach friend told you that Forsythe was over recruited in HS and didn't belong at a high major school like WVU. When I said I'd be impressed with your coach friend's evaluation if Forsythe underperformed for the Zips, I meant if he underperformed to your coach friend's expectations -- that is, not up to high major performance level. Again, Huggins not only liked what he saw of Forsythe in HS, he also liked his performance enough against other WVU players that he didn't redshirt him but made him one of the first bigs off the bench as a true freshman. How much weight do you put on your old HS coach friend's evaluation vs. Huggins' evaluation of appropriate talent level for WVU?

Coach Amato is looking and sounding young and energetic for a 66-year-old guy. What a great addition to the Zips' coaching staff.

We all know that there's no perfect rating system, and that one person's "good" is another's "very good." But it's at least worth looking at RPI, because as imperfect as it might be, it's a generally accepted approximate measure of relative team strength and success that relies more on math than feelings. Last season the MAC's average RPI was only 20th best out of 33 D-I conferences (counting independents as a conference), which equates to 40th percentile. Assuming that 50th percentile is the median or about average (half are better and half are worse), the MAC is definitely below average, but still better than more than a third of D-I conferences. On the other hand, the Zips finished the season with an RPI of 60 out of 344 D-I teams, which ranks them in the 83rd percentile. Again assuming that 50th percentile is about average, and that the Zips were worse than 59 teams and better than 283, some will say the Zips are above average (or good) and some will say much above average (or very good). It's also worth noting that while the Zips still trailed teams like Gonzaga and Xavier in last season's final RPI, they were well ahead of Butler and Dayton. What's important now that the Zips have reached this level is to continue improving.

There's a difference between not issuing a public invitation to attend practices and posting guards to ensure that no one happens to wander by. So maybe someone who happens to be on campus during a practice can wander by the stadium and see whether or not they get chased away.

Back on topic with the subject of this thread, I continue to believe that Pat Forsythe's arrival is another sign that the current Zips basketball program is built on both a sound philosophy and process, which will lead to their ultimate goal of winning games in the NCAA tournament.

And there are no books on philosophy? I'm reminded that debating which element is more important in a complex equation that requires all elements to be in alignment in order to achieve success is inevitably an excercise in futility.