Dave in Green

As previously discussed, an ice rink requires more floor space than a basketball court, leading to basketball seating being pushed further away from the court. The optimum configuration for basketball viewing is to have seating that comes right down to the edge of the court, and at a steep angle so that you can see over the heads of fans seated in front of you. In order for me to support a multipurpose arena with both a basketball court and an ice rink, I would need to see photos of a current basketball arena which includes an ice rink that is not compromised in a way to diminish the basketball experience by virtue of fans being further away from the court than they are at the JAR.

Zips' RPI took a big leap up after beating Marshall on the road, from #161 before today's game all the way up to #110 after today's win. Marshall's RPI fell from #48 to #75.

Lots of factors in this game. They can all be analyzed in excrutiating detail in the game results at StatSheet.com.

Tree's rebounding was sensational in this game as he grabbed 9 rebounds in only 15 minutes on the floor. The next leading Zips rebounder was the Serb with 5 rebounds in 33 minutes. Tree had nearly 4 times as many rebounds per minute played as the Zips' second leading rebounder. Even more impressive, 8 of Tree's 9 rebounds were at the offensive end. Tree had 8 offensive rebounds in 15 minutes while all the other Zips players together had a total of 4 offensive rebounds in 185 minutes played. That's 8 missed shots where the Zips got a second opportunity thanks to Tree's rebounding. How good is Tree's rebounding so far in his rookie season? His offensive rebound percentage (an estimate of the percentage of available offensive rebounds a player grabbed while he was on the floor) is currently 17.5%. That ranks him 12th in the country among all DI players. Tree's national ranking in offensive rebound percentage is higher than Zeke's national ranking in block percentage. Tree is as much of a beast on the offensive boards as Zeke is at blocking shots on the defensive end.

KD calls the plays. But a called play doesn't always turned out as planned. If the defense does something unexpected, the called play is broken and it's up to the players to improvise. In that case, you'd want the ball in the hands of the player who's shown he's the best at improvisation. Whether it takes a drive the bucket, a pullup jumpshot, or a precision pass to the open man, the called play should put the ball in the hands of the player who's able to do it all. KD needs to find who that player is on the current team.

The only turnover I can remember on the Serb coming upcourt against the press was when the ball was inbounded to Zeke, and as the Serb ran past him, Zeke tried to flip the ball into his hands. The ball bounced off of the Serb's hands for a turnover. The Serb's other 3 turnovers all happened at the other end of the court. Otherwise, when the Serb brought the ball upcourt, the VCU bigs guarding him mostly stayed way off of him because he had already shown he was quick enough to blow right by them. The Serb is not the number one option to bring the ball upcourt, but he's not a bad option in certain situations. KD has said he still doesn't know which players are best to have in the game at crunch time. He's still experimenting to see who steps up big when the game is on the line and the pressure is on. Everyone will get a chance to show what they've got before the season is over.

Whatever I said the last time this debate came up, I'm sticking with it, just like everyone else is sticking with what they said the last time.

It's fun to go back two years when the last discussion about a new head football coach was going on and read what we were saying about Terry Bowden. For example, I was cautious about the idea back then and recommended that UA should do a careful study on why Bowden was not getting more attention from other schools looking for a proven winner. Whatever UA found this time around apparently asnwered those questions. ITZ's Choice for Head Coach

After ruminating on this for awhile, I've decided I really don't like the T-Bow moniker for Terry Bowden. UA has finally gotten a coach whose name resonates at a national level. Why change it to something that only confuses the rest of the country into mixing up an old and respected college coaching name with a trendy young QB who never has and never will have the remotest connection with the Zips? Anyone is free to call Terry Bowden by any nickname they want. But to me he will remain Coach Bowden.

The Zips played a good game against a good team. The Zips were better in some areas of the game and VCU was better in other areas. Both teams made some brilliant plays and some silly mistakes. Either team could have won. You could point to a hundred different things that happened during the course of the game that ultimately made the difference in why the Zips lost by 1 point instead of winning. What I took away from this game is that the Zips would have been much more likely to win if so many players hadn't missed so many games so far this season, disrupting the process of bringing all these players together as a more cohesive team. The games that Tree and Harney missed were especially critical, as they have the talent to be major contributors this season, but they also have the most to learn and can least afford to miss games. Harney, for example, had been averaging more than 20 minutes per game and was the team's leading scorer prior to his suspension. Tonight he looked impressive while on the floor, but only played for 6 minutes. He will need time to get back in synch with his teammates. Had he not been suspended for the 5 games previous to this, he might have made the difference in tonight's game. Bottom line to me is that the Zips have the players to beat teams like VCU the same way they beat Mississippi State. It's just going to take all the players learning from mistakes, keeping everyone eligible and playing together every game, avoiding injuries, and coming together as a more cohesive team. The players have the ability to do it. They have the time to do it during the course of the MAC season. Now they just have to demonstrate that they have the will and the discipline to make it happen by the end of the season when it really counts.

Concerning the report that Bowden "reached out" to Akron: In his press conference Bowden said the first contact between him and UA came when Todd Turner with the search committee called him and told him that UA was interested in him. Bowden said that even before Turner called that UA was one of three or four opportunities that he was interested in. Bowden said Turner invited him up for an interview, and that he was offered the job the day after the interview. So, at least by Bowden's own description, it sounds as if UA reached out and contacted him first. I have also heard that some people in the athletic department are crediting Wistrcill with "working his butt off" to get the Bowden deal done. As with any other situation where we're trying to understand something in which we ourselves were not directly involved, we have to try to make our best guess based on all the data we can find from as many good sources as possible. What I've cited above is certainly not the whole story. But it's what I've seen and heard to date. I'd be interested in learning what others have seen and heard.

The object of football is to score at least 1 more point than your opponent. Doesn't matter if the difference comes from having a better offense or defense than your opponent. It's the combined offense and defense that has to be better. Traditional, hardcore football fans tend to have greater appreciation for shutdown defense, and get excited watching their team play smash-mouth defense and beat an opponent 3-0. Modern, casual football fans tend to have greater appreciation for wide-open offense, and get excited watching their team go back and forth, up and down the field in beating an opponent 63-60. Whatever combination of offense and defense Bowden puts on the field, it's going to have to outscore enough opponents to produce enough wins for fans to consider the Zips to be winners. Given the same number of wins and losses, Bowden's Zips will attract more modern, casual football fans and put more butts in seats at InfoCision Stadium with a wide-open, high-scoring offense than with a shutdown defense.

The following Sporting News story mainly concerns a journeyman player's complaint about U.S. national team coach Jurgen Klinsmann favoring foreign-born players over American-born players. Toward the end Coach Porter and UA are briefly mentioned. It's an interesting discussion that presents both sides of the issue: Journeyman questions Klinsmann's inclusion of 'fake Americans'

Jeff Goodman at CBS Sports likes OU a lot: Ohio is the quietest good team in college hoops

“I’ve talked to a lot of coaches, but we haven’t hired anyone yet. I’m an offensive coach, and we will run the offense that I run. I won’t change it because of the personnel here. Too many coaches try to change things and they find out they don’t know the adjustments. It’s an up-tempo, fast-paced. We’re not going to be in huddle. We’re going to move fast. We’re going to chuck the ball down the field and go. Hold onto your hats.” I LOVE this! An exciting, fast-moving offense.

@johnnyzip84, I think you really nailed it with your observation that UA presents a completely new and different challenge for Bowden. He may very well be up for this kind of challenge. But there's really no direct comparison to the current UA situation in his history of success. I think that we Zips football fans are just so darned tired of losing that we wanted the next coach to be a guaranteed winner. Unfortunately, none of them come with a guarantee. But I do like Bowden's chances. I think a lot will ride on who he's able to bring in as assistants, and how much magic his name will carry with recruits. Bowden is old enough and his family's D-I success so far back that he's likely to connect more with the fathers of recruits, and that might be good enough to influence enough of them to start primimg the pump. The first season is going to be critical. We need to see signs of progress early to start building interest from the next recruiting class.

Discussed at length starting at the top of this forum page: Bucknuts Mentioned near the bottom on this forum page: BuckeyeSports.com

Really nice, detailed analysis of the season to date. I do believe there's more to the definition of "Akron Basketball" than "play hard, play smart, play together." That's really the formula for success in any team sport. I think all coaches teach that basic formula, but each does it in a different way that reflects the coach's personality and philosophy. For example, I think that KD puts a higher priority on personal integrity than some coaches who are more focused on winning at any cost. So, really, it's when you get down to the fine details beyond the basics of playing hard, smart and together that you begin to differentiate one team from another. Whatever the exact definition might be, I think KD's longtime connection with Akron and UA puts him in a special position to define the way the Zips play as Akron Basketball.

This was a hot topic on the tOSU forums a week ago. Remember, Wagner had 15 tackles in the Zips-tOSU game this year, so they had a good opportunity to scout him and evaluate his ability to perform at the level expected of tOSU linebackers.

Since there are so many different things to discuss about Terry Bowden, I thought it might be a good idea to break them down into separate threads. This thread is intended to discuss the type of players Bowden might be recruiting at UA. A good place to start is at his last stop, UNA. The local newspaper there recently had two separate articles that discussed the pros and cons of Bowden's accomplishments at UNA. The biggest pro is that Bowden maintained UNA's winning record. One of the big cons focused on the type of players Bowden was recruiting there. Some people associated with UNA were a little disappointed that Bowden didn't build up the team by recruiting local HS players as UNA had done in the past when they won D-II championships, but that Bowden relied more on D-I transfers. Some of the transfers "had past legal issues or had been dismissed from their previous teams for team rules," according to one of the articles. I don't believe that UA would approve of loading up a Zips team with troubled players. So if it's true that Bowden did that at UNA, he's going to have to recruit a little differently at UA. I'd be interested in hearing what others think after reading the following articles: Bowden leaves some work to do Time for a change Another item describes the high level of player that Bowden was able to attract to UNA, which sounds awfully tempting to those who want the Zips to improve quickly. But the player mentioned, Janoris Jenkins, was dismissed from the Florida Gators for "misconduct": "Bowden is presently running the North Alabama Lions, a Division II operation that functions as a safety net for SEC players who can't quite stick around at the top level. Like Florida Gators star cornerback Janoris Jenkins, a likely first-round NFL Draft pick, for instance." Terry Bowden To Akron Rumors Are A Thing We Must Now Confront

Birmingham (Ala.) News sports columnist John Reimer also wonders why no one else wanted Terry Bowden, and predicts he will do good things for UA: The Hot Corner: Bowden will succeed at Akron

It looks like OU was at full strength tonight with 13 players getting PT. Yet they allowed NCA&T to hang around a lot closer than the Zips did minus Rico, Harney and Egner. An interesting stat is that half of OU's field goal attempts were 3-pointers. They continue to be guard-oriented with Nick Kellogg, Stevie Taylor and Walter Offutt all having good scoring games, and DJ Cooper handing out lots of assists. I would get special satisfaction if the Zips could crush the Bobkitties at least twice this season. There's no question that OU comes into Zips games with an attitude that they're the better team, and that the Zips are not worthy of being in the same league.

Being only 6-feet tall is a huge handicap for an FBS QB, especially one named Moore. Moore has a hard time seeing over the line, and it has obviously affected his passing and winning percentage in college. In his last college game, the 6-foot Moore led Boise State to a 56-24 win over Arizona State in last night's Maaco Bowl to become the first FBS QB ever to win 50 games in a college career. But he also had 3 losses in that 4-year career. Imagine how much Moore could have improved on that 50-3 record if he'd only been tall enough to see over the line. Imagine how some Zips fans might have reacted to Kellen Moore's height had he been recruited by UA.

Didn't get to see the VCU-UNCG game tonight, which VCU won 80-68. But by the looks of the box score, it was fairly even in the stats department with the exception of shooting percentage, where VCU had a substantial 56.3% to 40% advantage. Box Score

Terry Bowden is said to be a great motivational speaker. Motivating Wagner to return to UA for his final season would be a great way to demonstrate that ability. Terry Bowden Public Speaking