Dave in Green

Footballscoop obviously has a good UA source as they were the first to nail the Ianello firing, so they have big creds with me. I'll just repeat here what I said in an earlier post: Tressel may not be the greatest college football coach in America. But he is without question the best proven college football coach who would even have the slightest chance of considering coming to Akron for what UA can afford to pay.

I believe this may have been the first game of his career where Zeke had the most minutes played of any Zips player. The 29 minutes he played was 2 minutes less than the 31 he played against Duquesne. But the PT for the other players was so spread around that Zeke ended up with the most. Averaging 30 minutes per game over the last two games shows what Zeke is capable of doing when he's not in foul trouble. He appears to be in great physical condition. It would be spectacular if Zeke could average 30 minutes per game for the rest of the season. Zeke is not only more aggressive on the floor this season, he's also more assertive on the bench. At one point early in the game when Zeke was resting on the bench, he jumped up thinking he was going back in the game. KD appeared to tell him to sit back down and rest a little more, and Zeke appeared to be arguing with KD about wanting to go back in. Zeke finally sat down but didn't appear happy. When he did get back in, he took his unhappiness out on Detroit. This is a much different Zips team from any I've seen in the past in more ways than I can count. Even KD looks different on the sidelines. There appears to be less chewing out of players for mistakes and more words of encouragement, and players are not jerked out the minute they make a mistake. I think KD fully understands the potential of what this group of players can accomplish as a team, and he's adapting his coaching style to get the most out of them.

Right. I've heard it directly from the Zips coaching staff that they consider the wing forward and wing guard to be virtually interchangeable in the Zips system. It doesn't really matter if they're listed as guard or forward. As for the idea of the Zips not really knowing what they have in Gilliam yet, that's true of all the players who've only played a few games for the Zips so far. KD has a reputation for rewarding players who play hard and do well in practice with game PT. It's possible that Gilliam may not be showing all he's got in practice. But everyone who's seen some of his moves knows that he has the talent to be a strong contributor to the team. Let's see where Gilliam is in the rotation after another 10 games or so.

Several things stood out for me: Tree to Harney. If the Zips football team had a passing combination this good, they could have won the MAC. Those two have obviously spent long hours in the gym together. They are going to be an awesome duo for the next 4 years. Harney will get most of the accolades for his soaring and scoring. But Tree's passing is absolutely brilliant. He can wing accurate cross-court bullet passes as well as Rico. He's that rarity of a power forward who can handle the ball. Deji is the real deal. Yes, he made some freshman mistakes. But one 30-second sequence left me in awe. Ray McCallum Jr. is considered a potential NBA talent. At one point, McCallum tried to go one-on-one with true freshman Deji in only his second college game. For 30 seconds, McCallum made move after move to try to get around Deji, and Deji was always between him and the basket. McCallum seemed to lose track of time, and finally had to dump to a teammate who threw up a prayer as the shot clock went off. Deji is destined to become D.J. Cooper's worst nightmare. Deji is going to be a nightmare for every MAC PG for the next 4 years. Deji is a more than adequate backup for Rico. It's going to be hard to keep him off the court. Walsh is an OK backup PG and a great SG. He has a beautiful stroke from any range, and he can make his own space to get those shots off. The situation with Rico that resulted in burning Deji's redshirt may have been a brilliant stroke of luck. With Deji as the backup PG, Walsh will become an even greater contributor to this team. With Deji now in the mix, the Zips have a lot of players who all deserve PT. There's no question now that they are a legitimate 11-deep team. All of these guys can contribute something, and when they are all contributing, they can keep subbing and run another team into the ground. They did run Detroit into the ground tonight. The Detroit players were totally out of gas at the end. Of course, they're only 8-deep due to injuries and suspensions. But even with a couple of more players, they would have been breathing hard. Detroit is loaded with the kind of quick, athletic players that used to run the Zips out of the arena. Not this Zips team. Not by a longshot. This is my kind of team. A bunch of running, passing, jumping, shooting athletes. Many of them are still pretty raw. But they still have the ability to take down teams that previous Zips teams couldn't hang with. Anyone who doesn't have a season ticket to all the home games is really missing something special. These guys are really entertaining to watch, and by the end of the season they could be among the top teams in the country. They really do have that potential in spite of those two painful losses in Valparaiso. I don't think they will be embarassed in West Virginia. EDIT: Just noticed in the stats that even without Rico playing, 10 Zips players played 9 or more minutes. With Rico, they truly are an 11-deep team.

You think UA didn't do a thorough economic analysis of the cost of the buyout vs. the cost of continuing to lose games and paying fans? Okey-dokey. Listen, the cost of an Ianello buyout has been a popular subject of discussion on ZN.o for months. A month ago, when many on ZN.o were saying UA would never eat a significant portion of Ianello's contract, I posted a dissenting opinion here. A few days ago a link to the contract was posted, and when some were still saying it was too rich to eat, I simply pointed out that it would not be as costly as some were thinking. It was a typical forum discussion that some found interesting and others didn't. There's no reason for anyone to obsess over it, pro or con.

Keep us posted. I think that there were a sizable number of people who didn't think Proenza would pull the plug on Ianello this year. I thought it would be another year because of mone not because Ianello deserved another. Proenza has reached despararation to do this now. He has to make some sort of a splash with the next hire or the program becomes moribund. Anybody know what names were recommended when Ianello was hired? One of my sources heard it directly from Dr. Proenza's mouth that he wanted to give Ianello another year. But that was a few weeks ago before the last embarassing losses. That's why I added a statement at the end of my post that ZipRoo somehow left out:

I'm fine with the decision. But the timing stinks. I could not imagine UA officially announcing this prior to Coach Ianello's mother's funeral on Monday. But that's just me. It's a tough business. Everyone else feel free to party.

I didn't want to be the first to say it. But since it has now reached the infallible world of Twitter, I'll add that while I'm hearing mixed responses from a number of private sources, the consensus seems to be that Ianello gets one more year to prove whether or not he can turn the program around. If the original Football Scoop rumor was wrong, the best explanation I've heard is that Football Scoop's source at UA heard Tuesday morning that Ianello's regular Tuesday press conference was cancelled, and interpreted that to mean that he was being fired without knowing that the real reason was the passing of Ianello's mother earlier Tuesday. Note that there have been no new media rumors citing any new sources, but only vague references to the original Football Scoop rumor. But none of my sources know anything with 100% certainty. It's still all speculation, even though some are a little closer to the situation than others. So continue to take everything you hear with a grain of salt and wait for Tuesday.

No. 7 Louisville squeaks past Ohio

Bring back the defective remote control car!

I had totally overlooked Q's 9 assists against Duquesne. That's really impressive. It looks as if his shooting may have suffered in that game due to being more focused on dishing. One of the toughest things about playing PG is picking when to dish and when to shoot. Q has the ability to go to the basket so well that he has the potential to really mess with his defender by first doing a lot of passing and then unexpectedly taking it into the paint. The team really needs him to come through as the primary PG, and I'll bet he's up to the responsibility, though it may take some time for everyone to get in synch. But having a 6-6 PG alongside another tall SG could cause a lot of matchup problems for other teams. The Zips are fortunate to have a multi-talented player like Q on the roster.

Even if the odds of a win are reduced, it doesn't reduce my anticipation of the bus trip to WV. As Quickzips noted, this will be a chance to see how the team responds to adversity. GoZips has already told us Q should be the 6th man because he is versatile enough to run the point among other things. We'll see how good he is against Detroit and WV. Maybe something really special happens here.

Should UA ever choose to eat any part of any coach's contract, it will have an economic impact on all Zips sports programs. Personally, I'm concerned about understanding all the potential implications, and everything being discussed here is in the public domain. Anyone who isn't interested in this can just skip right over it, as we all skip over some of the posts we consider to be irrelevant to our own personal interests.

Since Hilltopper has apparently missed the political comments in this thread, I'll just copy one of his previous posts here:

Should he leave UA, it's debatable if another university would be able to hire Ianello as an assistant at a low-ball salary. If more than one school wants his services, his salary would likely be bid up to normal levels. He still has his 21-year reputation as a top recruiter at Alabama, Wisconsin, Arizona and Notre Dame. An experienced top recruiter might expect to earn an annual salary in the $150-250k range at a high-level program. As I mentioned previously, the lowest-paid assistant at Oklahoma makes $250k+. A closer look at the contract's $381k compensation package plus variable supplemental compensation reveals that if Ianello were to leave UA, he would likely only be owed base pay for the remainder of the contract: $300k base pay. $50k for media work (voided by failure to do media work for UA after leaving UA). $25k footwear, equipment & apparel contracts (voided by no longer publicly displaying sponsor products on the field at UA games after leaving UA). $6k club membership (voided by no longer being eligible for local club membership as a UA representative after leaving UA). All variable supplemental compensation (voided by no longer performing duties required to earn supplemental compensation). Bottom line is that if he were to leave UA, he would likely be owed $300k for each of the remaining years of his contract. If he earned $200k from another school, which is not unreasonable, UA would only owe him $100k per year, or 1/3rd of his annual base salary.

Now we can officially kiss any NCAA tournament at-large bid goodbye. With the suspension and injuries, the Zips can be expected to lose a number of games they might have otherwise won. They can still be really good by the end of the season.

I wonder what the scores of all the other games would have been if Brian Wagner had been on the sidelines with an injury?

Everyone should also do a little research on Ianello's assistant coaching record before guessing what level of salary he'd be likely to pull down as an assistant at a major program if he were to leave his head coaching job at Akron. The man has 21 years of experience as an assistant at Alabama, Wisconsin, Arizona and Notre Dame. Regardless of what anyone here may think of his recruiting abilities, he's widely recognized by his peers as being darned good at it. And his lack of success as a head coach will have no bearing on his value as an assistant doing what he has already proven he can do well. A lot would depend on where he landed. At Oklahoma, for example, the lowest paid assistant makes more than $250k annually. A realistic estimate of his value as an assistant at a major program would likely start in the $200k range.

Yeah, in that thread I compared signing Ianello to rolling the dice, and so far they keep coming up snake eyes.

"This is not a rebuilding job. The cupboard is full." To paraphrase President Roosevelt after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor: A quote which will live in infamy. Honestly, based on the results of the last two seasons, this simple statement stands as a damning indictment of someone's ability to evaluate existing player talent, the ability of the new coaching staff to properly make use of that talent, or some combination of the two. There's just no other way to get from a full cupboard to 2-22.

Just posted this in another thread, and thought it would be appropriate to also have in this thread: Mrs. Rita A. Ianello's funeral services will be held on Monday.

Pretty interesting to go back and see what we were all thinking back at the beginning. I thought I laid out a pretty fair scenario on a potential Ianello path to success. Only problem is, nothing after the "If" in the second paragraph has come to fruition after two full years.

Mrs. Rita A. Ianello's funeral services will be held on Monday.

Gaffney reported the rumor near the end of this story.

It's beyond funny and it's beyond painful. After awhile they both just turn into numbness.