Dave in Green

Emotion tends to blur objectivity more when fans are looking at their own team. It's helpful to understand how more neutral observers see your team. Many thanks for everything you've shared with us here, pphilfran. Hope you guys have a great season.

I guess this makes up for the loss to Old Dominion.

Georgetown agrees with LZip that Embick stinks and they're not inviting the Zips back as long as he's head coach.

I thought the following did a good job of explaining why UA couldn't fix things by just cutting or freezing investment: "The new budget was designed to address both key problems: financial shortcomings and persistent enrollment declines. The first you can address through cost reductions, but the second requires enrollment growth. And enrollment growth requires investment. In our new budget, we now have the funds to invest in opportunities to make our University stronger and attract more students."

I wish I knew more but politics isn't one of my favorite subjects to follow these days.

The average daily temperature at the height of summer in Akron and Norman is 84 vs. 96. That's a pretty significant difference in training conditions. At the very least it represents a small edge for the Sooners.

Balsy, as with any wish list, I'd expect some to be prioritized over others with the lowest priority items only being addressed if additional funding is found. Typically items near the bottom of a wish list tend not to happen. Having UA Politics Centers in Columbus and Washington, D.C., could help raise the U's standing with elements of state and federal government as well as enhancing student recruiting. The education landscape is being reshaped by elected officials, and there can be value in having a higher profile in the seats of power where decisions are being made. A sound, well-executed plan could pay dividends.

Quickzips, great to see you back for the first time since last basketball season. Your thoughtful commentary has been missed.

Brady wins, but will case cause others to lose?

Sure, I'd take free recruiting trips to Hawaii, California, Oregon, Florida and Arizona.

But wait, there's more. Other recruiting sites do show Willie making an official visit to UA on Sept. 2 along with the other four schools at later dates, which is in line with what his HS coach said. If he thought enough of UA to make it one of his five official visits even though he could have easily driven here in less than an hour with minimal expenses it seems to indicate he's taking UA as seriously as the out-of-state schools. This Future150 evaluation raves about Willie's talent, ranking him the #93 prospect in the country:

Let's see what the NCAA has to say: There are some other minor technicalities, such as an official visit can't last more than 48 hours whereas an unofficial visit has no time limit and you can make only one official visit to each school but unlimited unofficial visits. But there's nothing related to being exposed to the program that materially differs between official and unofficial visits. With such minimal costs in traveling to Akron, it may have made sense to make any UA visit unofficial and keep one official trip in the back pocket for a possible late candidate school in another state. Of course, no one at UA can officially say anything: So any social media chat or reported sighting of Willie on the UA campus would fall into the category of unconfirmed visit.

A couple of interesting points on that offer list -- former Zips assistant Lamont Paris is the contact at Wisconsin, which Willie said made him his first offer, and Rivals.com lists the official visit dates for the four other schools on his short list of five but not for UA.

Willie's HS coach says he's narrowed it down to five schools, including UA. NCAA recruiting rules state: Even though travel reimbursement to Akron is small compared to more distant schools, he apparently doesn't plan to visit more than the five schools his HS coach cites. So it's not really odd if he made a UA visit official rather than unofficial. The minimal travel reimbursement to Akron would remind his family that travel costs would be small for them to attend Zips games.

Hmm, wasn't Noah committed to Boston College at one point? It appears that if Willie does decide to play close to home where his family can easily drive to all the home games that UA is his first and only choice. Come to think of it, his family would also be within a few hours drive of many of the Zips conference road games. If he ends up at Temple, Boston College, Penn State or Missouri, his family would mostly be watching him on TV.

I'd expect someone who actually played college basketball to be more familiar with the subject at hand. Imagine this. I just checked a few lesser Big Ten team schedules at random to see how many OOC road games they have this season against mid-majors in gyms like the JAR: * Minnesota has no OOC road games; they're all home or neutral site. * Nebraska has 1 OOC road game at Creighton. * Purdue has 1 OOC road game at Pitt. * Northwestern has 2 OOC road games at Virginia Tech and DePaul. That's a total for 4 Big Ten teams of 4 OOC road games, all at high majors in large arenas.

Keener, I was just about to post a link to the current program. The page you linked to is from 2011. UA currently offers a 4-year BS program in political science-criminal justice with 3 different tracks. Hopefully one of those tracks is attractive to Willie.

A quick search shows Willie variously listed at 185, 190, 210 and 215 pounds, so it seems as if he's been on a steady growth diet. This PD story mentions that his very first college offer was from Wisconsin, which speaks volumes about his talent level. Nigel Hayes, who the Zips offered several years ago, has become a star at Wisconsin and helped them get to last season's national championship game. The story also mentions that his planned major (criminal justice) is very important to him. Zips have a fair shot if he wants to stay close to home for his family and if UA has a quality criminal justice program. Bonus points if he's a big LeBron fan.

We're getting close to another tickets sold vs. butts in seats discussion. Has anyone heard about any new plans to try to sell blocks of tickets to sponsors and other groups to pump up paid attendance? I wonder if the new AD is already at work behind the scenes with some quick fix strategies.

Those are also all used as recruiting tools and have also been mentioned in recruit comments to the media and in private, just like the 20+ win streak. No single factor is decisive with every recruit, so it's important to have as many recruiting tools as possible to work with. While it's true that this hasn't yet taken the Zips program to the next level, it has kept the Zips at a remarkably consistent winning level that other similar programs have been unable to achieve. The Zips coaching staff would dearly love to add an NCAA tournament run to their list of recruiting tools.

The fact is that the Zips coaching staff uses the 20+ win streak as a recruiting tool. Noah and other recruits have stated in the media and in private that they care. There's no law that says everyone has to believe this.

As with most everything in life, the 20+ win thing is overrated by some, underrated by some and kept in proper perspective by some. That's why the discussion goes on and on and on.

Expanding on Zip_ME87's perspective post above, from 1955 through 1992, Zips head soccer coaches Stu Parry, Bill Killen, Robert Dowdy and Steve Parker built a consistent winning program that won nearly 70% of its games over those 38 seasons with an average record of about 9.5-4-1. After an inaugural 2-4-1 record in 1955, the Zips have had only one other losing season. That was Parker's final season in 1992 with a disappointing 9-10-0 record. Looking more closely below at the records of the most recent coaches (Ken Lolla, Caleb Porter and Jared Embick) reminds us that it hasn't always been a smooth ride. As much of a winner as Lolla might be remembered he had some mediocre seasons along the way including records of 7-7-3 and 9-9-1. I wonder what Zips soccer fans were saying about Lolla at the time? And even though Porter was the most consistent winning coach it took a couple of seasons for him to really get the Zips going and match or exceed Lolla's final season 18-1-4 record. 14-3-1 (Ken Lolla, 1993-2005) 11-6-1 11-5-2 9-9-1 14-5-2 17-3-1 11-4-2 7-7-3 10-7-1 10-8-2 15-5-2 13-5-3 18-1-4 13-5-1 (Caleb Porter, 2006-12) 15-4-2 17-2-4 23-1-1 22-1-2 15-4-4 18-1-3 17-4-1 (Jared Embick, 2013-2015) 13-6-2 1-1-0

I'll bet a lot of people have friends with TWC!

Zip_ME87, many thanks for the historical perspective.