Dave in Green

Really? You really believe that Jim Tressel will be selected as the next president of UA because he's most likely to get a new basketball arena? You really believe that this is the top priority at UA? Really?

Skip, Zips basketball may be our primary focus, but that would only account for less than 20 days per year. It's the use for the other 345 days each year that will make or break this project. I'd say that it would be smart not to promote this as a "sports complex," but rather an entertainment complex designed to bring a variety of events of interest to all citizens and not just sports fans. The city and county would benefit from more money spent locally on events that would otherwise be held outside the city and county, so I see them taking the lead on selling this to other downtown businesses and taxpayers as an investment that will benefit everyone.

Sounds like a really well thought-out plan that's been developed over years. The partnership between UA, Summit County, City of Akron and Development Finance Authority assures that everyone's onboard with a master plan. The 8,500-9,000 capacity sounds just right for a downtown facility in Akron, not too small and not too large. Zips basketball takes first priority on dates, with the facility available at other times for all kinds of events, which will benefit the general public in and around Akron. Looking at an aerial view, the location is about as good as it gets for a just slightly off-campus arena. Those coming from the main campus in poor weather can take the enclosed skywalk from Wolf Ledges Parkway across the railroad tracks, continue through the College of Business Administration and through the enclosed skywalk to the West Campus Parking Deck. I would expect the parking deck to be connected to the new arena by a new enclosed skywalk. I wonder how long we'll have to wait to see a proposed floor plan?

Every university that has selected a non-traditional president has resulted in some protests resulting in some negative media. There's absolutely no reason why UA should be any different. Here's just one of many examples of a similar situation: Mitch Daniels Protested As Purdue University's Next President By Students, Faculty, Alumni

A veteran educator with a doctorate and experience as a provost and VP of academic affairs is the traditional profile of candidates for university presidency, so the two outside candidates are both qualified in the traditional sense.

UNLV is loaded with quality PGs and out of scholarships, so I wouldn't worry about a couple of diehard local fans of Noah wishing he could stay in Las Vegas. Boston College remains UA's primary known rival for Noah's services. Due to transfers, the Eagles are down to just one PG on their roster -- 6-4 junior Olivier Hanlan, the team's best returning player. They could use a backup PG and have three scholarships to give. BC fan discussions show they understand that it's late in the recruiting process to find high-ranked players available. Some are OK with Noah as a backup to Hanlan but question if he could ever be a starter in the ACC and wonder why their main recruiting competitor is lowly Akron. I'm sure that Jim Christian is looking for an ACC-level PG. But since he recruited Noah at OU, that would be a logical fallback if no higher-rated PG is available.

The DW13/KP16 quick stats do not speak for themselves. They require interpolation: 1. The Zips running game was more effective last season, so there was a more balanced pass-run offense contributing to fewer passes thrown and fewer overall passing yards.. 2. Looking at yards per pass completion, KP16 outperformed DW13, 10.8 to 10.4. 3. On ratio of touchdown passes to interceptions, KP16 trailed DW13 only slightly, 1.40 to 1.56 -- roughly the difference of a single interception for the whole season. 4. KP16's pass completion percentage was negatively impacted by his ankle injury, which forced him to throw the ball out of bounds many times because he couldn't evade pass rushes and buy time to find an open receiver. When all circumstances are factored in, KP16 wasn't nearly as far off DW13 as a quick glance at the raw numbers might indicate.

"Defending the status quo" is your interpretation. If you'd like to point out the exact words you're interpreting that way, I'll give you my interpretation.

Saw it. Should have acknowledged it. Thought it deserved discussing in more detail plus a link.

I've read all the posts. It's a typical point-counterpoint sports discussion. KP16 has shown so far that he's good but not great. None of the backup QBs have yet shown that they're any better. It's possible that one of the backups might show more sometime between now and the end of the season. It's more likely that KP16 will remain the starter and continue to improve with more experience.

Me neither. Of course, I haven't yet seen anyone getting defensive or suggesting to stay the course. I have seen some people looking at the record of the former ACC starter and noting that there's nothing obvious to indicate he's a slam dunk upgrade. Just as no one is suggesting that the Zips should turn down any opportunity to improve the team at any position, likewise no one should suggest that anyone transferring from a higher-ranked conference is necessarily an automatic upgrade. We should all be open to the possibility that KP16 may or may not be the Zips' best available option, and trust Coach Bowden to make the right decision when the time comes. Of course, we do have a forum member living in the heart of ACC Land who has some pretty strong opinions about various football options, so it will be interesting to see if he has any predictions about whether or not the former ACC starter is likely to be the great QB savior for Zips football.

Hard to believe, but lowly San Jose State today got a verbal from a PG ranked higher than Noah -- 6-2 Darryl Gaynor Jr. from Las Vegas Durango HS. Gaynor is a composite 2.7-star PG while Noah is a 2-star. But since we don't pay no attention to no steenkin' star rankings at ZipsNation, we'd be just fine with Nevada's HS player of the year (Noah), What this probably means is that Noah is less likely to select San Jose State, which should help increase the Zips' odds of landing him.

Any player who really wants to play would be tempted to transfer if they thought they were destined to sit at the end of the bench and that they would have a better opportunity to play at another school. It happens all the time in college basketball. It happened to an entire recruiting class at UA -- Dakotah Euton, Josh Egner and Michael Green.

Per the ESPN story linked above, Pete Thomas did not exactly have inspiring performances for NC State last season that would lead one to believe he'd be a major upgrade over KP16: His career stats, which include 22 touchdowns and 30 interceptions, are here.

Leave it to Dr Z to get the definitive medical report. Thanks for checking and letting us all know.

Zip Watcher, when you go back to edit the chart after it becomes official which of the 14 players listed will be getting the 13 scholarships, the out-of-date words accompanying the chart could also stand a little updating. For those who can't get enough Zips basketball player charts, the one on VerbalCommits is worth bookmarking. It not only keeps track of all the current players, but also those who've transferred and those being recruited. It's not perfect, as it shows Jonas Stalyga as a scholarship player currently enrolled when he was actually a walk-on who is currently a walk-off. But most of the other info is pretty accurate. If you put your cursor over a player's name, details pop up. One interesting point is the composite star rating for each player. We all know the star ratings are sometimes wildly inaccurate. For example, they show Tree and Luke Avsec both as 2-star players. In fact, 2-star appears to be the lowest rating given to any player, and all but 3 Zips show up with 2-star ratings out of HS. The highest rated Zip out of HS is Reggie with 3 stars, followed by Pat with 2.7 and BJ with 2.3.

Jimond plays today with other area HS stars in the 3rdCoastHoops All Star Game at Euclid HS. Also check out this video of the 3rdCoast Hoops slam dunk session, with the final two being none other than Tree and Jimond:

I have a hunch that Coach Dambrot sees something special in Antino. I have to go back and read Antino's tweets every day because they say a lot about who he is. Just looking at his last three tweets gives you an idea that he is not the laid-back casual type when it comes to basketball: Nice pic with that last tweet.

GP1, multiple causation is a philosophical principle which is only tangential to statistics.

Anyone who thinks any single factor makes the difference is usually wrong because it almost always takes a number of factors working together in different proportions to turn a program around. For example, those who would say a new coach made all the difference by himself might be ignoring that it took a savvy AD to go after that coach and it took an infusion of additional funding and better facilities to convince that coach he had the resources to attract higher level players. In the case of BGSU, the infusion of money came first, starting three years ago with the first $10 million and continuing with the recent announcement of an additional $10 million. They gave Orr a chance to work with that and he couldn't move the needle, so the AD went after a higher-level coach. How much did that multimillion-dollar war chest influence Jans to leave a proven winner to take over a long-losing program at a school without a big, enthusiastic basketball fan base? If BGSU truly turns around their basketball program, the most accurate analysis would be one that calculates the contribution of all the individual factors -- XX% money, XX% facilities, XX% AD, XX% coach, etc., etc., with all factors together adding up to 100%.

Elton has a few different quotes from Coach Dambrot about Antino and Jimond in this story.

There are some interesting comments about Antino in this article, along with some comments about Jimond and Coach Dambrot's ability to find diamonds in the rough.

Other than the warm weather, metro San Jose doesn't do much for me, either. But it's part of Silicon Valley, which is the South Bay portion of the San Francisco Bay Area. Let's just say that area is more glamorous than Northeast Ohio.

Noah's latest tweet seems to differ a little from what his HS coach was quoted saying in today's story about Akron, Boston College and San Jose State being his main focus:

My mistake -- jupitertoo is correct. The endowment was doubled from $10 million to $20 million. I usually do a better job of reading all the details. They've had access to the $10 million endowment over the last three seasons, and so far team results have shown no great improvement. It remains to be seen if replacing Orr with Jans will finally get the ball rolling.