MDZip

You not only can spell Ampaipitakwong, you know how to pronounce it too.

He was only talking about the East. But with WMU and Toledo dropping to 7-4, that's what the case is with the West. If either would finish tied with the Zips, the Zips would win the head to head tiebreaker. The worst the Zips could be is 11-5. WMU would have to finish 12-4 to take a seed from them.

Frenchy just said that by Akron winning this game every team but Ohio has been eliminated from winning the East, which also means the only team that could knock the Zips out of a top two seed is WMU and we would have to lose all of our remaining games and they would have to win all of theirs. Toledo is in the same spot but are ineligible for the tournament. Think we can count on a top two seed.

Every starter shot at least 50%. All of the turnovers is what made this game even close.

Didn't know Zeke wore contacts.

Coach Thomas advances to the second round. And David Kool was knocked out in the first round.

I would also think it would be mildly difficult (and probably unfair) to allow Ohio to field a team in both divisions.

Since the Zips joined the MAC in the early 90's, there wasn't a great deal of success early on. I was just on the MAC home page and of the five main stories on the home page, one was the softball player of the week (Akron's Erin Seiler) female track athlete of the week (Brittany Cheese) and the fact that STO added two basketball games to the schedule, both an Akron mens and womens game (the other two stories were on the predicted baseball order of finish and soccer refereeing). Plus, the East female basketball player of the week is Rachel Tecca, last week the men's was Zeke. There is a ton of athletic success at Akron over the last number of years that absolutely did not exist when Akron first joined the MAC (OK, men's soccer was still good). Even in woebegotten football, since the MAC went to divisions 16 years ago, Akron does at least have one championship. Do you know how many Ohio, Can't State and Bowling Green have in that time? None. As good as Ohio and Can't (this year) have been neither has won the MAC football title in over 40 years. Its just pretty remarkable seeing Akron success all over the place like that. Go Zips!

The lowest at large seeds are typically around 11/12. The lowest seeds are the conference champs of the lowest ranked conferences, which means that there are around 18 conferences whose champion would not have had a good enough season to have been selected as an at-large. This is what the MAC has had the last several years with the MAC champ being seeded somewhere between 13 and 15. When you see two teams battling in a 16 play-in game, each of those teams won their conference. There are no at-large bids down that far. The way they have it set now is that 4 16 seeds play for the right to advance as well as the four lowest selected at large teams. If the Zips happen to get in as an at-large this year, they could well be looking at one of those play in matchups.

That would be the gloriously optimistic akzipper. http://zipsnation.org/forums//index.php?s=...st&p=114715 I had no idea - I cheated and used the search function.

Uh-oh, we have some trouble right here in River City. An ESPN article on Chris Obekpa, a shot blocking center for St. John's has the following passage: Obekpa has several nicknames, including "The GameChanger." The moniker is so popular that St. John's is printing T-shirts to sell in bookstores and online with the word "#GameChanger" and an image of a hand -- presumably Obekpa's. Someone get the trademark attorneys on this right now - we had the GameChanger before them.

And that team didn't even the make the NIT, which was the real shame that year. While I certainly hope the Zips can get their RPI in the range for consideration, all I have to say is Missouri State - 21, which was what their RPI was when they were not selected to the tournament in 2006. I think it was a lack of high profile wins that did them in. Anyway, an RPI in the 20's is still no guarantee.

Pretty amazing to see the Zips ahead of BGSU (of course they did beat them). This is the opposite of the mens since most of the strength is in the West (as the only losses the East leader has is to the West). But Akron does bring back a great core next year too, since Carly Young is ready to fill in for Taylor Ruper. Next year looks bright for this team too.

We're not the only one. Ohio only up on BGSU by one at the half.

Agreed. Lots of time (and talent) left in this one.

Not worried yet, but what an awful start. Still better then being down 20 to Buffalo at home. Zips will come back. C'mon Alex time to take over.

They are interviewing Ben Roethlisberger now. Saw someone on Miami's board with a comment about him "Anakin Skywalker is to Darth Vader as Miami Ben is to Steeler Ben - once he put on that black helmet he turned to the darkside".

Are the Zips contractually obligated to trail in every game? And oh yeah, man Ibitayo can leap.

Brian playing pretty well, Nick really struggling. 9-6 with 12 minutes gone. The ghost of Charlie Coles lives on.

What a sloppy, sloppy game so far.

We need to get lives.

A little more love for Zeke from Jay Bilas. Bilas, Digger Phelps and Jalen Rose were picking their fantasy teams on College Gameday just now and while Jay took Cody Zeller as his center he also mentioned Zeke as one he would have considered. Send him another shirt! C'mon Zeke have a huge day and pay Jay back.

Now that NDSU stubbed their toe, it really is a shame we couldn't have gone on the road to test ourselves against Indiana State - they have some huge wins, Mississippi, Miami (FL), Creigton, Witchia St. If they don't stumble badly, I think they're in and it would have been a good win for us. They aren't unbeatable either, so it would have been a fair test. Not that NDSU is a horrible matchup, but a win against them (and a fine rest of the season) wouldn't have gotten the Zips an at-large. A win against Indiana State (or Belmont) might have. Hey, lets go ask if Ohio might be willing to switch with us for the good of the league.

They are slowly starting to get this going. MAC 1-0 in the head coaches bracket (Steve Hawkins), Ted Kowalckyk and Rob Senderoff have yet to go. And as usual for mid-majors they have the assistant coach bracket set up for MAC failure. Toldeo vs Can't in the first round and a potential Charles Thomas vs. David Kool (WMU) matchup in the sweet sixteen. None of them have gone yet, but wasn't Kool about a 90% free throw shooter at WMU? He could certainly win the whole thing. C'mon Charles, be the one to knock him off.

Good article. It'd be nice if they could find a more recent picture than KD with Mike Bardo.