MDZip

20 points in 15 minutes, 6-6, with 4-4 from 3 and 4-5 FT's. Wow.

Lead back up to 16 (which is the number of points McAdams has and he just hit another three). Is he going to be our NIU killer the way McNees was to Miami? And WMU couldn't have done us a small favor?

Two amusing comments I saw on ESPN about the game 1. Idea for “Rudy 2”: A Notre Dame starter transfers to Alabama and manages to get on the field for one play. 2. It will be interesting to see how far Notre Dame drops in the final AP rankings. Going from No. 1 to FCS seems like it might be too drastic

Actually my suggestion was more tongue in cheek. since say they happened to finish 5th - that would give the 12 seed an automatic pass into the 8/9 winner, that wouldn't seem right. I suspect the five seed will simply get a first round bye and play the winner of 8/9 in the next round. That actually sort of seems fair since the four seed gets two byes. Or worse they finish 3rd and then the next level game down is the right to play #2 in the semi's. I do hope Western plays strong from this point forward. We are all big WMU fans here this Saturday. Go Broncos!

Saw something about Can't State having a 31 game win streak aganst the West teams and I thought that might mean just at home, but it's correct, the Flashes hadn't lost to a West team since Toledo beat them in Feb. 2008. Almost a five year winning streak. No wonder Can't was always near the top of the standings. I think this means Can't is a little worse then people think and Toledo a little better. That would be a little embarassing for Toledo to win the West and then be ineligible for the conference tournament. I think wherever they finish, that seed should be a bye.

The women put a beatdown on OU last night for their first conference opening win in 14 years. There are definitely some changes underway. The only team who looks to be clearly better is of course, BGSU, but I wouldn't even put that past the Zips right now (I would have had Toledo in that category but they lost to an average CMU team last night). They legitmately look to be a contender and should easily dispatch Can't State on Sunday. Jodi Kest has done a great job. They have an interesting team with a lot of parallels to the men's team (and both are 10-4 and 1-0 in conference). Can't win the biggest OOC games, but do a great job in steady play with the others now. Sina King is their Zeke Marshall (without all of the blocked shots), steady, not flashy and very dependable. Rachel Tecca is Tree, beast on the boards and a terrific scorer (might be giving Tree too much credit here ), Kacie Cassell is Alex Abreu, nice three point shooter and gives lots of assists (third in the country in assists per game, had nine last night and very hard nosed like Alex, drives to to the basket well). Hanna Luburgh is Nick Harney, kind of unassuming but capable of blowing up any night (21 last night) and you look at the box score and wonder how she had that many points and Taylor Ruper is Brian Walsh, good all round game in rebounding, assists and a three point specialist. Looks to be a fun year, would really be cool to have two MAC champions this year. They have a way to go but the MAC isn't that strong - it is possible we could have two NCAA tournament teams this year. Congrats, ladies!

Think this might be the one you are looking for. By the way, Deji's defense has been mentioned, but he doesn't rebound much for a guy who can jump out of the building. There was one play last night where he was behind Tree and leapt above him to try to get a rebound but he backed off seeing that Tree had it. Don't think we've had a leaper like him since Quade Milum. http://zipsnation.org/forums//index.php?showtopic=27696

So the Captain tries to quietly excise your extensive, banal post and you have a backup copy. Great. I wonder what happened to the Melo from the Penn State game in Puerto Rico? That Melo cut, dished, and scored almost at will. Maybe we need to fly some family members up for each game.

Can't just went down to Toledo, West went 3-1 against the East tonight.

He was hammering the ref named Ferrari pretty good. Not a great game but the Zips blew them out in the second half. Maybe some of that depth paying off. Hope Zeke is OK, he was limping pretty noticably.

Since wins are the only "measuring stick" most people seem to care about, when you are in a rebuilding mode would you rather have our schedule or Ohio's? Just would like a relatively even playing field in scheduling in our own conference. This is not a one year phenomenon that Akron has received one of the most if not the most difficult schedules in the MAC (of course it hurts that we can't play us).

Somehow the Zips have managed to draw the top three teams from the West again. Only two MAC East home games and once again don't play Buffalo. Outstanding. Ohio draws EMU, CMU and all six East teams. Yeah, this is fair. F this unbalanced scheduling. AKRON Home: Ball State, Toledo, Can't State, Ohio; Road: Northern Illinois, BGSU, Miami, UMass;

Had a feeling it was not going to be a good game, with ND eking out too many wins over mediocre competition this year. If Pitt had a reliable kicker, ND isn't even in this game. I can hear the SEC howls growing louder but the odds of them landing more than one team in the upcoming four team playoff seems a bit unlikely, so that will probably be the next impetus to grow that playoff number again. It's coming eventually, Monday night's game is another good argument for it. And Saban is at $5M a year at Alabama which is the equivalent of an NFL coach. He has a great setup, is treated like a demi-god, can't see that he would have any reason to bolt for the NFL.

And Michael Green was the "producer". Well done, nice to look back on a pretty fun time but also sad to see a few other things, Quincy's contributions to the team, all of the terrific guys and players who have moved on and most to think this is it for Zeke three months from now. Really seems a short time ago we were all excited about this highly ranked prospect choosing Akron. As the only four year member of the senior class, really hope he continues his high level of play (and maybe even cranks it up a notch) for the remainder of the season. Would love to see him play in the NCAA tournament one more time.

Hmm, neither his web site nor this article happen to mention that he is the head football coach at the University of Akron.

We can't give up yet - we just have to win the MAC and beat out the five champions from the other conferences and we are in a major bowl game. Also, the highest-rated champion from the Group of Five conferences (Big East, Conference USA, Mid-American, Mountain West and Sun Belt) will earn a berth in either in one of the six major bowls; except they will never be eligible for the Sugar or Rose bowls.

If I lived closer I would do this but it looks like Jeremy Guy out of the MAC office wants a couple of Zips fans to join him Wednesday. This was tweeted less than an hour ago. Anyone tried it yet? Jeremy Guy ‏@JGuyMAC LAST CHANCE: Looking for 2 #Akron fans to join me for an ALL-ACCESS experience at Wed. night @ZipsMBB game v. #WMU. RT & Follow to enter!

While the Zips get mentioned in the MAC portion, they are also highlighted in the Big South paragraph where they are mentioned as a good win (along with Clemson) for surging Coastal Carolina who could yet be a title contender. Maybe still not as bad a loss as some think.

In the last several years we have had a home and home with both Cinci and Army, and have a home and home scheduled with Pitt in 2014 and 2015 (assuming it actually occurs), so it is not only possible but probable with some of the lower level BCS schools (did a 2-1 with Syracuse as well - also found it interesting their coach was hired to coach the Buffalo Bills after 4 OK years after the Zips helped run off their previous coach).

And no secret here - NIU reportedly told by an Orange Bowl rep - "We didn't even want you here". No kidding, geez is that because the bowl games always have been and always will be about nothing but money? The only reason the playoff has been approved is they think they can make even more money that way. When they discover their new cow also hemorrhages money, suddenly those playoffs will expand too.

If a team like Boise joined a conference like the Big-12, they surely wouldn't dominate it, but I'd bet they would be competitive after some time. Many schools in the BCS conferences aren't any "better" or more deserving than those in the non-BCS conferences. I don't think it's a matter of commitment, it's a matter of funding. In other words, I don't think it is a guarantee that someone jumping from non-BCS to BCS automatically dooms them to the bottom of the heap. We have a nice test case for that right now in Utah, I am interested in seeing where they finish in the next few years, they were 3-6 in the PAC-12 this year.

I think if everyone is honest about it, NIU absolutely didn't belong in that game, but I love that they were. They didn't have a great showing but they didn't completely embarrass themselves either. You can't make a judgement on one bowl game a year but I think it was assumed in the first years that non-BCS teams would get destroyed if they happened to luck into the BCS formula that they set aside to placate all of the non-BCS schools (and with a formula I'm guessing they thought would only rarely come to pass when they set it up rather than happening almost every year). That hasn't been the case, non-BCS schools have held their own. Removing the one case of Boise v. TCU, only NIU and Hawaii have lost in these contests (and they are the two teams who really probably shouldn't have qualified). So I do think that some schools, were they to be given the financial advantages of playing in a bigger conference could indeed at least hold their own in those conferences. If Boise joined the Big Ten, I think they could stay out of the Indiana category and at least be competitive in the conference. Other schools would simply become bottom feeders. Its simply not fair that a perennial bottom feeder in a major conference gets preference over schools that achieve in lower conferences. Would love to see how all schools would do under an NFL like revenue sharing plan, or I'm also intrigued by the idea of soccer style relegation.

But beating good ones do - one of the Zips wins is against #42 - MTSU.

SEC! SEC! SEC! Louisville (who is one of the reasons NIU made a BCS game) is putting a hurting on Florida. Maybe NIU just got the wrong Florida team. Non-BCS teams are now 5-3 all time in BCS bowls but one of those losses and one win should be discounted because TCU and Boise State were forced to play each other one year. A 4-2 record is pretty impressive.

And aside from the awful Coastal Carolina loss, the three other losses are to teams ranked 16, 21 and 98.