MDZip

Also impressive is that they only have one senior that they rely on, this team could be even better next year.

Nice reaction.

If I was Can't, I'd tell him the same thing Wisconsin told Bret Bielema when he said he wanted to coach Wisconsin in the Rose Bowl, thanks but no thanks. As it ends up it looks like Barry Alvarez is going to come back and coach them for this one game.

One year and gone - back to Auburn.

I actually went to the game tonight to check them out since they were in my neck of the woods and I was impressed with what I saw. They do a lot of things fundamentally soundly like boxing out and playing defense with their hands up to force turnovers. One concern might be depth as the 5 starters probably got 80% or more of the available minutes. The Patriot Center would be an excellent facility if we could move it about 400 miles North and change the color scheme.

Please see troll posts earlier in the threads and perhaps you can understand this one particular instance.

Something I didn't realize was that all of OU's "tournament" games were home games. All six of their wins were home games and they just played their first road game and one guy beat them. Somebody named Robert Morris. Thats going to make their RPI drop. I am a little confused by Ken Pomeroy, though, OU is 6-1 with the 292nd ranked schedule and is at #36. WMU is also 6-1 with the 305th ranked schedule and is ranked 195th. Akron has had the toughest schedule in the MAC (#74, Buffalo is next closest at 92. The MAC SOS is awful many teams at 200 and above, that also hurts the league). The Creighton game should be really interesting. C'mon Zips a little soccer payback would be nice.

Memorial Hall seated about 2500. The attendance for the Zips first two home games was 2832 and 2771. That would have packed Memorial Hall and made it seem very loud and intimidating. Maybe with all of the talk about building a new larger facility, maybe we should go smaller.

This is something I am paraphrasing from the Marshall board but I thought it would work pretty well here too. If you see someone wearing an Akron shirt they probably went to Akron. If you see someone wearing an OSU shirt, they probably went to Wal-Mart.

As a side note in the vein of all publicity is good publicity, NIU has dominated the conversation. I do think they have a much better shot than Can't State would have (even though Can't State did have the "signature" win against Rutgers), but they have now been noting all of the MAC wins over BCS teams this year, Mark May (a Pitt grad) pretty much told everyone to stop whining yesterday and Lou Holtz said as a MAC grad this made him very happy. Maybe the tide is shifting the other way now (and I wish someone would point out how many built in advantages the BCS schools have). Now I want to see them talk about that in the last three years the MAC has a National Championship in soccer, a basketball Sweet Sixteen run, a CWS appearance and now a BCS bid. Not so bad. Maybe sticking with the MAC in all of the reshuffling was brilliant.

According this Dennis Dodd article, the MAC will get around $13.73M for this game, don't know how that is broken down amongst conference members (NIU should certainly get more) but I really hope it is not proportionally by number of wins. Should net Akron somewhere in the $1M range though. UMass sure picked the right time to join the league. This is Dodd's breakdown from the article, but its cool that the MAC is the highest rated non-BCS league (and I would suspect higher than the Big East as well). $7 million of the $28.2 million is divided between the five non-BCS conferences (Conference USA, Mountain West, MAC, Sun Belt and WAC). •Another $7 million is divided into 15 “units” based on conference strength. Because it is the No. 1 ranked non-BCS league, the MAC will receive five of those 15 shares, followed by the No. 2-ranked conference getting four shares, etc. •The MAC will get $8 million of the remaining $14 million as the participating conference. •The other $6 million will be split up into those 15 units. This year's bowl screwing was reserved for a non-MAC team (and I am still shocked that CMU made it), La. Tech went 9-3 and is staying home, although some of it is their fault. Good to see that 6-7 Ga. Tech made it though. Nothing seems wrong with that.

In addition to NIU getting a BCS bid, Can't State, Ohio, BGSU, Toledo, Ball State and CMU got bowl bids. Wow. Famous Idaho Potato Toledo vs. Utah State Beef 'O' Brady's St. Petersburg UCF vs. Ball State Little Caesars Pizza Western Kentucky vs. Central Michigan Military Bowl Presented By Northrop Grumman San Jose State vs. Bowling Green AdvoCare V100 Independence Ohio vs. Louisiana-Monroe Discover Orange Northern Illinois vs. Florida State GoDaddy.com Can't State vs. Arkansas State

The talking heads are whining left and right about it. Its all about poor Oklahoma being left out and no one is saying a word about NIU qualifying under the rules the BCS set up. Because Louisville and Wisconsin are so deserving. Would love to see them knock off Florida State.

The MAC is quite cyclical. One of the things that keeps the MAC mired in mediocrity is exactly what is being discussed in another thread - coaching tunrover. The MAC has had some fine coaches but as soon as they can show some modicum of sustained success in a place like the MAC, they get snapped up (as an aside this has never happened to any Akron coach unfortunately). Urban Meyer, Brady Hoke, Butch Jones, Brian Kelly, Dave Doeren - and probably Darrell Hazell soon. Its hard to keep sustained success when you turn your coaches over every few years. There have been a few failures, Turner Gill, Jerry Kill (maybe rhyming with ill is bad) but in general successful MAC coaches have done quite well when they move on. Its pretty rare for a BCS level coach to move to another school after experiencing success, in the MAC, its the norm.

That didn't take long - Dave Doeren hired as the new NC State coach.

The end of the link should be html, but for some reason keeps showing up as hml or just hl when its saved here. Make it .html and it works.

I would have liked to have posted this earlier, I spent a little longer down in the Carribbean after the tournament was over, but I thought since it will still be a little while until the next Zips basketball game, maybe this would be a good time to post it. First, I wanted to say if you have the opportunity to take a trip like this, you should try to do it. It matters a little how good the Zips are, but mostly its just fun to be around your favorite team and root for them in a very close setting. With the configuration of the JAR it isn't often you can sit right behind the Zips bench. I have to give Akron and George Van Horne and Anthony (I forgot his last name but a good guy) a lot of credit for setting it all up and making sure that everyone who came down felt appreciated for doing so. Really felt like a Zips family. There were about 30-40 that made the trip, which was at least as many that made the trip from every other fan base except maybe North Carolina State who seemed like they were everywhere. The games were terrific, it was a great deal of fun rooting on the Zips in every game (we even converted a few Tenneesee fans who were sitting with us) in the first game. Having the Abreu and Betancourt fans at the Penn State game was great too. Puerto Rico has a lot to do even when not at the games (was a little scary to hear that Hector Camacho was shot in the face in Bayamon right after we left but we had no problems anywhere at any time). Staying at the hotel with the teams in San Juan was fun too, I never felt so short in my life as when the UMass team got on the elevator with me, but at least I was taller than one of their point guards. ). The team dinner was outstanding, got to chat with Steve French and had dinner with Brian Walsh's parents (really nice people and told me that Akron still suffers in some circles from the old perception of the ugly urban campus and that Brian wasn't really interested until they got him on campus. We need to keep letting people know it is not the old "Hilltop High"), in addition to meeting a few Zips. It was a lot of fun talking to Zips fans that I had never met and getting to know some of them as well. Its worth making the trip - I know some other ZN.O posters have done some other trips (the Zips can't come back to this one for four years) and I'd highly encourage it, I knew almost no one at the beginning of the trip, now I have some more Zips friends. You also put some human faces on this stuff, the disappoinment and then triumph of Chauncey, the terrific play and joy of it from Zeke, the happiness from Nick and Tree getting to play again. And then something I didn't expect. I happened to ride up in the elevator alone with the Penn State coach after the game. I gave him my condolences for a tough game and asked how his point guard was. He said not good, it was his achilles and we are in deep, deep trouble now. Really felt bad for him, you could see he was worried about his team, his season and maybe his job. Happy as I was for the Zips, that never comes for free. As a final note, before the Penn State game, I did the only thing a true Akron fan should be doing before a big game on Puerto Rico, I went Zip-lining. Puerto Rico has the highest and second longest line in the world (called the Beast where you go strapped in by your back so it feels like you are flying). It's at a park called Toro Verde and I hightly recommend that should you be there any time soon. The trip was one I will remember a long time, it would have only been slightly better had the Zips won it all, but I am very enthusiastic for the rest of the season. I still think an at-large is not out of the question.

Both the human and computer polls started to "notice" Can't when they upset previously undefeated and ranked Rutgers. Probably accounts for the disparity. NIU has knocked off no one of note. As far as the MACC, I'm betting NIU wins it all (but I don't think they'll have enough of a bump to make it into a BCS game).

Tulane is now heading to the Big East. No history of success or tradition or much of anything, so this appears to be about nothing but market. I would be surprised if neither Akron or Can't had been contacted as well.

Certainly deserving of that #1 seed. Glad to see it.

And with all those teams losing today and NIU and Can't both winning this weekend, the BCS standings are going to be shuffled this week so Can't likely moves up and I'll bet NIU makes an appearance so either one of those beating the other as a ranked team will significantly increase their odds. Much as I'd hate it to be Can't, would be pretty cool to see a MAC team in a BCS game.

Now that both Can't and NIU have completed 11-1 seasons and are both ranked and the two Big East leaders (Rutgers and Louisville) both had bad losses today, it is conceivable that the winner of the MACC (first time ever it will be two ranked teams playing each other) could possibly get access to a BCS game. It is more likely for Can't (unbelievable) than NIU since Can't is currently in the BCS rankings (at #23) but a win over a ranked team could elevate either one high enough. Then one of these two things have to occur - they have to be ranked in the top 12 of the final BCS poll or ranked in the top 16 and higher than a champion of an AQ conference. Can't or NIU will be higher than the Big East Champ now, it's just a question if either can jump up to #16 (not likely but not impossible especially with other teams ahead of them losing). The only non-AQ that could still have a chance too is Boise State but they do not play any more ranked teams. How incredible would it be for a MAC team to play in a BCS game and it be Can't? I think they'd get killed (their loss this season was to Kentucky) so I'd far rather see NIU get there. I think they'd have a better shot. Its a long shot but it could happen.

Scott's lead is down to 0.1%

My favorite moment during the game was when Chauncey hit a three and was on fire and ran down the court and gave the crowd a "cat who swallowed the canary" grin. We loved it. What a great little redemptive moment for him.

I found out that we should apparently expect the exact opposite ratio for this year only. Got to get the ship righted first before the long term plan pays dividends.