MDZip

Pat Forde's column including a part lamenting the state of the MAC and his lead-in was what he thought to be one of his unexplained phenomenons: Akron 89, Bowling Green 54, Feb. 15 in Bowling Green. The Zips entered this one a game behind the Falcons in the Mid-American Conference standings. But they built a 20-point lead after 18 minutes, stretched it to 40 with eight minutes to play and coasted in. Speaking of MAC mysteries … Why does this league stink? The MAC currently is rated the No. 18 league in the land by Jeff Sagarin's computer (and 21st in the RPI). That's a fairly precipitous fall from even the modest position the Midwestern collection of colleges once held. From 2000 to '05, the MAC average was No. 11 in Sagarin's ratings. From 2006 to the present, that rank is No. 16. And this season, it's all the way down to 18 -- just behind the Summit League and just ahead of the Big West (not to be confused in the slightest with the Big East). Sagarin does not rank a single MAC school in his top 100 -- there simply isn't a single entity in the 12-team league to get overly excited about. As recently as 2007-08, the MAC had five in the Sagarin top 100. In 2002, Can't State (34) reached the Elite Eight with Antonio Gates playing power forward. In 1999, Miami (Ohio) (35) made the Sweet 16 behind Wally Szczerbiak. In 1990, Ball State (36) advanced to the Sweet 16, where the Cardinals nearly upset eventual national champion UNLV. The next season, Eastern Michigan (37) made it to that round. So this is a league with some history. But it now has become a mystery. Maybe the general population decline in the industrial centers of the upper Midwest has had an impact on recruiting. Maybe schools have felt the budgetary crunch of playing football at the highest classification and it has affected the basketball bottom line. Maybe there are too many aging facilities, mismanaged athletic departments and uninspiring coaches. Whatever the root cause, MAC basketball is floundering. And there's no reason to believe that will change anytime soon.

Geez, don't be so nice, people are going to think all Zips fans are! But seriously, who would we contact at Akron to make these available? I already am a fully paying member of Zipzone...seems a bit much to buy season tickets when I live in Boston!!! Season tickets are actually quite reasonable. I only got to use mine once last year but I buy them to help support the team. They want to keep these scarves exclusive to their season ticket holders, but as I think has been mentioned before even buying the cheapest ticket to support the ladies ($40) will still net you a scarf. Mildly expensive scarf but dirt cheap support of the teams. Isn't there a different soccer scarf that can be purchased in the team store as well?

Would still love to see the Zips at least have the opportunity to play for the #1 seed (which means both Miami and Can't have to lose at least once more to someone other than us) because the automatic NIT bid goes with it just in case.

Bulls up by 13 with a few seconds left in the half.

Let us hunt that person down and de-frock them.

Just saw an ad for Akron soccer camps over on College Soccer News. The top of camp web page is awesome. http://www.akronsoccercamp.com/

Why do you have to talk that way about other programs? Is it because Akron is the worst team in the worst conference in D1 so it makes you feel better? My guess is either THEY realized, the coaches realized or a combination of their and the coaches realization was this= you are not good enough to play FBS football..even in the MAC!!! Believe it or not, some kids choose a school not because they play D1 football but because of other factors - outrageous I know - but it happens. I said that is my GUESS that they came to that realization. I am just looking at what I see. Not speaking in definites here. Ianello might win 7 games at Auburn just because he can recruit talent there. Doesn't make him a good coach or may be it does. How many quotes can be contained in a single post? It's like a literary Turducken. I'm thinking at least seven. A "double turducken wrapped in bacon" post? But if you order it with a diet Coke it looks like this.

My favorite line from the Beacon article. When things are going well, this happens: Senior center Mike Bardo had a season-high five points, which was more than the combined totals of Zeke Marshall (3), Quincy Diggs (1) and Brett McClanahan (0). Love Mike Bardo and how he busts his ass every game. With those stats from Zeke, Diggs and McClanahan you think there's no way we beat Miami let alone blow them out. Starting to get pretty excited about this team. Come on Can't and Miami you can blow one more game apiece.

I think some credit needs to go to Steve McNees too. Fighting through a season long slump, he had a very good game. 4-7, 14 points 3 assists and only one turnover. Abreu off the bench looks like a brilliant move by Keith.

Nice call.

Maybe it's not just us. From a quote on an ESPN story about the rise of San Diego State basketball. School spirit is soaring and Aztec pride is off the charts. "I saw some guy walking around campus the other day in an Ohio State T-shirt," senior Natalie Rowan said. "That pissed me off." And after reading the article, there is no reason this couldn't happen at Akron.

No help from the Broncos. Lose 74-72. The Flushes sweep the West (again).

I think we're seeing an entirely different philosphy if we can pull it off. Dr. Z as defensive coordinator, JohnnyZ as S&C, the Capt as head of marketing? If we can take Ianello's salary and split it up maybe we can keep everyone employed full-time and split the head coaching duties. I see a record setting season - can you say 0-12?

We don't need a losing streak. If (and admittedly a big if) we can sweep the rest of our games, all we need is one loss from Can't and we will overtake them. Miami is a little more complicated, we depend on who and how many we are tied with, but if we can beat Miami and Can't and are tied with both of them, we will be 3-1, Miami 2-2 and Can't 1-3. Lots of games to go before giving up on the top spot.

Miami is the current MAC Representative. And a 16 seed. Ugh.

I always wondered a bit about why players mention their high schools and not colleges during pre-game intros, I thought maybe they had a beef witgh their college. Anyway, tuns out some were just being honest. One of those was Greg Jennings. Gregg Esatrebrook had a nice summary of it in his TMQ articcle on ESPN this week. Also I noted that on NBC's "Sunday Night Football," players introduce themselves by school, and about 10 percent cite their high schools. Of these players, I asked, are they "shouting out their home towns -- or being honest?" Reader Scott Berg of Green Bay, Wis., points out this report that Greg Jennings of the Packers has been introducing himself as from Kalamazoo High because he attended Western Michigan but did not graduate. He's been honest with viewers. Late last fall Jennings finally completed his credit hours -- busting his butt to get an A in algebra -- and now has recorded a new NBC intro in which he says, "Greg Jennings, Western Michigan." Congratulations: for being honest, for getting the degree, and for setting a positive example.

It is pretty amazing how much success the Zips have had since Keith became coach and yet he has never won coach of the year. Zips seem to do their best work in years when the lest is expected of them under Dambrot. This is the year!

You're only getting partial credit for this one. You said if we win we'd have a bye period. Buffalo also had to lose to make it work. But we would have the bye only because Buffalo and BGSU have played only once and the other team at 7-5, Ball State lost to BGSU and the Zips. So it is a four way tie that comes out at Akron at 3-1, BGSU at 2-2, Buffalo at 1-2 and Ball State 1-2. So you get partial credit, because you need to show your work. The really cool thing is that if we win out there is no way to lose that bye. 1. Can't 2. WMU 3. Miami 4. Zips 5. BGSU (Up on Buffalo and Ball State 1-0) 6. Ball State (beat Buffalo) 7. Buffalo (one loss dropped them from #4 to #7) 8. Ohio 9. EMU (beat CMU, but they play again tonight) 10. CMU 11. NIU (again, HOW did we lose to them?) 12. Toldeo

And WMU is now the West division leader having won at least as many games as they lost against the East (they still hopefully will beat Can't to go to 4-2. Wonder when the last time a West team had a winning record against the East?). Good thing for us is the two teams we lost to are not likely to be in a tie breaker scenario with us at the end of the year. Things must be pretty bad in the week, this was the West Player of the week list from the MAC web site. Take a look at the Feb. 14th "West" player of the week. West Division Nov. 15 -- Brandon Bowdry, F, Eastern Michigan Nov. 22 -- Xavier Silas, G, Northern Illinois Nov. 29 -- Xavier Silas, G, Northern Illinois Dec. 7 -- Jalin Thomas, F, Central Michigan Dec. 13 --Jarrod Jones, F, Ball State Dec. 20 -- Xavier Silas, G, Northern Illinois Dec. 27 -- Brandon Bowdry, F, Eastern Michigan Jan. 3 -- Juwan Howard Jr., F, Western Michigan Jan. 10 --Jarrod Jones, F, Ball State Jan. 17 -- Xavier Silas, G, Northern Illinois Jan. 24 - Randy Davis, G, Ball State Jan. 31 -- Xavier Silas, G, Northern Illinois Feb. 7 - Brandon Bowdry, F, Eastern Michigan Feb. 14 - Justin Greene, F, Can't State

You think Alex Abreu might jump out of an airplane with a bunch of money and never be heard from again? That's one wild-assed prediction. Think everybody is in a good mood tonight. Could the dream of another 20 win season and five straight MACC still be alive?

I have the same issue on Dish, so I contacted STO about it. It seems that the primary agreement for the MAC is with ESPN so they get the first right to show the games. If they decline then they can be broadcast in the MAC footprint (Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Indiana, Michigan and Illinois - and I think its only partial in New Yor and PA). So they can't show a live contest outside of those areas (that's why you can see repeats) according to contractual obligations. If you live outside of those states, you won't be able to watch live STO games for men's MAC basketball. It's also why a lot of the times, those games will show up on ESPN3.

Yes. A win on Tuesday gets us a bye. Not quite. Even though a win over BGSU would get us ahead of them, there are atill three teams in the East who are ahead of us and one bye is reserved for the MAC West Champ. If we win and the MAC tournament started now we'd be a five seed. Still a heck of a lot better than things were looking a couple weeks ago. Still want to know how we lost to Eastern AND NIU.

Just saw a shot of Coach Boals standing next to Thad Matta on ESPN. Just wondering a bit how much we miss him. Our big men seemed to do very well while he was with us and the bigs at Ohio State are doing very well the past two years (of course I'm sure that isn't all due to him). I just think he was a really good big man's coach.

Little Shop of Horrors or Shop of Little Hours?

Wow, some of you folks take this stuff pretty personally, have you ever been in a business, because thats what the NBA boils down to. As I said, a polarizing figure.