MDZip

You missed #3 Indiana, but you're right, otherwise that's it.

And if you look at the top 100 freshman to watch on the same site, four of the top 100 are Zips. Wake has five and Indiana and Maryland have four as well. So we got more top 100 than UCLA and as such are ranked aboved them. When I look at the teams ranked below us, I am incredibly impressed with what Coach Porter has done in a very short time. I do believe it will transfer to the field.

Well at least he has a chance to go out a winner. And now that he's closer to me, maybe I can talk my boss into letting me take the Browns tickets when they come in Oct 19th.

Zeke's a smart guy (as shown by his choice of major) - any chance he can graduate right now? We can't wait another year and a half to see him. Some of us are getting old already. Of course five years from now (I hope) we'll all be whining about the Zeke era being over.

Wow, that is a really weird site - the rest of the site is just like it, it's all written in that very strange style. And its not like they have a college football preview section, it's just individual stories on different programs, I wonder how they picked the Zips to preview? This is either a foreign operation trying to break into an English langauge market or a summer school project for some seventh graders to pass a failed English class.

Did anyone read to the bottom of the article where it had a suggestion for a combined MAC/WAC TV network? (The (M)(W)AC network?) Since most of the schools are separated by 3 hours, you could have four games a day (two from each conference). I think that's brilliant - anyone sent this on to Rick Chryst yet?

Especially when looking at who got selected for some of our MAC brethren (Ball St, CMU, Buffalo) who aren't exactly household names (probably even in their own households).

And it made the top "headline" section on ESPN's men's basketball. For a guy that never even played one minute for us. Great.

A suggestion - don't read it, don't post it - who cares. Zeke made a decision that he thinks is right for him and good for him. Even had he chosen to go elsewhere, I would wish him the best. He seems like a fine young man, bright, level-headed, and the definition of a student athlete. He picked a school for academic reasons without getting stars in his eyes. What more could you want from a 17 year old? As a basketball recruit, terrific - picking Akron for the right academic reasons - priceless. You don't get a lot better publicity for a school than that (see the article on the artifical pancreas again). Not once have I seen anything about picking Akron as a nice steppingstone to the NBA, think Micheal Beasley or OJ Mayo picked their schools that way? That's what's really great about this verbal. Congratulations Zeke, I hope your college experience turns out to be just what you evidently are envisioning.

And Kentucky has an 8th grader. This is nuts.http://sports.aol.com/fanhouse/2008/05/02/...at-high-school/

While I love when our football and basketball teams are doing well, this is the kind of stuff that really makes me proud.

"The University of Toledo is expected to name Notre Dame assistant Gene Cross its new men's basketball coach today.Former Providence coach Tim Welsh also interviewed but took his name out of the running for the job after he visted the campus."I guess you could understand Welsh's reasoning. Seriously, I still don't understand why they got rid of Joplin. He was dedicated to the school and had done a pretty good job. Guess they just felt as though they had some ground to make up to catch up to the Zips success.

Since I had heard a lot about him, I got to see Zeke play down at the Hoop Magic tournament in Chantilly, VA this weekend. I was nothing but a fan interested in watching him play, but it was fun to watch him knowing that he had some interest in UA. Since he is only a junior if he continues to develop his game and especially continues to get stronger, he will be a force to be reckoned with. And as the saying goes, you can't teach height and he has plenty of that. He is already a pretty intimidating force in the paint, I only had the time to see one game, but he must have blocked a half dozen shots in it. He had several nice offensive rebounds and a few putbacks. His team didn't seem to work real hard getting the ball into him, though it seemed that he had established position plenty of times. His free throw mechanics look smooth, a nice easy high arc to it. I am afraid I was bad luck, though, as the only game I saw was the one they lost. They played a tough team and could have beaten them, but if he looked good against a good team, I wish I could have seen him play against one of the lesser teams. Good luck in your senior year Zeke.

I love KD and I certainly hope you are right, but when you look at the cash they're offering (probably in the $800K range) he's got to at least talk to them if they are interested. I hope not, but remember, we do have a very smart head coach. After all, he is a UA grad.

Darn it, I was hoping the big news would be that he still had some eligibility left and regretted missing the college experience.

I absolutely second that opinion. It is especially helpful for those of us who live outside of the area. I only discovered the site by accident a couple of years ago and just lurked for a while thinking I wouldn't have anything to contribute. Then I signed up and never posted anything for quite a while but then once I got past that I've been throwing my opinions out there just like everyone else. I especially like some of the newer improvements like the chat room, I used that a lot while the post season was going, nice to root with like minded people, even if only virtually. So thanks for all you've done and the effort you've put into it. No chance something like this would have existed when I was in school (despite the fact the Internet didn't exist ), there just wasn't this kind of passion nor energy nor enthusiasm. Hell, we were an also-ran OVC program then. So again thanks, we also recognize that this isn't done for free either.

It seems a bit rude not to at least acknowledge a friendly sportsmanship gesture such as this. Thanks for your input on the game, could you at least try to make sure at least a couple of the guys you mentioned have off games? Good Luck to you as well (just not TOO much )

per GoZips.com from the past two seasons:2006-712/16/06 @ UIC (Comcast Chicago) L12/22/06 @ Nevada (KAME-TV [NV]) L12/11/07 vs. Miami OH (Time Warner) W1/17/07 vs. Can't State (Time Warner) W1/27/07 vs. Western Michigan (ESPN2) W2/3/07 vs. Ball State (FSN Ohio) W2/7/07 vs. Central Michigan (Time Warner) W2/13/07 vs. Ohio (Time Warner) W2/17/07 vs. Austin Peay (ESPNU) W3/1/07 @ Buffalo (Time Warner Buffalo [Tape Delay]) W3/4/07 @ Can't State (FSN Ohio) W3/8/07 vs. Central Michigan (FSN Ohio) (MAC) W3/9/07 vs. Can't State (FSN Ohio) (MAC) W3/10/07 vs. Miami OH (ESPN2) (MAC) L2007-812/21/07 vs. Youngstown State (Time Warner) W1/2/08 @ Dayton (WHIO-TV [Dayton]) L1/17/08 vs. Ohio (ESPNU) W1/23/08 @ Can't State (Time Warner) L1/26/08 @ Central Michigan (FSN Ohio) L2/6/08 @ Western Michigan (Comcast Local) L2/12/08 vs. Northern Illinois (FSN Ohio) L2/19/08 @ Miami OH (ONN) W2/23/08 vs. Virginia Commonwealth (ESPN2) L3/4/08 @ Ohio (ESPN Full Court) W3/9/08 vs. Can't State (FSN Ohio) L3/13/08 vs. Central Michigan (FSN Ohio) (MAC) W3/14/08 vs. Western Michigan (FSN Ohio) (MAC) W3/15/08 vs. Can't State (ESPN2) (MAC) L3/18/08 @ Florida State (ESPN Classic) (NIT) W2006-7: 11-32007-8: 7-8Overall: 18-11So in truly "national coverage" (counting all of the ESPN networks except ESPN Full Court - and I know ESPNU is fairly limited), the Zips are 4-3. That is at least respectable.

I'll defiitely give a plug for the CS program as well. It was a few years ago for me too, but I also got my Masters degree shortly after from a very high profile East Coast School (I did like the school so I won't denigrate them by saying the name) but Akrons program blew them away by far. I learned a ton more at Akron than I ever got out of the Masters program. I give them high marks.

OK, tell the truth. As much as we all wanted to tell the NIT to pound sand from the snub last year, don't you feel a little better about landing an NIT bid as opposed to the CBI this year? (Though the CBI may well have helped us)

Also remember Can't got really lucky this year when they signed Al Fisher sight unseen and got the MAC player of the year. Want to use that as a recruting strategy every year? I'll bet even Can't doesn't want to rely on it. This was very disappointing tonight, but yet, making two straight MACC games is a heck of a lot better than back when we were a middle of the pack OVC school. Dambrot & co. have done an outstanding job. And we may very well pick up a NIT/CBI bid. What I wanted? Nope. Am I still happy the Zips had a good year? Yep.

LosAngelesZipFan - One of these days I'd LOVE to say goodbye forever to Ohio winters BUT I can't stand the thought of not being able to drive 15 minutes to the JAR to watch our Zips. Same with football season as disappointing as those have been for the most part. Can't wait to make the drive north in a little while and feel for ya. Great to know there are Zips fans all around the country and as far away as LA and HI cheering Akron on. Have fun this afternoon watching the game. GO ZIPS!!!...and at least one in PittsburghAnd a few in San Diego. Good luck to the team tonight. Go Zips!Got some here in Maryland as well. We're all over. 10 minutes to go!

You make a good point - here is the high on number of tunrovers in a game this year and it belongs to Al Fisher. Now all we have to do is win enough games to get back to him. :)TURNOVERS................ 10 FISHER, Al (Can't State) vs MIAMI (03/04/08)

Change started last year - all of the teams come to Cleveland now. Either team is fine, throw Nate on Watson if we get CMU and there is no way NIU shoots the lights out like they did last time (that was the highest percentage by any team in a MAC game this year) if we get them. We'll be fine. What I want is a WMU upset, I'd really rather not see them.

Even more surprising - a member of the Zips women's team did make the list (sorry Cap'n - easy to overlook) - Kara Murphy for hustle, so at least we got that going for us which is nice.