MDZip

Classy move, Ball State.

I think this is awesome, what a way to honor Dan Peters. I am more than OK with the Zips wearing purple for a day.

What a turnaround by Ohio. Just a couple years ago they were one of the worst teams in the MAC. Look forward to the Zips knocking them off. :-)

Big Dog had the game of his career when the Zips really needed him. Congrats to the young man who has taken a lot of criticism here recently.

In Ben Stiller's 2007 movie The Heartbreak Kid, he makes up a lie to his wife about who he played golf with and includes an insurance guy from Akron. Please do not ask me how I know this. :-)

I don't know - seen the MAC home/road split so far this year?

And the Zips beat two of those 4-1 teams pretty badly. Saturday's game at WMU should be revealing about the real potential of this team.

Further Fallout.

I watched a lot of this game on my phone while the men's game was on the computer. The ladies could have sealed it but missed a ton of free throws in the last minute, including two with about 12 seconds left which gave Toledo and opportunity to win it. Zips battled hard on defense and Toledo missed a shot with 2 seconds left. Zips had also battled back from being down ten in the second half. Heck of a game.

I applaud the University for bringing this discussion to the forefront, but I worry this could be the beginning of the end for student "support". I would also have to admit that if I was still in school I would also question why the fees I paid went to support sports programs that are not essential to the mission of higher education. What it boils down to is that students are paying to allow other students to attend college for free. $400 might not sound like a lot in consideration of overall tuition but to a college student it most definitely is. I wonder if this could be the beginning of a backlash of regular students involuntarily supporting these programs.

Deji Ibitayo has absolutely entered the Jimmy Conyers zone.

You know if the game experience could be improved for say $10M or so, it might make sense to make a renovation now, while waiting (hoping) for an improved new arena. That improves the game experience, maybe draws a few more fans because of it, but fact are facts, fans only rarely fill the JAR now. Even if the JAR dropped to 4,500, it would still accommodate most games and would make it look like more demand, which might get more people to buy tickets if they are worried about being shut out. I believe that Outback purposely undersized their restaurants when they started because it always looked like there was big demand because people would be standing outside. I think 4,500 would be serviceable for a while as long as a giant investment in the JAR is not made right now so that an argument couldn't be made against a new arena if one was possible. And if the Zips were selling out a very comfortable 4,500 seat arena, I think it would be harder to argue against a new arena. I don't think dropping capacity right now will hurt in the long run as long as the fan support shows up. Nor do I think it says the Zips are giving up on bigger dreams, the JAR would have to be replaced to join any bigger league anyway. You can only put so much lipstick on this pig before someone recognizes it's still a pig. Do the lipstick, but save on plastic surgery.

And of playoff games I've seen it seems like every team has at least one MAC player starting. In the one just completed Ravens had a cornerback from NIU and the Patriots had a defensive lineman from Ohio + Julian Edelman.

Terrible travel on that Toledo last second three that wasn't called. His feet were all over the place.

Even though I only got to see it on the video feed, it was really cool seeing the number of past Zips soccer stars that made it to the JAR last night. I didn't see Steve Zakuani though, did he make it?

Great game by the Zips. Most interesting part was Joe Dunn calling the kid who missed the half court shot a loser. It is fun to hear the comments while radio is on break.

So the title of this thread which was supposed to indicate disgust with the attendance at one particular game ended up being the season average. Wow. Although MAC schools are at a little disadvantage because they have to count the hundreds that show up for November Tuesday and Wednesday night games in that average. How many were at the UMass game? Less than 1,000?

Fortunately, neither of them are particularly contagious.

We still have them for one more year though.

I think that is a truism. YSU still has to go to Pitt so that will be tough but neither team has exactly faced murderers row. The Penguins have faced only two teams that are above .500 (Niagara 4-3 and Bucknell 5-3). The Zips have faced exactly zero. So I'm happy for their start I still think it might be a little bit of a mirage. The most positive sign is that none of these teams has stayed particularly close, but I think expectations here need to be tempered a little. They did lose a heck of a lot from last year.

You'd be far from the first to accuse me of being that.

According to a check of his Wikipedia entry it does not appear he has ever done any announcing for C-USA.

This may have been covered in Cleveland better but I think it's hilarious that Fox Cleveland sent John Rinaldi to Cincinnati's press conference to ask a question after Marvin Lewis called Johnny Manziel a midget. Since I am 3/4" shorter than Manziel #Iamamidget

Shouldn't you be out making sure Kelly Leak is staying out of trouble? There have been innumerable threads about Zips scheduling explaining some of the challenges but do you want the Miami philosophy they used to employ where they played a murderers row of teams (and lost to every one of them)? How often do you think its possible to rise up and beat a top 25 team at their place - which unless you do the tournaments like the Zips do is the only way you're going to play them - I'd much rather do what the Zips do and have a chance to beat them on a neutral court (which happened two of three times this year). If you recall South Carolina destroyed the Zips twice last year, so the Zips get no credit for beating them this year? Oftentimes these games or tournaments are set well in advance and you have no idea how good the team is going to be when you actually play. EMU looks like they caught Michigan in a down year (unless you think good teams get beat by both NJIT and EMU at home in the same year), good for them, wonder how the outcome might have been a couple years ago during the year Michigan was National Runner Up? And I don't know who you think thinks the Zips are on a Butler/Gonzaga level but I haven't seen it. There are 340 D-1 teams and you're going to complain because the Zips played four in the top 109 and beat two of them? Good that your expectations are high but it probably needs to be tempered with a little realism.

I thought of that as well but I will let LZip answer that. But EMU's win was in Ann Arbor - but since Ypsilanti is only about 10 minutes away maybe it was considered a home game?