zipboy

I look for Brent to get some open looks and drain a few.

Good point, I wonder if it might be worth redshirting Egner next year. He needs to get stronger. Although if you go 5 years out, you use up a scholarship for 1 extra year on the same guy. Nik will be gone next year but I can see other guys taking those minutes.

Good post ZW. I am estatic with the hiring of TB. On the coach's show Monday, KD asked Bill Morgan his thoughts on TB and KD made the comment that a good football program will help all of athletics. Later on he talked about VCU and the money they pour into bball. To me KD is Mr Akron and I hope the administration is keeping him happy. There are only so many resources and unfortunately the various sports compete for some of that pie. If things go right, the programs will hopefully feed off each other and raise the level of each other.

Good post

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone. Thanks to all for making zno what it is. Feeling a lot better about 2012 than 2011.

Thanks for sharing itz. I respect Paul's decision, quite disappointed. At the same time, the program should be in a better position than if rob had another year. Time off is good, but hope to see you back here in the near future.

A few follow up thoughts from the game. 1. I can see why KD signed Deji. He may not be able to help this year as much as we need him, but he looks like a player. Walsh moved better as well maybe his hip is better? 2 games without AA is scary and the thought of AA playing 35 minutes a night during MAC season isn't good. 2. Onlly the second game that I saw Tree play this year. csu was pesonal for him but he played with a similar intensity yesterday. He sees the floor well and is a fantastic passer for a big guy. 3. Great to see Zeke put together another very good performance and watch him develop over the past 2.5 years. 4. When Q is on, what a fun guy to watch. 5. Good to see Nik finishing at the rim and rebounding. He had a 2 month stretch last year where he owned the boards. 8/10 pts is fine but defense and rebounding we need from him. 6. I disagree that the game is too fast for McClanahan. With the fast breaks that we get, he should be spotting up for wide open 3s and drilling them. He has always been a streaky guy. The only pure shooter on the team, we will need him at some point in the MAC tourney. Overall, a good performance and the Zips did not let up until the end. The only disappointing thing about yesterday was KDs comments about the walkthrough. In the 10 man rotation, there are 5 juniors and seniors. Youth as an excuse only goes so far. The culture and demands of the program have been in place for 8 years. I hope the guys get it together. Everyone makes mistakes and a few guys paid or are paying the price with suspensions and you move on. What bothers me more after a summer trip in Canada and 3 months into this year is the immaturity and undiscipline approach that KD keeps talking about. He has mentioned the poor practice habits a few times. Hard to break bad habits and if guys are showing with poor efforts many days in practice, that is going to bite them come March. Overall a fun day at the JAR yesterday.

I much prefer to see comments from some of the excellent posters on ZNO and what they think after our new hire next week than bozos like this. I am delighted to hear Akron’s choice of Rob Ianello as the next head football coach. Rob is ready to go (as a head coach). He has been a loyal and trusted assistant for the University of Notre Dame for the past five years. He has the reputation as one of the best recruiters in the country, while his positions players have played at the highest of levels. I am happy both for the University of Akron and the Ianello family. This is a win-win situation.” Charlie Weis Former Notre Dame Head Football Coach “I am thrilled for Rob. I think he will do an exceptional job. I know Akron has made a tremendous commitment to be at the forefront of football in the Mid-American Conference and nothing illustrates that commitment more than hiring Rob Ianello, who is one of the top people available in college football. I am very excited for Rob and excited for Akron. I know he will do a fantastic job. He will bring tremendous energy to the program and expertise to the job.” Dick Tomey San Jose State Head Football Coach 2009 President of the American Football Coaches Association “I have known Rob since he was a graduate assistant at Alabama. He is absolutely one of the best recruiters in the country. Each year, we name the best recruiters, he won two years ago (2007) and he is always listed as one of the best. He is one of the few recruiters to land five consensus All-Americans in one season. As a recruiter, he is a bulldog, relentless and a great organizer. I cannot say enough good things about him. (Akron) will see some big-time recruits coming there. Rob is a great guy to have as your head coach.” Tom Lemming Recruiting Analyst The Lemming Report/CBS College Sports

I hope for Winters. My reasons . . . 1. He has been a successful head coach at a level with scholarships. None of the other names mentioned have. I have seen enough of assistants from BCS schools coming in and failing. Picking a good head coach in some ways is like picking a teacher. You do an all day interview and decide this one will be good. And you don't really know until they actually teach a few years. 2. If Paul had only been Div 2 his whole life and never coached at a MAC level, I would have more doubts. But he was in the MAC for almost 10 years. I remember watching a few NFL guys and several more fringe NFL guys over that span. It would be nice to see guys like Payne, Basch, Hendry, Frye, Washington, Irvin, Sparks, Cherry, Bailey, Brake, etc again. I am sure that Winters did not identify and bring all of those guys in but he knew how to use them and I am sure that he played a big part in recruiting many of them. He know what the MAC is and how to win in it. 3. Stability - I want someone good but someone who will be here more than 3 years. Tim Beckman, good coach, never in a MAC title game, gets a big job. NIU guy been there 1 or 2 years, looking to move. Jerry Kill, Mike Haywood, the norm now is if you are moderately decent you can parlay that into a bigger job in only a couple of years. Next year will be ugly whoever comes in. A pattern I see is 2-10 next year, 4-8, year 2, 6-6 or 7-5 year 3. Based off the stupidity of BCS ADs, that would be good enough to get a 750K job and most of the names mentioned would jump at that point. 4. Selfishness - I took a hiatus from Zips football this year. JD's last year and RI's first year beat me down. And thinking that we had at least another 3 years of RI, I gave up my season tickets after 15 years. With taking care of family obligations time is precious. And I easily found better things to do with my time and money this year than watch Zips football which I never thought that I would say. At this point I don't care about what Joe Akron thinks or moving to the Big East. I want to be entertained on a Sat afternoon watching exciting football, guys who play hard, a few NFL prospects, and a good chance that my team will win. And I feel Winters is the guy that gives that the best chance of happening. 5. Lee Owens - Lee improved things but it was time for him to go. It is unfair to have Winters pay for the shortcomings of Lee. He was part of the staff but he wasn't the head coach. He took over a much worse Div 2 program than LO and has them playing in the national title game today. To me he has shown that he will be more successful than Lee at Akron. 6. Program Builder - When LO and staff were dismissed PW could have gotten an assistant job at another D1 school or get a head job at a lower level. He chose to go to WSU (now that is a graveyard). MAC assistants don't get D1 head coaching jobs unless they get promoted at their school. The guy took a huge risk. Could he have looked to go elsewhere over the past 8 years? I don't know but I see him being an attractive candidate at a better D2 program or 1AA to some schools over the past few years. I admire someone who actually sticks it out and shows that he is not a one year wonder but proves he really has built a program. Kansas might have wanted to see that about Turner Gill and we will see how Beckman does. 7. Effort - Over the past 3 years I heard French call out the team for lack of effort more than the prior 10 years. I am sure there are good guys on the team and the atmosphere was bad this year. But 66-5 in the 3rd qtr against a mid level MAC team isn't just talent. Seeing guys laugh it up on the sideline during the JD era while getting drilled. . . hearing enough about Winters I don't see that happening. I will defer to ITZ and others who played for him but if you can't play for him I am guessing that you can't play for anyone. Excited to see what happens next week. I will support whoever comes in but if not Winters, I will be disappointed. It is good to have hope again.

Nice post. I have a friend who played at BG about 15 years ago. She said that she never looked at Akron, there was no history of success Wymer pulled off the biggest turnaround in Akron history.

Way to go Zips!!!

UMass for football is good. I prefer they not come in for bball. The league is only getting one bid. I would rather be better than everyone and keep going to the dance. If UMass joined in bball, the league would not jump over the Horizon or MVC and they were 1 bid leagues last year.

Charles Ramsey was let go at EMU, 1 yr left on 175K contract. Todd Lichliter is rumored to be a top candidate per the Detroit Free Press.

Good posts above. A few extra thoughts 1. Per TomGaffn\ey, KD said that he will not be in Houston for the Final 4. He has a family obligation. 2. I always worry when his name comes up for openings. I know that we are lucky to have him. 3. He has always been a straight shooter. He has consistently said that he is not leaving. At the end of the year when asked about recruiting he mentioned that they know he is not going anywhere and the staff is happy here as well. I don't see him having to go out and deny rumors as they come up although it would make me sleep easier. 4. After the NIT snub several years ago he said that he might leave at some point given his frustation and then backed off of that statement in a few days. Again, if there was a chance that he would leave at some point I feel that he would have at least alluded to that at some point in the past and not do a Mack Rhodes, say one thing and do another. 5. I am sure that he could have left in the past if desired. This time there is a new AD. He seems to like the support that TW is putting behind basketball, at least publicly. Akron pays well for Akron. But we aren't a 1M dollar school. 6. Until ZW sounds alarms, I am going to rest easy and expect KD to be here for the long haul.

Per the Detroit News Greg Kampe is openly campaigning for the job. Greg Kampe's name has been tossed out there as a candidate for the head coaching job at Dayton, left open with the departure of Brian Gregory who took the position at Georgia Tech this week. Kampe, who has been the coach at Oakland University since 1984, has heard the rumors. He is in Houston for this weekend's Final Four. "Some of the coaches have come up to me, talking about my name being mentioned with the Dayton job," Kampe told The Detroit News on Thursday from Houston. "I haven't talked to anyone from Dayton, but I'd be interested to talk to them about it. "The only place I'm leaving Oakland for is a place where I could win and win big. I'm talking national championships. I want to go to a place that has high expectations, a chance at getting to the Final Four for a shot at the national title. I think you could do that at Dayton." From The Detroit News: http://detnews.com/article/20110401/SPORTS...e#ixzz1IJpkl3II

What Steve Hawkins did not say is that over the last 5 years in the regular season WMU is 2-8 against Akron and Can't. WMU has a nice little program that would finish 4th or 5th every year in the East. We could do the tourney like the Horizon and have the top seed host. Can't would have had an even bigger advantage over the past 2 years than playing at the Q. Play a 22 game conference schedule and WMU is a 500 or slightly above 500 team. There is not one year since the tourney went to Cleveland where the MAC West had the best team and lost. Hawkins should be more worried about cheap shots from his players at the end of games.

Kind of sounds like Dan Gilbert last night.

Very cool. Kudos to gozip.com for their coverage over the past few months. I know that I am quick to jump on mistakes and get frustrated at times, but as a fan, they have made it much easier and the programs more personable to follow. And here's hoping ZTV comes back with the full press conferences.

Good to see Richard Hall and Keith Sconiers on the roster as well.

Skip, at the end of last year, I saw Conyers and McKnight graduating and no one ready to step in for them. Nik played poorly in the tourney last year, Humpty had leveled out, McClanahan had an up and down season, we all hoped that Zeke would add 20 lbs and there was a lot of talk about relying on one or two of the true FR to be heavy contributors. The only established guys were McNees, McKnight, and Darryl. And even Darryl had an up and down season. Without knowing about the transfers and with who was back, I didn't see this team being better than last year. This offseason, I feel really good that Zeke will take his game to a new level, Nik and Brett are established and the upside from Abreau and Q is good. Maybe it is ending the season on a high note as well and seeing how close we were to Notre Dame. I like the momentum.

I was able to catch most of the show. Here is what I remember. Feel free to correct if you heard differently. When asked about the new guys Justice - good shooter, will need to work hard on defense, ball handling, and speed of the game. His Dad and Uncle played college ball and they will have him ready. He could be a big surprise next year. Deiji - very athletic, will need to be coached and learn the system. We will try to develop him at the PG spot. Walsh - a typical Akron kid, knows how to play, good shooter, big, very high on him Gilliam - never saw a shot that he did not like, needs to learn the system, great body, can score Prop kids - can't talk about them but seemed upbeat when they came up. Guys returning when asked what they need to work on Abreau - better conditioned so that he will be able to play at high level for more minutes. Defense greatly improved but needs to keep improving. Best we ever had for someone who can get to the rim Q - early in the year would hold your breath when he came in. By the end of the year were running plays through him at crunch time. Showed great improvement but needs to become a better practice player and become tougher. Zeke - special guy. Needs to add 25 LBS, that would solve a lot of the current issues. Made great improvement and is learning to not let the last play bother him. Showed that in the tourney. Also mentioned Nik, McClanahan, and Egner when talking about returnees and the nucleaus. Bill did not ask specifics on those 3 just the 3 above unless I missed something. KD did not mention Dakotah or Michael Green. From what Gaffney and GoZips wrote today, Dakotah looks to be gone. Talking about recruits for 2012 - We need a big center, I mean big center and a PG. The schedule - we have CSU on the road and VCU and Detroit at home. We will buy 3 home games play at a high major and go to a tournament, not sure which one and still deciding how the rest plays out. He did not mention UIC or YSU but I would think we get UIC at home and are at YSU. No mention of Dayton so that looks to be a 1 for 0 game, bummer. Overall, KD sounded excited. I think back to his year end address last year and we had so much uncertainty. Things have turned around remarkably quick. Can't wait until next year!

French and Dunn in their post game wrap up mentioned the new guys coming in and then said who knows if someone else may be added as well in the off season and that we would have to wait and see. Maybe someone else waiting in the wings?

Fun In January there were some ugly game. For the last month of the season, the best basketball that I have seen in the JAR against solid teams for that long of a stretch. And then the tourney, it was just an enjoyable season. And seeing who is coming back, the Zips should be even better next year. I was able to catch the post game and KD paid the highest compliment to McNees and Roberts. He talked abou them never being All MAC and over looked for post season awards but that they were just awesome the whole time they were here . Then he said after their name just write the word winner and at the end of the day that is what you are judged on. And that is as good as a compliment you can get. If they could do anything to make the JAR more enjoyable to watch a game, I could see attendance finally moving up next year. A legit pro guy in Zeke, high expectations, a more up tempo and fun style to watch, a local guy with a good following.

Thanks for posting Dr Z.