Zip Watcher

Me thinks CK has a new favorite image to post!!

Easily the best conversation anyone's had with themselves to date on ZN.org. Well done CK! For a minute there I thought I was reading a TP column when he talks to himself. Then I realized it was about the zips and wasn't crying about a past coach .. and came to my senses.

Wasn't this announced over a week ago? In this mornings Reekin Urinal: http://www.ohio.com/mld/beaconjournal/sports/9204517.htm Took someone 8 days to copy this off of GoZips.com Great coverage!

Not an indication of that at all actually. Due to the unbalanced alignment and the 18 game schedule, there are some crossovers that have to be home and home to make it work out. There aren't the same number of teams in each division, so one division would be short games if the cross-over was only one game per team. Last season, there was a home and home with CMU. If teams in the east just played home and home with each other and single games against the west, that would only make 17 games, while the same scenario in the west would leave them with 18 games. Thus there's some unbalancing to make things work.

Dayton shouldn't be a 2 for 1 .. or an 0 for 1. I think they should be playing us 1 for 1. Tells me that they don't want to "risk" playing in the JAR. There's some belief in the college basketball world that the A10 is some how a vastly superior league to the MAC. While there has been a bit more strength at the top of the A10 of late in tourney runs, I view the conferences on an reasonably level plane. The inclusion of Temple makes the media fall all over themselves when it comes to the A10. The sheer number of A10 games broadcast on TV in these parts never ceases to piss me off when I know there's a BG / UT or Miami / OU game that could be on. I think a MAC - A10 challenge would surprise a lot of people. And I think the Zips should be playing the likes of Dayton & Xavier more than the Duquesne's of the world. One things for sure: After JWood & the rest of KD's crew get out of UD arena with a win, the Flyers probably won't have anything to do with the Zips again. I encourage anyone that can make it to that game to go. Dayton is a perferct example of what the Zips SHOULD be in Akron. It's the biggest game in town & the population fights for seats to be there. Great arena and game atmosphere also. I think the games listed are OK for now. You pretty much have to assume the Mount Union game is an exhibition (a la the Wooster games of late). That leaves a decent slate of solid low to mid major clubs. None terribly excite me, but I figure we'll pick up one more major opponent to go with them. CSU is a must have game no matter what. Next to Can't State, I think it's a fun rivalry to have & think we should kick their asses a few times while they suck just to stoke the fire a bit. The season is made or broken in conference. The conference is good enough that the non-conference schedule isn't so crucial. This being KD's first year, I don't mind a somewhat soft pre-season if it means it gets the team on the same page for a run at the MAC.

I've often felt that we should have a live kangaroo mascot to go with Zippy. Would be pretty cool. Have it hopping around the sidelines with some "handlers." Click me for intimidating Roo! (The new UA live mascot relaxes in campus green space checking out the new crop of co-eds)

Wasn't it Lonnie Jones that had that SICK 11 block game at the Gund a few years back? If I remember right, he's got a problem with asthma or he'd have beeen a stud in the MAC. That game was when he was a freshman I think. Lonnie's an NBA talent if his conditioning allows. He could be a rebounding & shot blocking force. With the current thin level of big man talent in the league o' felons, guys that are tall will always get looks. The last 6-2 shooting guard that I remember being a regular player in the NBA was John Battle. But Battle defended reasonably well and understood the team game. Tarver would need to improve these aspects of his game to get a look. Can you imagine him guarding Lebron or even Wally?

I agree completely. Rankings of undergraduate programs mean pretty much nothing. If you're talking about graduate programs, they start to have more merit, since research dollars relate directly to the level of grad students you can attract and produce. For undergrads, having good teachers with well rounded, substantial and practical curricula is the key. Akron has that, and that's why it's among the best schools around. This I would disagree with. These competitiions are some evidence of the practical application of engineering theory, but they're usually not stacked with all of the so-called "good students." There's a wide variety of academic and practical experience among the student body & it takes a healthy balance to be successful in these competiitions. I led a team in a similar competition when I was an undergrad (at a Big East school) and we cherry picked the top guys in the classroom and had a lot of difficulty being successful. What isn't talked about a lot in the news releases is UA's utter dominance in ASME as well. It's a good measure of the amount of activity outside the classroom available to students, and a good indicator of their ability to function as a group and lead. Seminars, tours .. etc. To my knowledge, in the midwest area, only Dayton has ever really competed with UA in this area. UA also has a very high success rate of its seniors in taking and passing the EIT exam. Your comments above about Purdue and Michigan caught my eye. Columbus State is simply not even in the same league as PU, UM and UA. Some additional perspective you may find interesting: I don't have an engineering degree from UA. I do however have a graduate ME degree from Purdue & spent several semesters as a TA for undergrad & grad classes while there. It is a good school, but it's HUGE. It's not easy, but you can make it through there without being real sharp as an engineer. PU is a monster grad program and I wouldn't trade my experience and time there for anything. But at the undergrad level, when you're graduating 200 or so seniors each year from the ME school alone, it's hard to be effective in the weedout process. A smaller department like Akron is usually a tougher program to survive and better able to push the students. I now own & run an engineering development firm. The first guy that I hired on 4 years ago is an Akron ME. In all my experience in our industry (medical device), he's among the 3 or 4 best engineers I've ever encountered. He's EASILY the most creative in generating solutions to unique problems, and he's practical. Thus far, when looking for experienced new hires in our field, we've look around at a lot of different places and a few years into a career, the school becomes a little less of a factor. However: when the day comes that our firm is ready and able to take on a fresh-out engineering grad or a co-op, it's likely we'll conduct our search in one place: Akron. As an ME school, it's simply that good. There are other places around here that people hold in much higher regard that I won't really ever look twice at. It's simply not a productive use of my time. Believe the hype. It's got some serious legs behind it.

Hadn't heard the Hipsher / Goddard things. I've got some feelres out for some confirmations. My thoughts at this point: a) should be a good rebounding team. I think with the apparent depth, defense could be good if they get after things. b: Peterson is the key in getting balance here. We're REALLY in need of consistent outside shooting to stretch the defense more than last year. We don't need to be taking 20 threes a game, but we should be able to make some. It will open things up inside tremendously & help the rebounding and resulting fast break outlet passes. Shooting is going to be critical. An eligible Preston could help that a lot also. Pulling a big guy out to defend a shooter .. good matchup to have. I think we're solid at point guard. Joyce for 25, 10 each from Collins & Middleton. I'll take my chances there. I think we're near the top of the MAC at the 3, provided DP is back and healthy. I think we can push people around at the 4 and 5 with some conditioning. Wood is the man, Futch is a load & I think Myers has been underused to date. I look for Nick to add some scoring punch in the middle. 2 is the big ? in my mind. Rick had a pretty good year last year .. I like having him on the floor & hope his shooting comes around. c) Seems to me that we have 9 guys with real game experience. To me, that's an indication of good depth. Let's assume that 1 of the 3 newcomers will see big minutes & be marginally productive. That's a workable 10 man rotation. With that, I think we should make sure we're well conditioned so that we can substitute liberally & wear teams down. If we can keep 10 guys in the loop on the court, we can defend and press. Most opponents will wear down in the 2nd half against good pressure, even against deep teams with marginal talent. Gary Waters and Can't State proved that 5 years ago.

Never too soon to discuss the upcoming hoops season, is it? This time of year drags horribly for me. 2 months til college gridiron. 4 until hoops. Spent some time thinking about the 04-05 roster this evening. As I have it, we should have the full complement of 13 available players this year. 12 scholarships and 1 walkon, pending the academic status of Preston and the injury status of Peterson. Nick Dials is the 13th scholarship, sitting out his red-shirt transfer season this year. By my understanding, we will have: Seniors (3): Collins McFadden Meyers Juniors (4): Futch Peterson Preston (?) B. Hipsher (perhaps?) Sophomores (3): Joyce Travis Wood Freshmen (3): Middleton Milum Walther By positions, that loosely gives us: PG (3): Collins, Joyce, Middleton SG (3): McFadden, Walther, Hipsher SF (3): Peterson, Travis, Milum PF (2): Wood, Preston C (2): Meyers, Futch Some questions for slugville (I'll weigh in later): a: What's your first impression of the roster as it stands? Does it seem like a good team? b: Are we balanced? What are the biggest strengths & weaknesses? c: Can this team get out and run on people? Defend the full court? I'm very curious to hear thoughts on the roster .. love to know what you think. After this, we can get on to considering line-ups & rotations. Go Zips.

I think it's best to make sure we play quality non-conference opponents that don't bring down our RPI. Perhaps we should offer them a 2 for 1. 2 in the Jar.

I take the one who poses less of an off the court risk. The emphasis on this team shouldn't be on a short term rented scorer who can't understand and play team ball. We tried that .. didn't work. This team should be all about JWood, Peterson, Romeo & friennds. Oh yeah .. and the Assassain, BHIP. From the llittle that I know, I'd take a flyer on Dials before Schifino. If you read about the mess that is the Morgantown mens hoops team, it seems to me it would take an awful lot to get booted from that squad. Might be the wrong first step for KD as he tries to right the ship academically while beginning the dominance on the court.

Damn! I watch Cold Pizza every now and again, but didn't catch that episode. Further proof that the Zips are a sleeping giant. With all the press that JT gets on ESPN & mentions here and there by other anchors, and the LBJ tie-ins w/ Dickie V, there's no doubt in my mind that a successful Zips team would get national press. The Zips Nation shall rise!

I suppose he could have stumbled up to Columbus, but why would Huggins want to take that job? He's in the most tradition-laden basketball job in Ohio now. Not that Columbus State hasn't had good hoops, but it will always be second fiddle to the football team in that town. I don't have any personal knowledge of Huggins, but given Cincy's impending move to the Big East & the state of things in Columbus, interest on his part in the Suckeyes job would have been surprising. Screw the Suckeys ... Go Zips.

Several friends of mine who are loyal OSU fans don't understand how I can root against the Suckeyes in every situation, being born & raised in OH. My simple answer for years has been: The Suckeyes are the best representation of everything that's wrong with college sports today. While I am surprised to hear about Jim OB's indescretion & termination (I know no details as I write this), it doesn't surprise me that the lack of institutional control continues at Columbus Teck.

I might be there .. anyone need a 4th hacker for their group?

Any word on Mini-Baja or AIAA heavy lifting results? Not sure when those take place.

Rat, you're reading way too much into a simple question. There's been no trash talking here. I'm 100% behind KD. To my knowledge, I was the only one anywhere near this board that bothered to check out the press conference when he was hired in person, so don't ever question my loyalty or trust in what's happening at the JAR. I'm on board, have been for a long time & will continue to be well into the future. I merely point out that I didn't anticipate the youth of this staff. I was expecting the delay in the last hire to mean an experienced D1 guy would come on with KD. Didn't happen. I wondered what others thought. No judgments .. don't infer what's not there. As for Jim Tressel at YSU .. who gives a Rat's a$$ about YSU and Columbus Felon football anyway??! I certainly don't, and I don't think too many people around these parts do either .. thanks anyway for that completely irrelevant analogy.

Is anyone else suprised by the fact that neither of the two new assistant coach hires has any significant D1 coaching experience? I have to admit being a bit reserved about the hire of a DIII and DII guy to round this staff. I was thinking Yeater would get bumped to the 3 spot, Smart would stay at the 2, and an experienced D1 assistant would be brought on as the top assistant. Thoughts?

No question for me .. I'm from the side of the fence that thinks of UA as a hoops school. Sweet 16 is what I want. I say that because I think we'll soon come to expect the sweet 64. I also second JP's comment that a run in hoops would provide more pub than would football.

See pinned message in this forum. I think all moderators should be able to edit the post .. anyone should be able to add messages to the post.

2004 Akron Zips Football Opponents & Their Fan Sites: 09/04/2004 @Penn St University NittanyFootball.Com PSU Playbook (.org) PSU @ Insiders (.com) 09/11/2004 vs. Middle Tenn St GO MT Blue (.com) Go Blue Raiders (.com .. official site, no forums) 09/18/2004 @ Virginia TheSabre.Com 09/23/2004 @ Can't State Can't, Ohio I think MACbbs is the best site for finding them (both fans) 10/02/2004 @ Northern Ill I believe MACbbs is their main board also 10/09/2004 vs. Buffalo UB Fan (.com) 10/16/2004 @ UCF UCFSports.com (@ rivals) 10/23/2004 vs. Ball St BSU Fans (.com) 11/05/2004 vs. Marshall Herd Nation 11/13/2004 @ Ohio bobcat attack (.com) 11/20/2004 vs. Miami Ohio Miami Hawk Talk --- Please post corrections and/or additions to this thread, and they will be added to this list.

Good find. I just emailed the guy to get the Zips Nation included. We should have a quick link section to the opponents boards. What about pinning a message at the top of the football forum with links to the opponents by schedule. We could put it up there and post other findings to it or edit the original to keep it up to date. We can use that site you linked as a source for much of it I think. That might be the easiest and most accessible place to put it. How does that grab you?

Maybe we can bring in one that can hit the outside shot AND read! Leave the others for CSU and Columbus Tech.

Guess he won't be running much of anywhere in the near future: Wasted talent.