Quickzips

He's 17 years old. Do you think he can bulk-up a little?Also - Since he's played DE and TE in high school, I have to believe his 200lbs is distributed a little differently than my 200lbs. Knowing very little about the kid other than stats and press clippings, I predict some very clean glass at the JAR between 2012-2016.I don't know as I want him bulking up that much. Yeah, we've had some guys at 6'5", 6'6" who have played the 4 the past few years, but all of those guys (Wood and B.McKnight come to mind) have been in the 240+ range, which I think you really need to be if you are going to be that kind of an undersized PF. I would be pretty afraid that adding another 40+ to this kids frame would hamper some of that athleticism.The other way to think about it is this way. How many truly great rebounding SF's do you see out there? If Gary at 6'5" 200lb is already a stellar rebounder he is going to present a lot of matchup problems for opposing SF's. If you put him at PF where guys are bigger and stronger and traditionally better rebounders you take away a certain amount of that advantage. I for one want to see what this kid could do at SF before asking him to bulk up and make the move to PF.

At 6'5" 200lbs I really doubt you will see him at PF. This is probably a good get for us, although I would have really liked to have seen us go after another C to have waiting in the wings once Zeke's career is finished. Dayton Dunbar puts out a lot of high quality hoopsters. Welcome aboard.

Apparently he is "suspended indefinitley" pending the outcome of the court case according to the Beacon (Beacon story also indicates that 5 players on Can't's 15 man roster have had run ins with the law in recent years). How much you want to bet the charges are dropped or reduced, he pleads to a far lesser offense like disturbing the peace and is re-instated without so much as missing a day of practice? Pretty predictable path.

Immaturity reigns supreme in Portage County. And yet again the flashes board is lit up with excuses for the kid. Including one person playing the race card. I'll admit that in the grand scheme of criminal acts, this is relatively low on the totem pole, but when you see this kind of stuff over and over and over and over again from their basketball program a trend starts to emerge. Singletary's OVI, Singletary resisting arrest, Guyton "repossessing" a woman's car, Bradley breaking into his girlfriend's apartment. I'm sure I am missing quite a few. Can't has allowed this sort of crap to go on year after year because nobody actually gets punished when it happens. They get a half a game suspension, or they get held out of a few practices, Dave Carducci writes another story about how it is all just a big misunderstanding and we should all forgive and forget the youthful indiscretions and they are right back on the team by the time the next big game roles around. This won't stop until their President, AD and coaching staff systematically change their approach to discipline. Start recruiting kids who aren't head cases and start implementing some disciplinary measures with actual teeth when they do act up. It is either that or continue watching your players show up in the police blotter. As frustrating as the whole Brett McKnight situation was last season, it really is a glaring example of what is right with our program and what is wrong with the Can't program. At Akron you are held accountable for your actions. At Can't it is societies fault and we need to all just sit around the camp fire singing koombaya.

Ibitayo may well surprise people with his 6'9" wingspan on his 6'3" frame.Although he doesn't fit the mold of taller, longer and more athletic, don't forget about Alex Abreu. He has shown the ability to be a pest of an on ball defender at times who can force opposing PG's into some bad decisions.I'm very curious to see what happens with Deji and Blake. This team is going to be stacked this year, and I really don't know where KD is going to find minutes for two true freshmen, but it will be very interesting to see what happens if one or both of them come in to camp and just light it up. Right now, I would expect to see those two redshirt, but who knows.

While this may sound far fetched at this time ... mark my words ... these four players could allbe starters by MAC tournament time.That would be quite a feat considering the returning talent at their positions and the overlap that exists between some of them. I assume you are thinking of a lineup like:PG-WalshSG-GilliamSF-HarneyPF-TreeC-ZekeI dunno, I've heard good things about all 4 of those guys, but something tells me you aren't going to see Abreu, Nitro, Q and the Serb ALL coming off of the bench. For now I will have to agree with you, far fetched indeed.

I suspect that if you talked to a lot of NBA scouts they would probably like to see Zeke in the range of 240-250. Chandler is kind of the exception, not the rule when it comes to NBA centers, and even he was starting to garner the label of an injury prone bust prior to this season. A lot of it will depend on how Zeke puts the weight on (muscle vs. fat) and how his body holds up to the stress put on it from the extra weight. Honestly, at this point in his development 235 is probably about right for Zeke. It is the guys his size who put on weight too fast that end up with a lot of injury issues.

What I love about that article is the quote from the coach that wants to create a pipeline of players from Puerto Rico to Akron. That would be a big help for Akron and I think AA being able to come in, play significant minutes and contribute as a freshman played a big role in that. They see that Akron can compete, make the NCAA tourney and offer immediate playing time and exposure when they may not get that at the high majors. Excellent. While in California I follow St. Mary's Their success has a lot to do with the Australia pipeline they have developed. 3-5 players usually on the team from down under. It would be great if we developed something similar. I wish we could steal St. Mary's relationship with Australia....the Roo connection would be a good fit. K.e.n.t. beat St Mary's, @ St Mary's last season. I'd rather try a different pipeline. Losing to K.e.n.t. = bad pipeline. Saint Mary's also took a trip to the sweet 16 in 2010, largely due to the play of their Australian pipeline players. This leads to the inevitable question. Would you take a sweet 16 run from our team if the tradeoff was that we had to lose to Can't? What if it meant losing to Can't multiple times?

Personally, I think both Nik and Brett have kind of peaked for their Zips careers. Not that that is a bad thing. If we can get the kind of production next year that we got this past year out of those two the Zips are well on their way to having a good season. You might see some improvement from Nitro as I think you will see him more at the 2 guard spot which I think is a more natural position for him, but after four years you really aren't expecting guys to take another big leap in productivity. Obviously all eyes are going to be on Zeke again next season. I think the biggest thing for him is going to be consistency. At the end of the season he seemed to finally start to get it a little bit in not letting one bad play bring him down for the rest of the game. He started to have the ability to move on and play hard the next play. If he can continue to bring that attitude to the floor every night, and his body continues to mature physically he WILL be a force in this conference. All the pieces are there, it is on him and the coaching staff to put them all together. Ohh yeah, and he MUST learn how to stay out of foul trouble. Q is a little bit of an enigma to me. Loads of physical talent, but you wonder on occassion if he is going to grasp the mental aspects of the game. We saw what the kid can do when he is engaged, thinking and playing aggressively but within the flow of the game against Western in the semi-finals this year. If that Q shows up game in and game out he will be first team all-MAC. But a lot of that hinges on the mental side of the game, and it is tough to say whether that light will ever come on for one guy or another. The biggest thing for Rico is going to be how he responds to the added pressure of being the primary ball-handler for the majority of the game. He didn't take well to the starting role when he had it last year, and played much better coming off the bench in a little more limited role. I know we have Walsh coming in this year, but I hesitate to hang our hopes on a guy who has dealt with injury issues, and hasn't played much the last three years. We are going to need Rico to be able to carry the load at PG for quite a few minutes. His physical conditioning must get better in order to do that. Egner to me is just as big of a question mark as any of the new guys. We really didn't see enough of him last year to make any kind of an informed prediction on what he will be like this year, or through the course of his career. He is going to have to compete again for playing time, as we have a lot of options at the forward positions this year, including a returning starter and team leader at his preferred PF position. The little bit we did see from him last year has a lot of people drooling over his athletic potential, but there just isn't enough to go on to start saying how much he will be able to contribute this year.

Updated to include Betancourt's commitment, plus the commitment of Jalen Robinson to Dayton. Also, three star PG Kyle Molock has opened his recruitment back up after initially commiting to Purdue. He reports a previous offer from the Zips.

Wonder no more. There is no chance WVA ever comes to the JAR. K.e.n.t. fans have a better chance of having a felon-free roster. We took this game because WVA waved a bunch of money around. We can only wave coupons for $1 hot dogs in front of Huggins. That's not enough. More than likely it is just a 1 off game with WVU ponying up some cash to bring in the Zips. Best case scenario would be a 2 for 1 or 3 for 1 kind of scenario with us eventually getting a return game at the Q, but that is highly, HIGHLY unlikely. Think of it as being this years equivalent of last seasons Minnesota game.

Can he get "cut" in the NBA? Under the current CBA he most certainly could. Currently only first round draft choices are given a guaranteed contract. 2nd rounders and undrafted players aren't given any type of a guarantee. In fact, you see quite a few 2nd rounders each year who don't even make it through the preseason with the team that drafted them. With the talent expected in next years draft Zeke would have to make a pretty sizable leap in his progression to go in the first round. Of course, the NBA is about to go through the same CBA/lockout issues currently facing the NFL, so all of this may change.

Been thinking a lot about this one lately. While you never know where exactly a kid's head is, I just do not get the impression from Zeke that he is looking for the first opportunity available to bolt for the NBA. This is a kid for whom academics seem to be a real priority, and unless he gets to the point where he would be a high lottery pick, I just can't see him making that leap after just his junior year. He would have to take a pretty massive step forward in his progression to get to that point. Right now I suspect that a lot of NBA teams would be looking at Zeke and seeing a lot of athletic talent, a great shot-blocker, but a very raw offensive player who struggles mightily with foul trouble. In most drafts (this year was atypical as the potential for a lockout scared off a lot of top college prospects) that is a guy you take MAYBE late first round. More likely than not somewhere mid-second round. We'll see what happens next year, but I really believe we will see Zeke suiting up for the blue and gold for all 4 years. Btw, Norris Cole was drafted by Chicago, traded to Minnesota and then traded from Minnesota to Miami.

Surprised this one hasn't hit the ZNO yet. http://www.recordpub.com/news/sports_article/5054391?page=0

Puerto Rico is quickly gaining a reputation for putting out some pretty stout little PG's. If Akron becomes the pipeline for these guys I have absolutely no problem with that. It would be pretty nice to see the Zips become to Puerto Rican basketball what St. Mary's has been to Australian basketball. If 'Melo is legit, and Abreu continues to progress it will go a long way to entrenching that pipeline.

EMU is taking the short cut way of trying to build a program. This Murphy guy is clearly not in it for the long haul with them. He figures if he can come in and quickly turn that program into an NCAA program or even win a few NIT games he'll be on the road to bigger and better things, leaving the mess for someone else to clean up after. You need to have some stability in your locker room and in your program before you start bringing in transfers and JUCO's at the rate this guy is. The only good thing for EMU is that when this blows up in their face it really isn't going to matter because nobody goes to EMU games in the first place.

I think the losses are going to hurt us, but I think the Zips do still have enough coming back for everyone to be optimistic. GoZips level optimistic? I'm not sure yet. But with a nice core of Alex, Nitro, Quincy, the Serb and Zeke coming back there is still plenty enough in terms of experience and talent to think that this team will be just fine. However, it will be another year in which the Zips will play a certain amount of the "who's going to step up" game with the incoming players. There are at least five players that I think everyone is going to be looking at as having a reasonable opportunity to step up and play a major role for us next year. Walsh, Gilliam, Harney, Tree and Egner. Realistically we are probably going to need at least two of them to step up and be significant contributors. The good news is that for the most part these aren't 18 year old kids fresh out of high school. Walsh has two years in at one of the top mid-majors in the country. Gilliam was the leading scorer for two years with his UMBC team. Egner got a little bit of playing time last season and if you believe KD's comments towards the end of the year he was ready to see some more. In the end though, the biggest reason I think the Zips will be just fine is KD. When you have a coach who has proven that he knows how to manage his team and put his guys in a position to succeed you have to have faith that he will continue to do so.

Awesome, Awesome, AWESOME! Mississippi State, West Virginia, Marshall, Detroit, VCU, Valpo, Duquesne and Cleveland State are all quality teams and are the kinds of games we need to be playing. Just have to finish off those last six or so spots with a couple more quality opponents, maybe a neutral site tournament and one or two cupcakes just so we don't over-do it and wind up with a Miami type gauntlet. Pushing that bracketbuster return game with VCU back to this season worked out splendidly for the Zips as the Rams should draw a little more attention from the local fans after their Cinderella run this March. West Virginia is a nice little road trip against a pretty quality Big-East team that I actually think we'd have a pretty fair chance against. As many have said on here over the years, Cleveland State should be on the schedule every year. If the Zips play their cards right with the remaining games this is the type of scheduling that could give us a reasonable shot at an at-large.

Devon Scott comes off the board. Headed to Cincinnati.

I like all of these rule changes. Having an actual painted arc takes away power from the referees who were previously allowed to call charges under the basket however they saw fit. Not having two separate three-point lines on the court will make womens games less confusing for the fans, name changes to flagrant/intentional fouls also helps. If you recall, there were several instances last season where the type of foul called was in question, when the MAC officials decided that lifting Zeke's arms above his head was illegal. Something tells me with the "quality" of the MAC refs, the painted arc isn't going to mean much. It will make it easier to see when they have obviously screwed up, but many of us could see that already. I'd really like to see them make some kind of modification to the elbow to the face rule that bit Zeke (and others across the country) so many times last year. I understand the purpose of the rule, but it seemed like about mid season a lot of defenders started to figure it out as a way to get a cheap flagrant call and an easy trip to the free throw line.

$1.2 million dollars. That makes an impact in a MAC Athletic Department budget. Just to clarify, Can't State is highly, HIGHLY unlikely to see a $1.2 million dollar payout on this. Even if the case eventually does go to court, which in all likelihood it will be settled for a much smaller dollar amount well before it ever sniffs a jury, these types of liquidated damages clauses are just not favored much in the courts. The courts will likely look at that big, $1.2 million dollar figure and say you are essentially trying to put a barrier in front of the guy ever leaving his position. They will likely look at it as a loose form of indentured servitude (we've got a big problem with that in this country) and would be very hesitant to issue a judgment anywhere close to that amount. It really is puzzling to me why Can't State is continuing to push this. They are unlikely to receive a payout that is going to cover their costs, it is going to have a deterrent effect on future coaching hires, it isn't going to bring Geno Ford back. It just seems like leftover bitterness and animocity is clouding their judgment to the point where they are making a bad decision just to try and screw with Ford and Bradley. This is pretty good. I touched on some of this earlier. Just because it's written in a part of a contract may not mean much. Some other part of the contract may negate it, the law may not support it, the details may be interpreted differently by different people, or a jury could find the breach penalties to be extremely excessive. Please don't fool yourselves into thinking that this is likely a clear issue. As I said, in most cases this is merely an attempt to push for a settlement. If they pursue this all the way to the end to try to get some portion of that amount as a judgement in their favor in a courtroom, it may not even be worth their time and expense. I also agree with those who have stated that Ken+ is a good enough job for an up and coming coach that this won't be a deterent. In fact, I think this kind of thing happens more often than we ever hear about. The thing you really have to remember is that Can't is going to have to have to prove an actual dollar amount for their damages related to this. They are going to have to prove what they lost out of pocket. I have a difficult time believing they will be able to prove $1.2 million out of pocket as a result of this. The most I could see them getting would be the cost related to their new coaching search along with the difference between Ford's old salary and Senderoff's salary as the new coach. I don't know the details of either contract, but I doubt that comes out to $1.2 million. Can't isn't going to get enough money out of this to buy a home game with Bradley when this is all said and done.

$1.2 million dollars. That makes an impact in a MAC Athletic Department budget. Just to clarify, Can't State is highly, HIGHLY unlikely to see a $1.2 million dollar payout on this. Even if the case eventually does go to court, which in all likelihood it will be settled for a much smaller dollar amount well before it ever sniffs a jury, these types of liquidated damages clauses are just not favored much in the courts. The courts will likely look at that big, $1.2 million dollar figure and say you are essentially trying to put a barrier in front of the guy ever leaving his position. They will likely look at it as a loose form of indentured servitude (we've got a big problem with that in this country) and would be very hesitant to issue a judgment anywhere close to that amount. It really is puzzling to me why Can't State is continuing to push this. They are unlikely to receive a payout that is going to cover their costs, it is going to have a deterrent effect on future coaching hires, it isn't going to bring Geno Ford back. It just seems like leftover bitterness and animocity is clouding their judgment to the point where they are making a bad decision just to try and screw with Ford and Bradley. He signed a contract. @ $300k/year. He knew he'd be on the hook for 1.2 million if he departed with 4 years remaining. 300k/yr in Portage County is a ton of money. And now he's at 700k/yr, plus perks. We should all be so burdened with indentured servitude. Just telling you how the courts are probably going to look at this. Trust me on this one, I pretty well know what I'm talking about when it comes to contracts.

$1.2 million dollars. That makes an impact in a MAC Athletic Department budget. Just to clarify, Can't State is highly, HIGHLY unlikely to see a $1.2 million dollar payout on this. Even if the case eventually does go to court, which in all likelihood it will be settled for a much smaller dollar amount well before it ever sniffs a jury, these types of liquidated damages clauses are just not favored much in the courts. The courts will likely look at that big, $1.2 million dollar figure and say you are essentially trying to put a barrier in front of the guy ever leaving his position. They will likely look at it as a loose form of indentured servitude (we've got a big problem with that in this country) and would be very hesitant to issue a judgment anywhere close to that amount. It really is puzzling to me why Can't State is continuing to push this. They are unlikely to receive a payout that is going to cover their costs, it is going to have a deterrent effect on future coaching hires, it isn't going to bring Geno Ford back. It just seems like leftover bitterness and animocity is clouding their judgment to the point where they are making a bad decision just to try and screw with Ford and Bradley.

Kind of a bold move by Can't if you ask me. They've had a pretty good track record of bringin in successful coaches to follow up successful coaches. Suing your previous coach on the way out the door (regardless of the circumstances of his departure) is going to put up a pretty big red flag for any future candidates once Senderoff bolts for greener pastures.

The comparison between hoops and the gridiron at Akron isn't a very good one IMO. Hoops has a lot more going for it than football right now, and IMO in the long term. In football we've been no better than about a .500 team for as long as pretty much anyone can remember. There is pretty much zero opportunity for us to ever play for a national championship. On top of that the Columbus shadow is much larger in terms of football than it is for basketball (attracting quality local recruits, garnering media and fan attention, etc.). Basketball has been a 20 win team for the majority of the last decade (debate the quality of opponent all you want, but it does show success and stability), there is a proven opportunity for mid-majors to compete for a national title in hoops and the Columbus shadow isn't nearly as prominent for basketball. I personally feel that given the right conditions Akron basketball can become a national contender with full arenas that catches the eye of top talent. I don't know as Akron football will ever be able to say that. As far as the whole arena debate, I know for a fact that the City, County and University have all put out feelers as to what it will take to get an arena done in downtown Akron. Officials from all parties toured the new arena in Toledo over a year ago, and possible locations downtown have been discussed. That said, the current economic climate is going to be the biggest thing holding this project back from ever getting off the ground. With the constant threat of layoffs at the City and County level, investing millions of dollars in a downtown arena would be a tough sell right now. I wouldn't be holding my breath waiting for a press release. I think the 10 year time period before this gets started discussed earlier in this thread is probably a pretty reasonable guess.