Quickzips
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Our roster is so mixed up right now. Who eas behind Brett that will get more time? What position was he even supposed to play this year? PF? That means either Euton or Egner has to start immediately. SF? We don't have a real SF on the team, they're all converted from some other position.
It really does depend on if you view Brett as a SF or a PF. Personally, I think Brett always has been an undersized PF. I think KD has experimented with Brett at SF enough over the years to realize that isn't his best position, or even really a position he is capable of playing. His lack of quickness and poor defense makes him a liability at SF.
If you look at him as a SF then I think you have to look at Quincy Diggs and Michael Green as possible beneficiaries. If you look at Brett as a PF then Nikola Cvetinovic and Dakotah Euton will see more time. In either scenario I think the real big winner is Josh Egner who I personally think has the size and athleticism to play either spot at a high level. Certainly will be interesting to see how this plays out though.
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Not a good sign to have our leading scorer on a 30-day suspension to open the season. Wonder what it is that instigated this. "A violation of team rules" could mean just about anything.
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People don't realize a new arena could be used for more than Zips sports. High schools and obviously the cavs, Lebron's crap, concerts, and other events and shows. It's not just 3 sports. Why do you think Summa and Infocision payed millions? for a stadium that houses a team that won't win a game this year? No. Infocision stadium is the largest and nicest stadium in this area, an arena could have the same effect. It would be "the place" to have BIG events.
I'm going to extend my garage analogy out to the nearly absurd here, but...you also don't build the nice new fancy garage so that you son's garage band can practice in it and you so you can host back-yard barbeques.
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Of course the main reason would be for men's basketball. I just wanted to point out that there are other things in consideration as well. It becomes easier to justify an expense or to gather donations when you say it will benefit more than one sport. It also keeps the Title IX zealots off your back.
Bring-Bring:
President of Company: Hello?
Tom Wistricill: Hi, this is University of Akron Athletics Director Tom Wistricill.
Pres.: Ohh, hi, how are you?
TW: Very well thank you, yourself?
Pres.: Doing alright, I suppose, can I help you with something?
TW: Well, we are looking to build a new arena on campus to house some of our fall and winter sports, and we are wondering if you would be interested in buying the naming rights to this arena?
Pres.: What kind of sports?
TW: Well, the women's volleyball and basketball team for starters.
Pres.: Uhh-huh.......well, how much would this cost?
TW: Naming rights for the new arena would cost in the area of $10 million to have your name on the facilities for eight years (just pulling numbers out of thin air here)
Pres.: Not interested.
TW: Wait, wait, did I forget to mention that the arena will house our men's basketball program as well?
Pres.: I believe you did.
TW: Yeah, well, as you might know, we have a pretty successful men's basketball program around here, next year we will be playing six games on the ESPN family of networks and eight more on Fox Sports Net and Sportstime Ohio (just pulling numbers out of thin air again here guys). We also regularly draw 6,000 people to our existing facility after our big wins back in the 2010-11 season.
Pres.: Hmmm....now that I might be interested in.
Seriously though, I understand your point, but I really doubt that volleyball and women's hoops will be more than an incidental beneficiary if this ever gets off the ground.
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Upgrading the JAR affects more than just men's basketball. It also helps women's basketball and volleyball. Just like the soccer stadium also helps women's soccer.
Think of it as a three-sport investment. Both women's basketball and volleyball are on the rise, and all three sports using the JAR are what the MAC has identified as "cornerstone" sports, the other being football. Upgrading the JAR means investing into 3 out of 4 of the most important sports in the MAC, and maybe giving them the boost they need to push things up a level.
The JAR isn't terrible as is, but an upgrade can be done relatively cheap; the design allows for lots of potential improvements. It's not unworkable like the rubber Bowl was and it gets much more use by the athletes.
Let's make one thing clear. If the JAR is ever upgraded, or a new arena is ever built, it will be primarily for the purposes of furthering the men's basketball program. Unless you are having the kind of success in women's basketball or volleyball that our men's soccer program is having, you simply don't make significant facilities upgrades for those programs. I don't care what this half-assed joke of a conference calls them. It would be like refurbishing your garage so that you can better protect your 1995 Honda Civic. Now the Civic may be a fine car, and it has gotten you down the road safely and effectively for years, but you don't need a brand new, climate-controlled garage with a high tech security system, custom treated floors and all the bells and whistles to house the thing. If, on the other hand, you have a 1967 Corvette in mint condition that regularly takes first prize in local car shows and is the envy of your neighborhood, but the '95 Civic is your every-day, drive around town car, then you go ahead and make the big improvements to your garage in order to house the '67 Vette while the '95 Civic gets to reap the benefits as well. For purposes of this example, men's hoops is (hopefully one day) the '67 Vette, Women's Hoops and Volleyball are the '95 Civic. Currently however, the men's hoops program is more like that '89 Mustang you got on your 18th birthday. Nice car, with a lot of sentimental value for you, and definitly worth protecting, but the garage you have now serves the purposes just fine.
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The soccer team is great, and many people would come to watch them play in a cornfield.
The football team is awful, and fewer and fewer people are coming to watch them play in a nice, new, on-campus stadium.
The basketball team is neither great nor awful. But they're certainly an above average team drawing below average crowds to a below average facility.
New basketball facilities alone might help draw a few additional fans, but likely not a major increase. They might also help a little on recruiting, where the quality of the facilities might make the difference to talented recruits between choosing to sign with the Zips or similar programs at other schools with much nicer facilities. Attracting another top recruit or two might make the basketball program a little stronger and produce more wins, which in turn might be expected to draw more fans.
Regularly winning big games in nice facilities in front of sell-out crowds is everyone's dream for any sports program. These factors are all interdependent to some degree. The question is, what's the best path to achieving critical mass?
UA was forced to build a new football stadium. The Rubber Bowl was crumbling and repairs would have been prohibitively costly. The alternative would have been to drop football entirely. So we know that UA is committed to maintaining a football program in the coming years, though we don't yet know at what level.
UA did not have to build new soccer facilities. But having the best college soccer program in the country with sell-out crowds merited new facilities. Fortunately, soccer facilities are relatively inexpensive compared with football and basketball. Having climbed all the way to the top of the sport of soccer, it would have been ludicrous for UA not to make the modest investment required to help retain the top coach, top recruits and top ranking.
We know that some schools with modest or no football programs have invested heavily in basketball and become national powers (Gonzaga, Butler, etc.). But there are no guarantees. It's possible to blow a lot of money on sports facilities and not get the rest of the equation right to become a national power.
We don't really know where UA stands on this. If the longterm commitment is to maintain the basketball program at its current level, then just keep re-signing KD and make some modest improvements to the JAR before it falls to the level of the Rubber Bowl and scares lots of fans and recruits away. If the longterm commitment is to grow the basketball program to a high level, new facilities have to be somewhere in the picture.
It's not only fair to discuss what the new facilities should be like and how soon they should be built, it's mandatory as part of any plan to grow the program.
The basketball program really is stuck in some weird sort of limbo between where the soccer team is (sustained success at the very top of the sport) and where the football team is (terrible with no real end in sight). The basketball team has managed to sustain a level of moderate success well above what the football program has even imagined, but they are not even really in the same zip code as the soccer program. That said, the reason for new facilities for the soccer and football programs don't really apply to the basketball program. The JAR, for all it's faults, is still a structurally sound, on-campus facility (unlike the Rubber Bowl) and the demand to see the team is not high enough to warrant it (unlike the soccer program). In the end, the basketball program is going to have to take the soccer-style approach of winning at a higher level in order to warrant new facilities. The University doesn't have the funds to justify a brand new arena for a program that isn't filling the JAR simply on the hopes that we will see a "few additional fans" and get a "little help in recruiting." Especially where the JAR is a structurally sound facility located on-campus.
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If the basketball team was in private business, would they get money for a new manufacturing facility?
The answer to this question is no. Their existing factory is enough to support their manufacturing needs. When they prove they can sell out the JAR on a regular basis, they can have a new factory with more and better seats. Until then, enjoy the back pains that come with the JAR. In a sane and adult world, this is how it should be treated.
If they Zips go off and sell out the JAR over and over again, by all means they should get a new arena.
At the end of the day, I don't think TW has clue one as to how to start moving the ball forward on a new arena even if the Zips were selling out every game.
I would say the JAR is not manufacturing enough attendance and therefore an upgrade is needed. It could only help with recruiting as well. When we will have the money is another issue, but I see the JAR as a 30-year arena, not a 50-year+ arena. It could have been more if it hadn't been scaled back during the severe early 80's recession. NIU and Toledo have recently upgraded, as is BGSU...I don't know that they were consistently selling out their old places. With Infocision and the soccer stadium done, what's next on the facilities plate?
It's kind of an interesting "chicken or the egg" question. Or maybe it would be better characterized as "if you build it WILL they come?" I dunno, but I tend to side with GP1 a little on this one. Until we start regularly filling what we have, significant upgrades/building new doesn't seem to be a very wise idea. I don't buy the overwhelming need for chairbacks all the way around. I don't think that is at all what is keeping students and the community away. Students are packing the soccer stadium to stand the entire game, and the community has come out to support that team on metal bleachers in an outdoor venue. I don't think the wooden bleachers are exactly the problem. The bottom line is that the team needs to start beating some bigger name programs to start getting the attention of the community. Wins over Arkansas-Pine Bluff, Valparaiso and most of this watered down conference we find ourselves in just doesn't excite anyone. We need to start beating some bigger programs. Even wins this year over teams like Dayton, Temple, Minnesota and Miami(FL) would be a big help. If we start getting wins like that (and I do believe we are plenty capable of it), then you will start to see student and community support grow. At that time we can re-visit the idea of renovating the JAR or expanding to a new facility.
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Many thanks for starting and maintaining these annual recruiting threads.
It seems to me that 2012 is the class where the Zips need to bring in their next center to play a season behind Zeke before he graduates. Skilled true centers are hard to come by at any level. There are NBA teams that don't have highly skilled true centers, let alone college teams at the MAC level. So while I'd like to think the Zips might find another Zeke out there, there's a good chance they may have to rely on one of their power forwards in the middle after Zeke graduates.
In general I agree with you, but we kind of need to see how the scholarship situation plays itself out. Looking at what we should have on the roster after next season another C and another PG seem to be big needs. Of course, as I said above, we may not even have a single scholarship to give out depending on how things go with Harney and Treadwell. In that case we would be very thin at PG and C while having logjams at SG, SF and PF.
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Also Dylan Kaufman from Hiland high school in Holmes county.
Have seen where we have interest in Dylan, but haven't seen where we have offered him yet. Until I find a credible news source that indicates and offer has been made, I generally don't post the player in these threads.
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Updates to include Jehvon Clarke to BG and Aaron White to Iowa.
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Well with the Zips 2011 class all but closed up, and 2012 names starting to pop up, I figure it is about time to start that 2012 thread. I'll try to keep this updated as best I can, same as the 2011 thread. Keep in mind that the Zips will have only two graduating seniors for 2012 (Brett McClanahan and Nikola Cvetinovic) and their spots MAY already be taken (depending upon the eligibility of 2011 prospects Demetrius Treadwell and Nick Harney).
Zips Verbals:
Carmelo Betancourt: 5'11" 170lb - PG - Montrose Christian High School - via San Juan Puerto Rico - Zips were his only known offer, although there was alleged interest from a number of high major programs - Not listed on any of the major recruiting services. Member of the Puerto Rican U19 National team.
Jake Kretzer: 6'6" 187lb - SF - Waverly High School - Waverly Ohio - Reported offers from the Zips, Albany, Gardner Webb, James Madison and Miami(OH) - Rivals.com no stars - Scout.com two stars - ESPN.com rating of 80. Member of the prestigious All-Ohio Red AAU basketball club.
Reggie McAdamas: 6'6" 195lb - SF - Elida High School - Elida Ohio - Only reported basketball offer was from the Zips. - Rivals.com unlisted, Scout.com unlisted, ESPN.com rating of 89. Two sport star who has received significant interest from a number of high major football programs as a quarterback.
Transfering to the Zips:
Offered by the Zips:
Myles Hamilton: 6'1"185lb - PG - SG - St. Edwards High School - Cleveland Ohio - Currently lists offers from the Zips and Can't State - Rivals.com no stars - Scout.com two stars - ESPN.com rating of 85. Plays on the same All-Ohio Red AAU basketball club as current Zips verbal Jake Kretzer.
Chris Harrison-Docks: 6'0" 155lb - PG - Okemos High School - Okemos Michigan - Currently lists offers from the Zips, Ball State, Bradley, Butler, Central Michigan, Drake, Duquesne, Sam Houston State, San Diego State, Utah, Western Kentucky, Western Michigan and William & Mary- Rivals.com no stars - Scout.com two stars - ESPN.com rating of 88.
Committed to Butler: April 27, 2011
Tamron Manning: 6'4" 188lb - SG - Scott County High School - Georgetown Kentucky - Currently lists offers from the Zips, Eastern Kentucky, James Madison, Marshall and Ohio - Rivals.com no stars - Scout.com no stars - ESPN.com unlisted. Former high-school teamate of Akron 2010 recruit Dakotah Euton.
Kyle Molock: 6'3" 180lb - PG - Coffman High School - Dublin Ohio - Currently ists offers from the Zips, Florida International, Ohio, Purdue and St. Joseph's. Rivals.com three stars - Scout.com three stars - ESPN.com rating of 88. Recently de-committed from Purdue, opening his recruitment back up.
William Moore: 6'0" 160lb - PG - Aiken High School - Cincinnati Ohio - Currently lists offers from the Zips, James Madison, Can't State, Miami(OH), Ohio and Xavier - Rivals.com no stars - Scout.com unlisted - ESPN.com unlisted.
Evan Payne: 6'1" 180lb - SG - Huntington Prep School - Walsh Jesuit High School - Cuyahoga Falls Ohio - Currently lists offers from the Zips, Cleveland State, TCU and USC. Rivals.com three stars - Scout.com unlisted - ESPN.com unlisted.
Desmond Ridenour: 6'0" 170lb - PG - Benedictine High School - Cleveland Ohio - Currently lists offers from the Zips and TCU - Rivals.com no stars - Scout.com unlisted - ESPN.com ranking of 40.
Jalen Robinson: 6'7" 215lb - PF - Northland High School - Columbus Ohio - Currently lists offers from the Zips, Can't, Ohio and West Virginia. Originally committed to West Virginia but has since opened his recruitment back up. Rumor is that Huggins pulled his scholarship offer. Rivals.com three stars - Scout.com two stars - ESPN.com rating of 90.
Committed to Dayton: June 28, 2011
Terry Rozier: 6'0" 165lb - PG - Shaker Heights High School - Shaker Heights Ohio - Currently lists offers from the Zips, Cleveland State, Dayton, Illinois, and Can't. Rivals.com three stars - Scout.com no stars - ESPN.com rating of 89.
Devon Scott: 6'8" 205lb - PF - Northland High School - Columbus Ohio - Currently lists offers from the Zips, Cincinnati, Cleveland State, Georgia Southern, Indiana State, James Madison, Can't State and Miami Ohio. High School teamate of fellow Zips 2012 target Jalen Robinson. Rivals.com no stars - Scout.com no stars - ESPN.com unlisted.
Committed to Cincinnati: June 14, 2011
Eric Truog: 6'10" 235lb - PF - Kenston High School - Bainbridge Ohio - Currently lists offers from the Zips, Cornell, Eastern Michigan, Fairfield, Can't State, UNC-Greensboro, St. Joseph and Toledo. Rivals.com no stars - Scout.com unlisted - ESPN.com unlisted.
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With 14 more days to the 1st Official Practice for the Zips 2010 - 2011 season, is it too early to begin talking about the upcoming season?
With practice opening in less than 2 weeks, the exhibition opener in a month and the football team officially anchored in irrelevance, I think it is safe to start talking about hoops now.
I've got a lot of questions heading into this season, as I'm sure many others do. We haven't seen the kind of roster turnover we are faced with in quite a while, but at the same time, we have a lot of key veterans to lean on. My questions headed into the season include:
How much progress can we expect to see out of Zeke? I'm particularly interested in his progress on the offensive side of the ball.
Who fills the void at SF left by Jimmy Conyers? Do we play Brett McKnight there and try to deal with his defensive problems? Will we continue to try and hammer the square peg that is Brett McClanahan into that round hole and leave ourselves even thinner at the guard spots? Will we see one of the newcomers (Diggs? Egner? Green?) take significant minutes there?
How will the PG minutes get broke down? This one has been hashed to death all offseason, but it bears repeating.
Can little brother Brett save the McKnight legacy? The brothers came in here hyped as the heirs apparent to Romeo Travis and Jeremiah Wood. Chris never really lived up to the hype and graduated as little more than a solid roleplayer on a team that could have really used some star talent. Brett has shown glimpses of greatness, but has never consistently put it all together. Brett's got one more year to make good on the promise that the McKnight brothers showed when they first arrived on campus. I hope he makes it count.
What do we make of the newcomers? Who (if anyone) do we redshirt? Is Alex Abreu ready to come in and play significant minutes for us (we really need him to with the lack of depth we have at G)? Can Josh Egner's athleticism translate from high-school glue guy to D-I player? Is Dakotah Euton a polished, ready to step in and contribute right away kind of prospect or is he another in a line of big guys who have reached their ceiling without quite being a D-I player? Does a year of D-I ball in the big-easy give Quincy Diggs a leg up? What about the seemingly forgotten man of our recruiting class, Michael Green?
Can Nik Cvetinovic get back to harnessing his emotions into a positive contribution on the floor or will he continue down the out of control path that we saw at the end of last year?
Can Brett McClanahan pull a Conyers and remove the "bust" label from his recruitment or has the damage already been done?
How much, and in what way, will all of the transfers (Hitchens, Steward, Sullivan, Swiech) affect this team?
Is this the year the Zips finally get over the hump and score that big OOC win that has eluded them for so long? The opportunities are there with teams like Minnesota, Miami(FL), Temple and Dayton. In order to continue the progression of the program, the Zips really need to knock off one or two of them.
Is this the year we get back to being competitive against Can't? The last couple seasons the athletic flushes have been a matchup nightmare for the slower, more calculated Zips. This year both teams feature a lot of new faces. Will the turnover make a difference for the good guys?
Will Dambrot's apparent change in philosophy (see recruiting, scheduling) include a change in on the floor strategy?
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Updated. Cincinnati Aiken standout SG Aaron Thomas to Florida State.
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Man there are some overly sensitive little girls over there. Time for DeKalb to have a great big group unbunching of their panties, sit around the campfire, sing koom-ba-ya, maybe pop back a couple of valium and get over it.
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I read the article and I don't see where his response was a positive for Akron.
I read it pretty similar to you, but I take a different bent. That school wasn't good enough for me and I deserve better. Can you believe I selected the first school that offered and it was a piss ant school like Akron. Listen you can tell me what you think he was saying all you want, but committing and the de-committing to a program I support is a slap in the face to me. I think he thought he was better than Akron and wasn't grateful for being offered at all.
Believe what you want but I hope this is the last we hear of Dylan Ennis on an Akron Zips message board.
Your point would be entirely valid if he didn't eventually commit to Rice (a team that has won 20 games TOTAL in the last three years). Your interpretation also loses a certain level of validity with quotes like this from Dylan, "The University of Akron is a great school in every way. From school to players to coaching staff." It is hard for me to see him calling us a piss ant little school that isn't good enough for him when you see a quote like that.
Look, am I happy that Ennis left for another program? No. But, I'm not taking it as some sign of the apocalypse for the program like some, and I don't take it as a slap in the face either. I've used Zeke's recruitment as a bit of a comparison with Ennis earlier in the thread and I really do think there are a lot of parallels. I remember reading the Pitt boards after Zeke committed to us and a lot of the same comments were being made there. The bottom line is that Akron was the best fit for Zeke in his mind. Unfortunatly at the end of the day we weren't the best fit for Dylan Ennis in Dylan Ennis' mind.
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Not trying to pick a fight with any of the "too sensitiive" people on this board, but to answer your question, think about it this way:
If you had job offers at different work places and one of those places went and fired 3 of their employees at your same position, would that make you lean towards the other places?
Go back and take a look at the interview with slamonline.com that I posted a bit ago in this thread. It will give you an idea, straight from the sources mouth as to what really went down with Dylan's decision to de-commit. Then, if you still wish to, come back on here and try and argue your point.
If you don't wish to read I can pretty well give you a summary of what went down with Dylan. The Zips were his first and only offer at the time he made the commitment. Later on he felt that he had rushed into the decision because he was so excited just to HAVE a D-I offer. As more offers started to come in, he started wondering if he hadn't made a decision too early and decided to open things back up. Nowhere in the interview does he mention anything about, "well they just had 3 other guards quit/dismissed from the team and I didn't feel comfortable about going there anymore." If you wish to keep arguing that point, so be it, but just know that it finds no basis in fact.
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Ennis verbals to Rice
http://www.slamonline.com/online/college-h...commitment-q-a/
Also some good insight in the interview as to why Dylan de-committed from the Zips. Some people who really have no clue what they are talking about need to read it. Ennis has nothing bad to say about UA.
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Seems the Zips are no longer in the running. Ennis down to TCU, Rice and Santa Clara.
Doesn't make sense to me. I would understand if he narrowed it down to better schools than UA, but those 3 are terrible.
TCU was 13-19 last year. really is that impressing?
Rice hasn't made the tourney since 1970. 8-23 last year with only 1 C-USA win.
Santa Clara? 11-21(3-11 WCC)
really man?
Doesn't make much sense to me either. Of course a lot of big program coaches said the same thing about Zeke when he committed to us. Too many variables go into recruiting, and we may never really know what lead Dylan away from the Zips and to one of these other schools.
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Seems the Zips are no longer in the running. Ennis down to TCU, Rice and Santa Clara.
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No idea if we are still on Dylan's consideration list, but his twitter account confirms that he will make a verbal commitment on Saturday. I may be the only one, but I've still been kind of hoping he would find his way back to us some how.
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Right now it seems like nobody really knows what to make of us. We've had a lot of (unexpected?) turnover on the roster over the summer that raises some big question marks, but at the same time, KD has consistently been able to absorb roster losses and come back with another team capable of contending for the conference title. I have no doubt that we will once again be a top team in the MAC, but until we start to see how some of the new guys shake out, and how some of the veterans (particularly Zeke) have progressed it is very difficult to peg the Zips chances right now.
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Interesting article. Makes a lot of sense. Not really sure it is all that revolutionary though. Really all it is about is knowing when to cut your losses. Something any good salesman/business man/coach/etc. is probably already aware of and has at least something of a knack for.
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If I'm not mistaken, it appears that Brutus peed himself during the incident. Check out his shirt...
What kind of bladder control issues do you have to have to piss your shirt???
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Interesting perspective. I'm looking forward to seeing Dakotah in action out there. His scouting report definitley shows a player who can help us out a lot over the next 4 (5?) years. He may not have the highest ceiling of our incoming prospects, but having a big guy who can stretch the floor and knock down 3's is a huge asset. Combined with some tenacious rebounding you've got a guy who has the look of a key piece for us down the road. That said, we are really, REALLY deep at the forward spots in the coming years. Dakotah, along with the rest of our forwards, is going to have to bust his tail for playing time. I'm also curious to see if there may be plans to get him some backup minutes at C behind Zeke.
The 2011 Recruits Thread
in Akron Zips Basketball Recruiting
Posted
PF George Fant spurns a lot of bigger programs to stay at home and play for WKU.