GoZips

What a difference when your hated coach (Shaka Smart) runs your team to the Final Four. All of a sudden Shaka is a darling. Tell the truth, Baller, you and the rest of your fans were ready to tar and feather Shaka midway through last season. Frankly, I would not blame Shaka for shaking Richmond dust from his heels and taking a better job. A couple of years ago I posted on your boards that you would love Shaka as your coach. The VCU fans ran me off the boards as, and I quote, "an idiot who knows nothing about basketball". I am still waiting for an apology. As for VCU and Akron playing home and homes. I think other wise. Both teams benefit from such a series.

After a light "shoot around" morning session, KD and company turned up the wick for the afternoon session. A lot of running, shooting and defensive drills. Go hard, go often. Everyone expected to be able to bury three balls in the new scheme. The kids go to the rim just fine. Now staff working on making the players comfortable with shooting from anywhere. News flash: Zeke Marshall scores THREE consecutive treys in open shooting. Run, run, run till they drop all session. A load of huffing and puffing. Single session Saturday morning at eleven if you care to drop by. Seats on the floor available. No charge. Understand this: The purpose of this preseason is to gain experience and practice sessions playing as a team. It is NOT to sweep through Canada beating up on lesser competition. There will not be any practices once the team leaves for Canada. Play games, eat well, and sight see are the orders of the day. Blake has sore ankle. Zeke played a little gimpy late in the day. Competition is fierce. These guys KNOW they are going to have a great season. They believe. Do you?

Women's schedule completed today. That is, the contracts are now all signed. Expect a press release next week. First opponent in the pre-season WNIT is (gulp) Notre Dame in South Bend. Good luck, Lady Zips. Two contracts remain to be signed, sealed and delivered on the men's side. Did learn that the last away game to be contracted is at Marshall. Gawd, I hate Marshall.

Split practice sessions is the most intelligent thing that I-coach has instituted thus far. Good move.

For what it is worth department. These folks have Miami as number three in the MAC. Now, one might be inclined to put Akron and Cant as the one and two teams. That would be my view. However, Ball State is ranked fourth. Which frankly is logically the second best team in the west. I say this because Western Michigan returns all five of their starters from a team that went 21-13 last season. Now how is Ball State going to leap frog WMU? Could these folks put WMU as one of the two top teams in the MAC? Perhaps they rank Cant as number one. All this leaves the Zips as the odd team out. How sweet that would be. Naw, coaches know darn well that Akron can not sneak up on anyone. Maybe these writers are stupid, lazy or both. We will soon know.

I concur. Justice is not a set shot shooter like poor Brian Wood was. I watched Blake pop shot after shot during a give and go drill. These are jump shots. He was impressive from both sides. Beautiful stroke with great follow through. You'll love his shot.

Amazing ... This is the BEST group of talent ever to suit up at Akron and we have people projecting the Zips at 75th best and even not in the top 144. You folks even Zips fans? The 2011-12 Zips will delight all of us. Wait and see.

Asked this question yesterday. The Zips still need a Div-2 opponent and one game. Will ask Friday.

This is a little convoluted. Nic is still over in Serbia. He could make the Canada trip if a few strings were pulled. The coaches think this is a good test and a chance to see how every one performs without the big Serb. Tree and Josh need the playing time. Let them develop.

Nick Harney was more lost in awe than cruising in lala land. He will be just fine.

Longs and shorts. Speaking of shorts get a load of Alex Abreu; clearly the most improved player over the Summer. Alex lost eleven pounds and packed on a ton of muscle. Did not hurt his quicks a bit. He looks ready to start the season as the starting point guard. But, Alex has strong competition from Brian Walsh who was in relatively good shape. Brian turns the ball over a bit much for my liking. That's for another day. Practice just started. The two freshmen are stunning. Justice is a fantastic pure shooter and Adedeji (Degeh) Ibitayo is pure basketball player. Frankly, red shirting either of these guys will be a gut wrenching decision. Josh Egner, Demetrius (Tree) Treadwell and da big man make up the bigs. Zeke has developed a lot of upper body strength and muscle. The strength coach states that Zeke is strong as a bull. He and Tree were sucking wind a third the way into the practice. Got to get tougher, guys. Quincy has sold me on a fresh, well developed three ball shot. No more heart in your throat when he fires from outside. The shots are smooth, good follow through and best of all; they go in. This practice was 80 percent defense drills. A lot of break downs and missed communications. Still, foot work looked good and the players were paying attention for the most part. A couple of them seemed to be in lala land most of the practice. The coaches spotted it and will light some fires under lazy butts. Practices are closed. Except, you can get permission to watch by showing up 30 minutes early and pleading with KD. These practices are two a days. Morning practice is at 9:30 and afternoon is at 3:15. The team leaves on the 11th for the Canadian trip. Go Zips ... !!!!

Stop by the basketball office around 9 AM and ASK for permission to watch the practice. Asking KD is the best coach to gain permission from. Tuesdays's morning practice session begins at 9:30 AM. See you there. I already have permission.

DeAndre Yedlin (Seattle Sounders) - is lightning fast. He has absolute blinding speed. Kofi who? Zip fans don't love him too much; he might not be at Akron as long as Kofi Sarkodie. He is very slight and he'll need to be stronger to battle the older and more physical developed college players. He's a player to keep an eye on. Aw, c'mon. He can't be THAT good. If so, how did USYNT coaches miss him? Looking forward to seeing DeAndre' and meeting with Tank and Bizbee in a month. Apparently, some decent BBQ in Northridge, though I'm looking forward to the barbacoa in E LA. Mmmmmm, borrego delicioso!. Z.I.P. in Paradise. this how you paying for your trip to solid, but, shakey ground? For those who do not know; Northridge, CA is the center of the porn industry.

Why is it that fans only want to see the highest caliber of opponent talent as opposed to what the coaching staff is trying to do?The coaching staff has been blessed with the best talent ever to wear a Zips uniform, And, instantly the fanbase thinks it is time to seek out and kill Goliath. What the staff has to do in a short time frame is blend intothe mix four very talented and athletic players. This is best done against opponents that do not overwhelmour players. Its training time. It is learning time.The trip to Canada is not a tournament for the Canadian National Championship. It is a training exercise.Treat it as a scrimmage.Josh Egner suffered a mild concussion during open gym recently. Everyone else is healthy.The decommit of Akbar happened because he committed. Prior to his verbal to Akron he was getting no"love" from other schools. Committing to Akron woke up the sleeping potential schools.He still has the option to recommit. However, based on what I learned, it is not likely that he will findopen arms waiting for him at Akron.Moral is in the stratosphere. The players, the staff, the athletic department are fully aware that thiscoming season is going to be exciting.Three open dates to be filled. Sorry, no St. John's. One of two home dates is expected to be a Div-2.

Lucky Z.I.P. In Paradise, what "2 guard"? Brian Walsh is a true point guard. And, at six-foura dimension in Zips basketball here to fore never seen.

Begs the question ... if they are what they are .. are they or are they not stereotypes?Getting cornfused here ... Supposed Zips fans siding with the golden felons. You sure you areposting to the right board?Obviously Yazster was not in the room when Chris Singletary gave Nate Linhart that(sic) nasty beat down on national TV.I'm sorry you misunderstood me (my fault for not being clear). What I was saying is that in all seriousness we have two big stereotypes about Can't. 1) Every student there sucks (based on us just hating their school in general) and 2) They're entire basketball team are thugs (based on their entire basketball team being thugs).I stand corrected. Actually, most of their students suck. And most of their basketball team suck.I think you will find the feelings of hatred are mutual from both institutions of higher learning.

GP1, if you had half the balls she has ... why ... you'd actually have some creds on this board.

Dr Z, great post. I think this would look good on AK-Rowdies tee shirts for the first Zipsverses the Golden Felons game in January.

Begs the question ... if they are what they are .. are they or are they not stereotypes?Getting cornfused here ... Supposed Zips fans siding with the golden felons. You sure you areposting to the right board?Obviously Yazster was not in the room when Chris Singletary gave Nate Linhart that(sic) nasty beat down on national TV.

Excellent question and observation.From what I have learned we can expect the double power forward line up most of the time Zeke isout of the line up. So, the good question .. who supports Tree and the Serb? Green if he lives upto expectations; Egner is a likely candidate and Harney has the tools.

At least two of the posters on this thread are members of the group that I labeled as "too young to vote". Oddly, they have not grown in wisdom sufficiently to realize why children should notvote.Some one posted that the United States has a system of government that is difficult to usurp. Thismust have been stated tongue in cheek as Mr. obama has installed more than forty "czars" tobypass a system already well tried. Worst part .. .no one has to date challenged this underminingof our government. This is the same tactic Hitler used in Germany.

The Constitution requires 2/3 majority for treaties. FT skirts that requirement. It is an example of people believing something is true regardless of whether or not it is true. It doesn't have to be real, it just has to be believed to be real.It's sort of like how West Virginia became a state. WV became a state by the presidential decree of President Lincoln. A presidential decree is not one of the methods of becoming a state defined by the Constitution, yet everyone believes WV is a state. As a point of law, it isn't. After the Civil War, WV should have become part of VA again and we should have 49 states. It would have been a minor issue back then, unnoticed in today's world. I stayed the night one time in Charleston, WV and WV Public TV had a half hour special where they talked to a guy who wrote a book about this issue. He was a professor at WVU or Marshall or somewhere in WV.If West Virginia and Virginia had been reunited after WWII, Obama would have only had to visit 56 states during the campaign instead of 57.Belly laugh of the day, week, maybe the year.

It is all a simple misunderstanding. After beating the crap out the young woman half his size Bradleyquickly went to hide in Ron Senderoff's skirt. Of course, when the "real" story comes out the woman,not Bradley commited the assualt protecting her property. Or, was it his property? Can't State interimpresident I M Onhisside will make the determination after the upcoming season concludes.Senderoff , muttering under his breath, defended his wayward charge with claims, "its all her fault.""If she had not lent him the money, oops, that's an NCAA violation, this would never have happened.Obviously the little tart is an Akron student planted by their dastardly Athletic Dept."Stay tuned folks, this is going to get better.

The link fails. Here is the article:RAVENNA, Ohio - A Can't State University basketball player was arrested Wednesday.The Portage County Sheriff’s Department said that Jarekious D. Bradley, 20, went to his ex-girlfriend’s apartment and demanded money that he said he was owed.Investigators said that while he was trying to get money from her purse, the two got into a physical altercation, injuring the woman.Other people at the apartment gave Bradley money to get him to leave, the sheriff’s department said.Bradley was taken into custody later in the day without incident. He has been cooperating with detectives, Sheriff David W. Doak said.Bradley has been charged with aggravated burglary, a 1st degree felony and criminal damaging, a 2nd degree misdemeanor.He is being held without bail at the Portage County Justice Center.Bradley is expected to be arraigned Thursday at the Ravenna Municipal Court.Bradley, a 6-foot-5 shooting guard from Memphis East High School, was admitted to Can't State last year and was expected to play his first game for Can't State this season.

I now will have to go evaluate my entire existence. g-mann has no respect for me. My entire life is now changed and I will have to go back to the beginning and start over after a complete evaluation.+1