Captain Kangaroo

Q: How are Steve McNees' 3-pointers and a Golden F.l.a.s.h. Fan's teeth alike?A: Every other one is good.

Interesting Office Memo forwarded to me by an unnamed source.I give the guy credit...he's playing his school's strong suit.

It depends upon the 27 teams you beat.If we had beaten NC State and Texas A&M, there would have been a good chance for an at-large. Or beat URI, VCU and either NC State or Texas A&M. But we didn't, so it's a moot point.Once we merit an at-large with our performance, we'll get one. Of course, if we merit an at-large, chances are we'll run away with the MAC tourney and it won't matter anyhow.

We just need to find a way to get 3,500 Saint Francis, UNC Greensboro, etc fans to the JAR and we could pull it off.

Maybe we can get rid of the NC State's, Austin Peay's and Texas A&M's...replace them with Quinnipiac, SC Upstate and NE Utah... and shoot for 30-wins? We could REALLY recruit with 30 wins!

I would keep printing and selling tickets until I ran out of ink!if they could stuff 8000+ in for that CSU game in the 80's they can fit 7000 in now.I would say we can fit 6,000 in there now. The blue chairs take up a lot of space that used to be just bleachers.6,200 then. FIND A WAY!The Akron Fire Marshall limited the JAR capacity to 5,500 after the 7,000+ UA/CSU game back in the late 80's. If there were a fire in the building everyone would have died.Eric McLaughlin was on fire that night, but luckily it did not spread.

I double dog dare you to ask him again next week...

I wonder how many tickets remain for the reserved seating. That's what never seems to fill up.They'll be full for this game.I know all the upper-reserved seats are sold out.

I'd take the Fort Worth Bowl at this point in Zips Football History.I'd take the NIT at this point in Zips Basketball History (*pssst* we aren't exactly a basketball dynasty yet)

I like the schedule. It's as good as you can hope, for a MAC fan.

Black Squirrel -

I think the soccer tickets could be raised a little...maybe to $55.00 or $60. But, there is a limit for what you can charge people to stand in the grass. People also have limits on how much Zips they can afford to support, monetarily and time-wise. I'm in for $450.00 for football & roughly the same for basketball. Tack on $100 for soccer. A couple hundred for the Z-Fund...it's all fun and good entertainment...but everyone has their limit. That's where it probably where women's basketball gets affected most. At some point you gotta mow the lawn...shovel the driveway...pay the bills..etc. You can't support it all. Unless you're ZipsWin!Once additional seating is available, I'm sure people will pay even a little more for soccer tix. Some, maybe substantially more? If they opened up TWO concession stands they could make even more profit.

We played Ohio State in the NIT in 1989.It was a very tight game. OSU had Treg Lee, Chris Jent and I believe Jay Burson? The Zips Eric McLaughlin blew out his knee late after being thrown under the scorers table by an opposing player, and we couldn't recover.Instead of OSU, we would stand a very good chance of playing Dayton or Cincinnati should we end up in the the 2010 NIT.If your point is only that you'd rather be in the NCAA tourney than the NIT...or that participating in the NCAA tourney is more exciting than the NIT...why bother posting it? Who wouldn't rather be in the NCAA over the NIT? No one.Fixed.Fixed again.A lot of beers between March of '89 and March of '10. Feel free to correct post inaccuracies at any time. Now back to the beer...

We played Ohio State in the NIT in 1988.It was a very tight game. OSU had Treg Lee, Chris Jent and I believe Jay Burson? The Zips Eric McLaughlin blew out his knee late, and we couldn't recover.Instead of OSU, we would stand a very good chance of playing Dayton or Cincinnati should we end up in the the 2010 NIT.If your point is only that you'd rather be in the NCAA tourney than the NIT...or that participating in the NCAA tourney is more exciting than the NIT...why bother posting it? Who wouldn't rather be in the NCAA over the NIT? No one.

someones been drinking the bong water by the looks of that final scoreI agree. Zips win: 80 - 42

If you are a mid-major, the NIT is very important.Ask Travis or Joyce how they feel about not getting a chance at the post season a few years ago. It still eats at them.Ask Dambrot if he would like to compete in the NIT over sitting at home. I'm guessing he'd take the NIT.Do you think it would help a kid like Zeke to play a post-season game against someone like Cincinnati or Dayton, or would it be better to sit at home? I'm guessing post-season experience would be an asset to him.Two of Dambrot's best wins, the one's that "Basketball Guy" covets so much, are Temple and Florida State. If we don't play in the NIT, we don't have them.K.e.n.t. used their NIT success to catapult them to their NCAA run. For a program like Akron, the NIT is a great way to get tourney experience against solid competition. And, the way the Zips arrange their OOC schedule, one of the only chances to get a marquee win."Take it to the Extreme Guy" will point out the blatantly obvious and say - "No one cares about the NIT. Joe Akron/Hoops fans only care about the NCAA Tourney."Duh. No one argues that point.The NIT is VERY important for a mid-major program for all the reasons listed above. Having a 25-win season, and no post season, again, would be crippling.

1992 was the first year the 85 scholarship limit was in place. Prior to that, it was 95.

If we got swept by K.e.n.t. (0-3), with our poor 2009-10 OOC performance, who could blame the NIT for shunning us? "The #2 Team in the MAC" doesn't carry much weight in the big picture of NCAA Division 1 Basketball.Late season, 17-point losses to teams like VCU don't impress selection committees.Win on Friday. Losing is not an option.

It was similar, but Faust had an additional problem. Faust had a problem with the number of scholarships he had to offer and the number of partial scholarships being used. Keep in mind Faust took over a I-AA team with I-AA talent. I wasn't quite in school yet, but I believe Dennison had 65 scholarship players and not all of them were full scholarships.The first step Faust took was to dare to have an honest discussion with each player from the Dennison era and tell most of them they were not D-I talent and they would never see the field. A lot of these players were on partials and weren't D-I talent. This pissed off a lot of players and caused it's own problem, but Faust did the right thing. Combining enough partials freed up enough money to start to offer more full scholarships. If anyone can remember, I would like to know the answer to this. When did UofA finally have enough money to field the NCAA limit of scholarship players? If my memory is correct, it was about half way through the Owens era. Reason 287 why this program has done little in the last 20 years.You are correct. The NCAA didn't let the Zips automatically jump from 65 scholarships to 85. We could only offer 25 scholarships per year, working our way up to 85. If 8 kids quit the team...to bad...you got your 25 per season, maximum. It took us forever to get up to 85. It might not have happened until the Owens-era.Nothing like playing against schools like Auburn and Florida with 70 only scholarship players.

Elton Alexander Agrees with Me: Full ArticleFor all you rationalizers and worry-worts who're already preparing for a Zips loss...You know who you are...you already have "It doesn't matter if we beat K.e.n.t. or not...it only matters what happens in the MAC Tourney!" pre-written and stored as a text file on your hard drive. To YOU I say -Friday is HUGE! Freaking H-U-G-E. It is for a MAC Championship. It is for an NIT "lock." And if we don't get it...it goes to K.e.n.t. State. They get the banner, and the Zips may end up with nothing more than a Travis-Joyce-esque "feel-good" post season party @ the JAR. Losing on Friday is not an option.

If Will Fleming did transfer to K.e.n.t. I think it would be HUGE for the F.l.a.s.h.e.s. They'd actually have a player that could tell them what the Wagon Wheel looked like, felt like, etc.

K.e.n.t. was too busy winning the MAC to worry about an at-large.

Heaven forbid the student union allows liquor inside. Too must risk. There were also talks of putting a tanning salon in there but too much risk for that too. The Planet Underground Lounge is now open starting at 5pm each night. I encourage everyone to check it out.Too much risk? Are you being sarcastic?...im confused.The sad part is that I am not being sarcastic.Back in my day <insert old man voice> they had beer in the Student Center. No one rioted. No one died. We drank beer, ate pizza and then went on with our day/night.

You want to see the program grow every year. Under Dambrot we:* Made it to Cleveland (how many of us endured those Round 1 home losses under Hipsher, then went up to Cleveland to watch everyone else have all the fun)* Won games in Cleveland* Made the NIT* Won NIT games* Made the MAC Finals* Won the MAC Tourney and got an NCAA bidIn my book there are three big accomplishments waiting on the Zips immediate to-do list -* Advance to the NCAA Round #2* Start winning quality OOC games* Win an outright regular season MAC ChampionshipTwo of those goals remain possible in 2010, and one can be accomplished on Friday.The Zips program has never won an outright MAC Basketball Championship. What better team to do it against than K.e.n.t?Be obnoxious on Friday night, Zips fans. Be very obnoxious. And bring your confetti.

Home game...vs. K.e.n.t...for the MAC Championship...on ESPN2...Friday Night...That's about as "big time" as it gets in Summit County.