Captain Kangaroo

JD working his home state.

Dru and the Dukes continued their ascent to the top of the A-10, besting a 13-3 George Washington team 73-65 on Wednesday night.

I remember when it opened they had a dress code. You had to wear a shirt with a collar. Unheard-of for a campus bar. My friends and I got turned away at the grand opening, and went straight to the Townhouse. Dress code rules were lifted after the first weekend, and then it was like any other campus bar. 😀

I don't know that there's a "lazy way" to promote Zips Athletics? "Lazy" is what we typically see...which is nothing. Could they do more? Sure...promote it as Zippy's Hoppy Hour™. Add $2 pretzels or hot dogs to the fare. $2 off the Hoppin' Frog beers. Lather, rinse and repeat it for every 6 pm post-work game and it will become "a thing" if it's run right*. The Bourbon Tasting was a completely different animal. It was something like $80 for four, 1 oz pours. Joe Akron doesn't show up for $20 shots of bourbon...Joe and Flo run with the $2 Bud Light crowd. * It will not become "a thing" if - the beer is warm the beer runs out by 5:20 pm the beer lines are 40 people deep and customers wait 30 minutes in line for a crappy Bud Light I'll probably knock off work and hour early and go to The Score (is that place any better this year?) or Europe Gyro. I don't think I'll get to the JAR in time for any cheap beer. But Joe and Flo will...and if UA runs the event right, they might bring a couple friends to the next game.

Lyles exhibited the most amazing growth I've ever seen in a single game. He went from being Ben Simmons Jr. in the first half...afraid to shoot anywhere within 2 feet of the hoop...even when completely unguarded...to slicing to the rim and deftly spinning in lay up after lay up off the glass in the 2nd half. 😀 Groce's decision to sit Okonkwo in the 2nd half and run with Lyles and Marvin was a gamechanger.

Guthrie leaves and UA Athletics Marketing begins to flourish? Is this the first signs of growth since Charles' Arby's-inspired revelation?

He lost me when he says “…the Zips are shooting 11.3 3’s per game, up from 8 3’s per game last season.”

Coaches are running a 120+ person organization. To get paid 6 or 7 figures to do this is fair compensation.

When Flo Akron is bundled up on the couch with a glass of wine on a January Tuesday night binge-watching House Hunters, she's also nearly impossible to displace.

How much are they going to pay a kid like Norton? 10k? 5k? Is that worth uprooting yourself, making your family fly across the country or drive 10 hours every weekend to see you play Florida Atlantic or UAB? Are they transferring just for the prestige of getting paid something? I wonder how many portal kids are happy after their transfer, versus those who are delusional, and regret not "dancing with the girl that brung them"? I'll bet it's well over 50% at the G5 level. In the end you've been to 4 different schools, made no lifelong friends...just been a football mercenary, have no real university to call your own...got $12,230 total dollars in NIL money after taxes...and after their eligibility has expired still need another 21 credits to get a general studies degree. Steve Spurrier used to say - "The hardest thing about recruiting is convincing a kid that has no business going to college to come to yours." Now you just need to wave a couple bucks at them and they're yours.

I don't want him back. He completely checked out of the Toledo game, and we won without him. I trust we will get a winner or two out of the portal. Brookhart knows WR talent. Norton's Toledo stat line:

The game is indoors.

I hope you're right, but I'm skeptical. Sans last week's sparsely attended Tuesday night tilt the Zips have been out-of-sight-out-of-Ohio since early December. I fear they've slipped off Joe Akron's radar and the JAR will be 35% capacity. Friday night will be a little different...I predict 50% capacity. Regardless, two of the eight walk up tickets sold will be to GA fans who will be sitting in my reserved seats when I arrive.

Like a young Stan Heath?😂

After starting the season 0-6 Dru seems to have righted the ship, winning 7 of his last 10. The Dukes presently sit at 7-9, good for 3rd place in the A-10.

I wish all Zips opponents were as disinterested in playing defense as EMU.

Who forgot to sew the Michigan on Eastern’s jerseys?

A-10 teams routinely mop the floor with us. If we like going to the NCAA tournament with any regularity, and winning conference championships we don’t leave the MAC.

41 total is actually pretty good. At halftime we were on a pace for 54!😐 It's the Boston Celtics offense. In a few years, any team shooting less than 40 three's in a game will be considered having a "stone age" offense. It's the way of the future. Personally, I don't like it. When the shots aren't falling, which is typically at least 65% of the time, it is completely unfun to watch. Tavari pulled at my heart strings with a few nice mid-range jumpers on Tuesday. God bless him. 😢

And on that day streaming music technology will be replaced by cassette tapes.

Anthony Leonard - Via Cal-Pa, and Fordham. Former WVU linebacker

True…it’s been over two decades since the Zips landed Colorado’s all time high school basketball scoring leader - the immortal Brian Wood! We can only hope that Bebe has half the impact! @brianwood@the2 Brian today, coaching his HS alma mater

So far he seems be the hands-down favorite to take home the 2025 Maishe Dailey Award. Decent-looking 3-point shot that goes in about 18% of the time.

Nothing says unwatchable like your team hoisting 50 bricks from behind the arc over the course of 40 minutes.

What about the other 15 points they subtracted from the deficit in the final 15 minutes? It wasn't a millimeter here-or-there that cost us the game. They hit clutch shots, while we clanged-away from 3. Who is "clutch" on this Zips team, and who short-arms their shots when we need a bucket? Nate and Tavari are the guys I want to have the ball down the stretch. Grey, Hardman, Wilson, etc....not so much.