UAZipster0305

Inexplicably accurate? Sounds like skill to me. And if the center defenders were out of position, there stepping back to cover the deep diagonal ball opens more space in front of them in the center midfield. For now, let's close this thing out against UMD!

Exactly. And that is fairly easy to do if the forwards are disciplined about staying onsides. I hope Embick has another strategy figured out when this one is no longer a mystery to our opponents.

It seems that UMD is struggling because we are compressing the field high and are pressuring a lot. I saw this first-hand at VCU and was amazed at the work rate. If this strategy continues into the middle and later part of the season, I think some of the best teams will be able to adjust or anticipate and get behind our defense. As it is, some very high quality teams seem absolutely baffled. It makes me wonder what happened at ODU? Did they have us figured out?

Goal Zips! Adam Najem!

Great find, TennZip! Listening for Baltimore. The holiday weekend and a busy start to the work week prevented my trip to College Park. Wish I were there! It was a great trip to Richmond last weekend!

I wish him the best. However, if Williams doesn't work out, I say no to ever again embraching the ND legacy. Faust and iCoach were strikes one and two. I'm impressed with his resume and background. Completed law school while and NFL player...wow! I also like that he has experience with successful soccer and basketball programs. Unfortunately, I think the financial success of the entire department depends on selling tickets at The Big Dialer.

DiG will be salivating over this.

http://www.ohio.com/news/break-news/faculty-senate-chair-recommends-university-of-akron-drop-level-in-football-1.608039

Terrible, DiG. Without the papers stuffed down the front of the pants, this is not a representative picture.

After considering the expense of the stadium and the program, 3-33, and low attendance, what objective person would say otherwise? We will never be OSU in football; the absolute best football could hope to be is still not as prominent as UC.That's not bashing, that's reality.

I don't think this trend will be unique to the MAC either. I imagine many mid-major conferences will see elimination of baseball programs over the next 10-15 years. MLB has a minor league system that serves the place of college programs in other sports (especially football), and the northern schools have higher travel expenses and are less competitive on the field because of spring arriving later.

This is a great discussion topic. I'm sure there were budgetary considerations involved. That is, cutting cross-country or golf would likely not be nearly as much of a savings as losing baseball. However, isn't baseball one of the sports required for full MAC membership??? This is a sad loss because baseball at UA goes back to the 19th century and includes John Heisman as one of its first coaches. I feel for the players and staff, especially because the program was improving. Before the Info was built, I'd say kill football. Now, if it weren't for Title IX, I'd say ditch volleyball. As much as I hate to say it, I'm sure the success of Can't baseball also played some part in this decision. Similarly, Can't couldn't compete with us in men's soccer and their version of that program. In many things, these two schools compete for local resources too much to be more regionally, nationally, or internationally successful. Take a look at the most prominent programs at each school...the opposite school does not have such a program.

Unfortunately it's our Athletic Department and President who don't understand this, not the state.

But saying that an AD is excellent by virtue of hiring Porter is concrete evidence? With a string of great hires, I might agree. However, this is one data point and I attribute it to the right time and place. The stars aligned. I'm done.

I am going to disagree again. Without Porter being available, we were up Shit's Creek, and it would not have mattered who the AD was. UA men's soccer would have suffered a set back upon Lolla's departure. Before Lolla, UA men's soccer had history and tradition, many NCAA appearances, and was a finalist once. Under Coach Parker (Lolla's predecessor), we struggled to win the MAC consistently. Lolla took the program to the next level as did Porter. In evaluating Porter's greatness, consider all the NCAA sports...how many new coaches have taken a mid-major program from being very good to completely dominant at the national level? I don't know of any. Without Porter available, our AD (regardless of how good) would have made a mediocre hire and the program would have suffered a setback. A poor AD would have made a terrible hire and sunk the program (e.g. UA football, iCoach).

At the time of Lolla's departure, it was a big deal. No one in their right mind thought UA could win a D-1 National Championship in any sport, and UA men's soccer was already the flagship team sport of the MAC. A #1 ranking and a deep tournament run was a huge deal. Of late, only Can't baseball has made a deep tournament run and that happened once. So, let's not down-play Lolla's success. Caleb Porter coming here was a matter of luck in that someone else better was available and also willing to come to UA. Had it not been Caleb Porter, we'd all be lamenting the loss of Lolla. That's all I'm saying.

We didn't get lucky when Ken Lolla left to go to Louisville. At the time it was a tragedy. Multiple NCAA Tournament appearances, dominating the MAC, a handful of All-Americans, #11 final ranking after the 1998 season...even then, men's soccer was by far UA's most successful sports program. The year that he left (2005) we were undefeated most of the season and had a #1 ranking for nearly half of it. His team qualified for the Elite 8 of the NCAA Tournament, losing at Maryland on PK's. We were an elite D-1 program with Lolla at the helm like we hadn't been since we were 1986 D-1 NCAA finalists. (Lolla played on the Duke team that beat us in the final.) Let's not forget why Lolla left though: even with the success of the 2005 season, we received a #9 seed for the NCAA Tournament although we had earned a top-4. Simply put, we got screwed and this was in no small part due to the stigma of being at UA. You can't blame the guy for wanting to leave after that. With Caleb Porter, we simply got mega lucky even though the stigma continued (e.g. NCAA Tournament game moved to Northwestern). That much success just couldn't be contained by stigma though. Who would have thought that Lolla's departure would have actually been viewed as a positive for UA in hindsight? Shaun Docking was and remains the best qualified coach we could expect to replace Lolla, Porter, or Embick.

Thanks for the pictures, Dr. Z! It's hard to appreciate how pretty our dance team members are via a boxscore.

You get it done by controlling and limiting Moss. As Moss goes, so go the Bulls. Will Buffalo be one of the teams that I've been predicting will come out flat? They haven't played in a week.

One of the keys to the game last night was getting Can't in team foul trouble. Tonight, we should be getting the ball into Pat and Big Dog and let them work on Justin Moss. If he gets in foul trouble, Moss will either be on the bench or playing soft D. Without him, the Bulls are not as good as Can't and we should win. If Moss scores 24+ though, we are in trouble. Not turning the ball over and shooting better will help too. I wonder if last night's shooting woes were attributable to Can't's good D, tired legs, or both.

It is surprisingly quiet around here given the magnitude of the game superimposed with our recent success and tonight's opponent. My keys to the game: 1) Play overall good defense without our guys getting into foul trouble. An already short bench can't prematurely get shorter on little rest if we want to win. 2) Use most of the shot clock. This shortens the game and I think low scoring favors us because of our explosive long distance shooting. 3) Limit easy baskets off turn overs and transition plays. This prevents the crowd from giving Can't a boost, and they need to be forced to work for everything they get in a half court set. I don't see KD changing much of anything from the past couple of nights. Let them play and have fun! Here we go!

Some questionable calls, but we were the better team.

With only one day of turn around, I will get it started. We are the last team Can't wants to play. The teams are fairly evenly matched but we have been playing with confidence in spite of adversity. They were lucky to beat us last time. I don't see that happening again. The magic of Cleveland will continue for the ZIps. As I said before, one or more of the top four teams will come out flat and lose as a result of it. Could it be Can't?

We own WMU; bring on Can't! Forsythe is rested. Let's hope he stays out of foul trouble tomorrow night.

3 x 3 = 9!