Valpo Zip

I can. Doug Penno's at the Q.

Wow! Winning that game would have been the figurative turning of a corner for this team. Too bad it didn't happen. Ball state has been our little b*tc$ for more than a decade. And today was their chance. Moses(junior), Persons (junior), Sellers (senior) are going against a team of Ivey and a bunch of first year players. To make things even better, our starting center and our backup center are both sidelined. Even better, the game is in Muncie and the young Zips have not won a road game yet. With all these factors, it took ball state 2 OT + 3 blind mice to pull that win. Enjoy your win, cardinals! God knows how long it will be before you get to beat Akron again.

As much as I enjoy watching this team in action, the bigger joy I get is when I close my eyes and imagine what this team will look like in 2 years. At the end of previous games, I used to imagine what Parrish, Sayles, and Cotton will look like...today Kostelac earned a spot on that list too. Here's hoping that Patton will do the same soon. The future is bright, fellow Zippers

For whatever it is worth, I spoke to an NCAA insider who said that this rule change is happening one way or the other. And by that, he meant that if the change doesn't happen by an NCAA vote, it will happen by court orders. According to the same source, most NCAA members are not big fans of the change but can no longer handle the pressure from the lawyers. Very sad state of affairs.

This means that top 25 schools will no longer need to recruit HS kids. They can simply recruit elite players from midmajor programs. Way to go NCAA!!!

This was supposed to be a very good game but the officials made it a very frustrating one to watch. I am not sure how the players/coaches could retain their cool after some of the dubious foul calls. Back to basketball, I can't wait to see how this team develops. Can you imagine the team with Cotton, Parrish, Patton, and Sayles being Juniors/Seniors? While this year may be a bit painful, the future is bright! I said it before and I will say it again: Sayles is the new Zeke, maybe even better. This guy is the real deal. (I am glad he seems to be ok after that nasty landing). Finally, am I the only one who was warm and fuzzy seeing president Wilson give a bear hug to Cotton at the end of the game? I am glad we have a president who gets it!

How many new accounts will be created this week to come here and tell us how horrible Williams is and how Dambrot didn't want to leave? Dambrot had the best job in the MAC. He was making top salary and great freedom to hire and schedule the way he pleases. His job security was up the roof and he would have had his job for as long as he wanted (even past 2023). He CHOSE to leave Akron and is making $1M per year. He stole 2 players from our team and some incoming recruits that he had recruited on Akron $$$. But you want me to believe that he is the victim and Akron is the bad guy?!

This is BS. Keith Dambrot was under contract until 2023. He was the longest tenure MAC coach and the one with the highest pay. He had the freedom to hire his assistants and create ridiculous schedules year after year. These are the facts we have at hand. If you have any pieces of evidence that prove otherwise, please go ahead and present them. Coming here with a week old account with nothing but bashing our coach and AD does not earn you much credibility.

I respectfully disagree. For the last 4 years under Dan Hipsher, Akron did not have a winning record - neither in the conference nor in the overall record. That's horrible in my book. Second, how exactly are we more than just decent? Dambrot made us a decent mid-major that consistently competed for the MAC but didn't consistently win the WEAK conference! At the national stage... in 13 years, we went 3 times to the NCAA tournament and we never came close to even threatening our opponent. That's a decent midmajor, at best.

Congratulations to KD. Beating Dayton (even in a down year) is always a good thing. We all knew that Dambrot can take a horrible team and make it decent (we've seen him masterfully do that at Akron). So no one will be surprised if he can do that at Duquesne. The question is whether or not he will be able to take that next step and win NCAA tournament games.

What makes you so sure that we will win one of those 5? You need to add another poll option: (None of the above) and that would be my pick. I hope the young Zips will prove me wrong but we all knew that this was going to be a tough transition year.

Isn't a 6 win season equivalent to a bowl game appearance? Either way, I think that the bar shall be two 6+ wins with bowl appearances in both of the upcoming seasons for Bowden to be extended in 2019. That's in theory. However, we all know that if Bowden goes 4-8 next year and comes back with an 11-2 Mac championship season the year after that, we will all be happy to extend his contract.

The basketball to football similarities (and disparities) are stunning! The similarities are that Dambrot and Bowden both seem to have figured out a way to win enough in the MAC but not enough at the national stage. Another similarity is that majority of the fans have/had issues with assistant coaches - not so much the head coaches themselves. The difference is that most fans supported Dambrot because he is better than Hipsher. We seem to be forgetting that Bowden is (a tiny teeny bit) better than Ianello Dambrot was the coach for what? 12 years? And while a lot of people (including me) talked about his program stagnating, I do not remember seeing anyone calling for his job. This is only Bowden's 5th year. The seniors we have on the team this year are players that Bowden had to recruit to a 1-11 team!!! Can you imagine the type of recruits who will talk to you when your team is 1-11, not only that year, also the year before... and the year before. How can we forget so fast? I am not happy with the last two blowout losses. They stink... but this program has not yet stagnated. It is still growing and it will be a shame to blow it up and start over. Bowden started his era with teams of mostly transfers and JUCO kids. They got us out of the basement of the D1 world. He started recruiting freshmen. Then we won a bowl game. Now better recruits are willing to talk to him. But not too many true freshmen contribute to a football team. You have to be patient. If I was the AD, I will extend Bowden's contract for another 2-3 years. There will be no big raises and Milwee's performance must be discussed... Only if I was the AD

I personally didn't mind seeing Kent lose to Valpo. Other than that, I agree with you, you would want your conference foes to do well in the OOC part of the schedule.

The ONE game in my 15 years of Zips fanhood when I actually didn't know the players' names, they decided not to have their names on their jerseys!!! Back to being serious, RIP in coach Peters. It is nice to still see him remembered considering all the changes this year. Here are my game observations: 1 - If I had to choose between a big lead in the first chocked away in the second and a big hole in the first with adjustments in the second, I will always pick the latter. 2 - Free throws can win you or cost you a game. It is nice to be on this side of the fence. 3 - I hope someone can talk to Ivey and convince him that he is only one of 10 players in the rotation and that he should just relax and play his game. 4 - Parish was statistically the best freshman on the team but I am really intrigued with having Sayles in the paint. You will not see it in the box score but he totally had the Zeke effect when he was on the court. (BTW: The Zeke effect is when players on the other team are scared to go in the paint because there is a good chance their shot/layup will be blocked). 5 - I felt that Utomi and Ivey took too many 3 pointers (sometimes too early in the shot clock). I am hoping to see less and less of that. I did not have very high expectations for this team before the game and I still do not see them beating quality opponents. However, I very much enjoyed watching the game (the second half more than the first) and I am looking forward to seeing the development of this young team.

I find it sickening to realize how Nelson is a huge A-hole who would actually taunt that Iowa state defender. Where do I start? 1 - look at the scoreboard 2 - You did not even get a first down on that play, big shot! 3 - The player was hurt on the ground, you classless bastard! What a prick!

That's not what I meant. I meant scholarships... We have a total of 13 scholarships with 3 reserved for transfers who will sit out. That leaves 10 scholarships. So 2 scholarships per position. We already have two for the PG

Aren't we already set at the PG position with Duvivier and Patton?

I am not arguing that Football is in a great shape and I am not defending Bowden. I am simply showing that the comparison between the two programs is not valid. Both Akron teams (football and basketball) were practically "no bodies" at the national scene. When you want to bring up the 15-6 vs 3-5 records, you have to remember that the zips football program competes in the 8th conference while the zips basketball program competes in the 17th ranked conference. You cannot possibly compare playing a nationally ranked WMU football team to playing their Hawkins basketball team.

If you are so proud of the many 20+ win seasons, stop reading here. I don't want to rain on your parade. In FBS Football, you only have 128 teams or so... Outside of the one FCS team we schedule every year, 11/12 of our games are against top 128 teams in the country. In other words, Bowden cannot schedule Coppin states and Arkansas PB to pad his schedule. If we look at our 2016-2017 basketball schedule against the top 128 teams (using RPI for the lack of a better measure), we were 4-4: Georgia Southern W Creighton L Gonzaga L Marshall W Ohio W Ohio L Houston W UT Arlington L Do you still think that our basketball season was so much better than the football season?

$72M in updates? Can't we build a brand new arena for half that amount in Akron?

I think this is a good move for both Aaron and the team. He did not get much playing time last year and is not likely to get much time with the new regime either. Seeing how he already graduated, it only makes sense to move on. If he's done with basketball, he can start his career a year early and if he wants to play some more, he can be the star at a low major.

I totally agree with every word you said. Nothing but gratitude and appreciation for KD and his staff for what they have done at Akron. That being said, B&G didn't say anything wrong. I am also grateful for Duquesne. We all know that KD would have been able to keep the job at Akron for as long as he wanted. So the only way for us to upgrade and keep moving forward was for someone else to hire KD away. Duquesne did that for us. Hence the gratitude.

New Mexico...a team who hasn't made the tournament in the last few years and have a first year coach! Does that sound familiar? Good decision Tino!

Weathers is going to be the third player who will use a scholarship while sitting out at Duquesne this year.