Jump to content

Let'sGoZips94

Members
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    8,635

  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    309

 Content Type 

Posts posted by Let'sGoZips94

  1. 2018 Offers

    in Akron Zips Basketball Recruiting

    Posted

    36 minutes ago, clarkwgriswold said:

    Not holding my breath on Alvarez.  He's going to end up at Wichita State.

     

    I think the odds are above 50%, but I don't think it's a done deal by any means. I've read a few articles that talk about the strong connection he has to WSU, and to me if he was sold on being a Shocker, he would have committed already. 

     

    Enter Groce...

  2. 2018 Offers

    in Akron Zips Basketball Recruiting

    Posted

    15 hours ago, roopride said:

    So what do you guys think about this signing?  Two years left. We need a point guard. Is this a plus ot neutral signig?

     

    This is what the signing, along with the other commitments thus far, says to me. 

     

    Groce noticed a huge deficiency in the back-court last year. Whether it be skill wise, character/personality wise, leadership wise, who knows, but there was a void. When you look around college basketball, guards dominate March. We have good size/depth in the front court, and the experience will come. However, we lacked the guards last year. I used to dislike JUCOs, especially when Can't State was essentially a DI JUCO team, but in today's college basketball landscape they are a necessity. Can you build a program with freshman guards? Absolutely, but there will probably be a drop off for a couple of years due to the room for physical, skill, and maturity growth. Groce isn't in the business of a multi-year drop off. He is in "win now" mode. We had our off year, and still nearly made it to the semi-finals of the MAC tourney. By going heavy on the JUCO route this off-season, he has by-passed the multi-year growth process, and let someone else work with the JUCO kids to grow physically, maturity wise, and skill wise. 

     

    With these 3 commitments, our back-court now looks like this...

     

    Jackson (5-8)

    Hester (6-3)

    Roscoe (6-3)

    Cheese (6-4)

    Ivey (6-4)

    Banks (6-5)

    Utomi (6-6)

    Toles (6-6)

     

    Wow. Find me a MAC squad - aside from Buffalo - with that kind of size in their back-court. The best part? They're all play-makers. I'm not too familiar with Jackson's game, but Toles, Banks, Roscoe, Cheese, Ivey, Utomi, and Hester all have nice, well-rounded, aggressive games where they can get to the basket or shoot it from outside. We're becoming a matchup nightmare in one off-season, assuming these guys play to their perceived potential based on their highlight videos. 

    • Like 3
    • Thanks 1

  5. 2018-2019

    in Akron Zips Basketball

    Posted · Edited by Let'sGoZips94

    41 minutes ago, ZIPS96 said:

    Cayman Islands Classic. Nov 19-21, 2018: Clemson, Creighton, Georgia, Boise State, St. Bonaventure, Illinois State, Georgia State and Akron.

     

    :rock:

     

    Best in-season tournament field we've ever been apart of. 

    • Thanks 1

  6. E-man

    in Akron Zips Basketball

    Posted

    26 minutes ago, Hilltopper said:

    E-man is supposed to get medical clearance to go back to full contact practice this week. He is hitting the weight room hard to put back the muscle mass he lost during his time off. At this time the future looks bright.

     

    Time to add 20 inches back to his vertical. 

  7. 2018 Offers

    in Akron Zips Basketball Recruiting

    Posted · Edited by Let'sGoZips94

    According to the 247Sports page that @NWAkron(?) previously shared, we only have 1 outstanding offer left, which is Neftali Alvarez. We'll see what he does (he'd be one helluva get), but look at who we've lost out to. Rutgers, South Carolina, Xavier, Northwestern, Bucknell, and Colorado (I don't count Duquesne because I'm assuming those "offers" by Akron were made under Dambrot). All P5 schools and a Bucknell program with quite a bit of tournament notoriety in the last decade. The recent exodus of Akron players (Patton, Cotton, Parrish) is not a fluke/accident. They are re-tooling/upgrading, and I'm sure they have players in the pipeline that we don't know about. 

     

    The sky is not falling. 

    • Like 2
    • Thanks 2

  8. 2018-2019

    in Akron Zips Basketball

    Posted

    2 minutes ago, ewbrooman1 said:

    This is getting a bit ridiculous and not reflecting well on the program - players or coaches. I certainly don't wish anything bad on the departing players, but I'm not going to "stay tuned." Spare me the thank you notes about growth, etc. when you're leaving after a year. I don't expect Groce's public calling out of the team helped much either. KD pretty much avoided that. Oh well, they are all still kids.

     

    Easy there, Chicken Little. There are nearly 500 players at the DI level that have transferred. It says more about how recruiting at this level is changing than it does about our program specifically. Again, Parrish wasn't a Groce recruit. We don't know if he fully bought into the system behind the scenes. We all know about Cotton's issues. 

    • Like 1

  10. 2018-2019

    in Akron Zips Basketball

    Posted

    That's about 13% of the players in the DI ranks, if you figure each team has 10-12 players (I multiplied the numbers of teams - 351 - by 11 as the average roster size). 

     

    I would love to see a breakdown of why the players are leaving. I wonder what percentage of the near 500 transfers are transferring because of coaching changes, more exposure/playing time (bigger school to smaller school), etc. 

     

    I don't think transfers are a big deal, largely because these are 18+ year olds that are defined as adults according to society and have full control of their life. I do strongly dislike the transfer rule that forces players to sit out a year. Instead of punishing the young adult for looking to better his situation, what if the NCAA awarded the schools losing players an additional scholarship, on top of the one they would already have open up? A system like this could be modeled after the MLB's Rule 5 Draft (selection team pays $50k to the team losing the player) and restricted free agency in professional sports (draft pick compensation or something like that if an offer is not matched after an initial qualifying offer). 

  13. 2018 Offers

    in Akron Zips Basketball Recruiting

    Posted

    3 minutes ago, akronzips71 said:

    But that assumes a guy who was always in foul trouble, a guy returning from open heart surgery, and a guy who was badly injured dunking and may not be as aggressive (it sure would get into my head). Nowhere is there a starting C that can be depended on. At this point.

     

    Maybe, but your gripe has seemed to be with height, not abilities/accountability.

  15. 2018 Offers

    in Akron Zips Basketball Recruiting

    Posted

    4 minutes ago, NWAkron said:

    According to 247sports, Moss is leaning towards South Carolina, but we are still even money on Neftali Alvarez.   How they determine this?  No idea.

     

    I'm not sure if this is how they determined that, but in his twitter post, there's a #1 in the graphic by Gamecocks. :D

  17. Zips Bball's Future

    in Akron Zips Basketball

    Posted

    I did very minimal research earlier, and saw that VCU had a couple thousand enrollment spike around the time of their run(s). There's a difference in athletics boosting enrollment, and that enrollment actually attending games (student attendance, or lack thereof, at athletic events in recent years has become a hot topic). Athletics have become vital to the existence of college academics due to the fiscal overlap. Better academic programs stem from better athletics (in many cases), and with better athletics comes more exposure, thus more enrollment for the better academics. 

  18. 2018-2019

    in Akron Zips Basketball

    Posted

    3 hours ago, Blue & Gold said:

    E-man looking healthy!  (But his dribble reminds me why I hate seeing him put the ball on the floor. :lol:)

     

    I think that dribble is intentional. If you picture a defender to the left of where he dribbles, his dribble would be the first move to go around for the dunk. They teach guards to somewhat throw the ball out in front of you when you want to get around someone, so I would assume this would be the big man equivalent. 

    • Like 1

  19. 2018 Offers

    in Akron Zips Basketball Recruiting

    Posted

    4 minutes ago, Blue & Gold said:

    If we don't land either Neftali Alvarez or TJ Moss, I'm thinking Groce should just pocket the scholarship for future use.

     

    Jimmond is going to be our only senior who will graduate and open up a scholarship, so this way we'd have two to give out next year.

     

    We're already quite stacked:

    1. Jackson (5-8)

    2. Hester (6-3)

    3. Roscoe (6-3)

    4. Ivey (6-4)

    5. Banks (6-5)

    6. Utomi (6-6)

    7. Parrish (6-6)

    8. Toles (6-6)

    9. Poke (6-8)

    10. Sayles (6-9)

    11. Riak (6-10)

    12. K-lac (6-11)

     

    :rock:

    • Like 2

  20. 2018 Offers

    in Akron Zips Basketball Recruiting

    Posted

    8 minutes ago, Blue & Gold said:

    We apparently won't hear anything from TJ Moss till at least after this weekend. (NLOI Day is tomorrow.)

     

    I wouldn't be surprised if he commits to Frank Martin's program. I've heard players love to play for him, and they're entering their 2nd year removed from a Final Four appearance. 

    • Like 1

  21. Zips Bball's Future

    in Akron Zips Basketball

    Posted · Edited by Let'sGoZips94

    49 minutes ago, ZipsVoice said:

    Used to....not anymore.

     

    11 minutes ago, LZIp said:

    Source?

     

    Oh no... Queue a new thread in the Off Topic section, titled "ZipsVoice and LZip's Athletics' Affects on Enrollment". ;):lol:

    • Haha 2

  22. Channel Banks - Committed

    in Akron Zips Basketball Recruiting

    Posted · Edited by Let'sGoZips94

    I went back and watched both of his JC videos on YouTube. It's interesting how similar he is to Duvivier in regards to getting to the basket and decision making. The difference seems to be physicality vs. finesse. Duvivier was a bruiser - a pad-less linebacker bulldozing his way through the lane. He didn't have the best body control, and some of his charges were just dumb, but he got to the basket or pulled up for a mid-range jumper/floater. Channel seems to play with more control, which I think will really bode well for Akron as a Duvivier replacement. 

    • Like 1

  23. April 7th Scrimmage Notes

    in Akron Zips Football

    Posted

    16 hours ago, Cykron said:

     

     

    Do these guys work out together and practice these throws?  I would like to think that QBs and WRs would have a mutual interest in doing so, but don't actually know how much of it they do during the off-season.  

     

    Typically yes. I don't know about Akron's QBs/WRs, but I do know that Tom Brady brings his WRs (Amendola, Edelman :puke:, etc.) up to his property in Montana to workout and build chemistry together. Obviously a group of college players would get together at a lesser extent, but the same principles stand around the college level. 

×
×
  • Create New...