Let'sGoZips94

+1

Pretty disturbing numbers. I don't fault the University for its financial troubles. I think their marketing department is pretty poor, but the athletics budget drain is 100% the corrupt NCAAs fault. They've taken schools and have turned them into businesses, with essentially the only source of income being athletics, particularly football. In the article it states that Ohio State is the only Ohio university that 100% funds their athletics through athletics revenue. So it's not like UA is some outlier that dug themselves into a rare hole.

Not sure why anyone is worrying about us not contending next year - it's the MAC. The question is, do we grow or regress? If you're focused on competing in the MAC, you're going to regress. If you're focused on competing at the national stage, you're going to grow. I don't care who we have coming back, who we don't have coming back, etc. It is the coaching staff's (led by the head coach) job to bring in new talent and develop the current talent to grow and reach the next level. It is also their job to put a system in place that gives the players the best chance to succeed. We shall see what happens. As for last night...

I like the Cal State Northridge sign. Welcome to the MATADOME. That's AWESOME. The arena blows, but they nailed the marketing on that one. Maybe we can rename the JAR play off of having a kangaroo mascot, and call it The Outback? "Welcome to The Outback! Home to a bunch of poisonous, killer animals and Zippy!" The JAR blows, but it's FAR from the worst DI gym in the country, and it has A LOT of potential. Our ends have deep stands, unlike many of this gyms that just have walls behind their baskets. 4 sides of seating makes for a fun atmosphere, when designed correctly. I'm not a fan of cavernous arenas like what OSWho plays in. Give me an on-top-of-you crowd to provide a solid college atmosphere. I just wish the JAR had better seating (I'm surprised there haven't been lawsuits regarding what those wooden bleachers do to the lower back) and a better concourse area. If they choose to renovate the JAR, they could really make it something special, and give Akron a strong home court advantage, more-so than we already have. To keep this post a bit more on topic with the thread, I'd put the over/under point total for this game at 170. I'd be tempted to take the over on that, which is scary. I hope we're on from deep. I also think Big Dog can have a field day with their less beefy front court.

These are universities first and foremost, no matter how hard the NCAA tries to turn them into athletically-funded businesses. In my opinion, if you aren't good enough for the NCAA or NIT, well, that sucks. Why use the funds to play in a Participation Trophy Tournament? Instead, allocate those funds into travel plans to play in a tournament the following season, or to travel and play a P5 school that could help you get into the NCAAs or NIT next year. The snub job by the NIT to not give the Travis/Joyce Zips a bid is the reason the 3 other tournaments popped up, and it's a completely different situation. To me, adding those tournaments and asking the universities to pay for the games isn't the answer; in fact, I think it's a cop-out to cover up for their garbage, corrupt postseason selection system. It sucks that Rome and Dru got screwed, but the answer isn't more postseason tournaments; the answer is to collectively challenge the selection process. Raise Hell in a professional manner.

I may be in the minority, but I will NEVER understanding supporting a rival. I don't like how sports have become so buddy-buddy. I nearly throw up listening to LeBron talk about how the Warriors are a rival and such. I just want someone to turn into Jackie Moon and yell, "SOMEBODY HIT SOMEBODY!" Me personally, I wish nothing but losses for Can't, OU, Miami, and Buffalo. That being said, I do respect OU and Buffalo for turning down the CBI/CIT/Vegas tournaments. Not sure how any school can justify spending the money on those meaningless tournaments anymore.

When is the last time - if ever - a MAC player chose to forgo their senior season and declare for the NBA Draft?

Didn't Forsythe also have food poisoning?

There are quite a few defenders of the Mid-Majors, though. And quite frankly, it doesn't matter what the fans think. It's not anything we didn't already know - P5 schools and fan bases think their crap doesn't stink.

We made it, but as what has become the norm in the media, there is a negative bias spin put on that article when mentioning ZipsNation. Aside from the 1 or 2 people posting on here who do actually want KD fired, the rest of us are simply critiquing Dambrot's system. This is more of an evaluation of his tenure, where we have been, where we are, and the direction in which we want this program to head. I don't see a single thing wrong with that. Mid-Majors are the "Welcome Mats" for the P5 teams. I think I can speak for everyone when I say, our apologies for wanting to take the next step and not be a Welcome mat anymore. Maybe EA can use his Cleveland.com fame and write a more powerful article that rips big schools for not playing solid Mid-Majors. After all, that is what Dambrot says is the main reason for not playing some of these bigger schools, and if EA is defending Dambrot and criticizing his criticizers, he should be trying to affect change to help Dambrot. Not sure if any of you saw this or the result.

Monmouth is hosting as a 4 seed. Illinois State is a 1 seed. It's our resume/scheduling.

7 seed. Had one of the highest win totals in the NIT, and that gets us a 7 seed. There's your participation trophy for the weak, WEAK out-of-conference scheduling. Happy for our Houston/Texas Zips.

You still pulled Zeke way out to the perimeter, causing him to get out position and chase the ball handler, often picking up stupid fouls due to being out of position. I have NEVER understood why Dambrot refuses to play more of a zone. The #1 hole in our defense is dribble penetration because with man-to-man our guys get beat.

1. There were 2 offenses I saw this season. One involved going into to Big Dog with the end result being Big Dog taking it to the hole or a kick out for a 3. The other occurred when teams played more of a zone and Ivey or Poke were in, we'd dribble drive and when the defense collapsed, Ivey/Poke would back cut and we'd dish. The only problem is, regardless of which offensive strategy we wanted to execute, once shots started falling, we'd settle for 3s and the ball movement stopped. And that's on Dambrot. He is not good at drawing up plays to create ball movement, off the ball movement, and open shots. We do the same stupid inbounds play under our basket, or a failure of an inbounds play on the sideline. And on defense, from the beginning to the end of the season, our 300lbs center was caught guarding out near the perimeter. Dambrot & Co. have been so bad at adjustments, we've had our center caught out of position around the perimeter since Zeke. 2. That says something about our defense then.

1. These adjustments/changes/corrections are all things Dambrot & co. don't do well, if at all. We had the same exact offense at the beginning of the season as we did at the end. 2. Everyone did have us figured out. Hence the plenty of close games and lack of blow outs against a horrific MAC this year. We were simply more skilled than every team in the MAC, including Can't - they beat on us on pure heart/desire/effort. 3. I'd reach out to the NCAA on this one. Until they modify the automatic bids to include the regular season champion AND the tournament champion, every season will rest completely on the results of one game on a Saturday in early March.

Open a dictionary, and locate the word insanity. The example is see Dambrot. The same schedule. The same game plans. The same offense. The same player development, or lack thereof. The same big game losses. The same disappointment. I'm not saying we fire him now, but something needs to change. The schedule, the staff, something.

Seems to be a common theme throughout Dambrot's tenure. I wonder if his pregame speech involved reminding the team that they have an NIT ticket in their back pocket to fall back on. They played like it. Tonight really kicked a supportive fan base in the crotch. That was a HOME game at The Q. It's not too often we out man the Can't fan base, especially by that much. And the team did not show any semblance of caring. Pitiful.

Broken ankles, broken dreams. Josh has been an unsung hero so far with his effort on loose balls, rebounds, etc.

Can't State sucks.

Down by 3 after that garbage? Sadly, I'll take it. Hopefully this ends up like 2013.

Akron is playing Kent's game - we aren't very good at it.

15 minutes til lineups are announced, and there seems to be a much stronger Akron contingent. If this holds, we'll done, Zips Nation.

I'd like to see a traffic jam with that wagon train because they lose a Wagon Wheel. This game is going to come down to our guard play. I predict Hall will get his, but Big Dog outplaying Hall would be a nice bonus. Regardless, our guards are fresher and we are much deeper at guard as well. They need to create turnovers and hit their shots. Simple as that. We are the much better team. Prove it. The usual issue with us vs. Can't is they usually want it more.

Assuming this is the "fired coaches" thread as I did before when posting about Cooper... Illinois has fired John Groce after 5 seasons.

Vermont doesn't deserve anything more than a 15 seed after fouling a 3 pt. shooter with .5 seconds left while up by 4.