Let'sGoZips94

Wow... Thoughts and prayers for a speedy and proper recovery. Love how he plays with so much energy. Question. Is this heart surgery or leg surgery?

Dambrot-era attendance was pretty solid. It was always sold out or nearly sold out for games worth a darn (ranked Nevada, VCU, Can't, OU, etc.). The attendance against crap opponents (NC A&T, Arkansas Pine Bluff, etc.) brought the average down, and rightfully so.

I will take full responsibility if we lose.

Last night, it would have been ok if someone obstructed my view. The fans will come back when we start winning, and I'm confident we'll start winning.

That's a small price to pay for a W. Bring on the responsibility (hopefully)!

Due to our recent losing streak and the fact that @clarkwgriswold has started the game threads for the first 3 MAC games, I figured I'd start the thread for Bowling Green to shake things up. BGSU is 11-5 with a 2-1 record in the MAC. They also lost to Abilene Christian. We need a strong response in this game due to our losing streak and the embarrassment that was the Buffalo game. Thus concludes my pre-game analysis. Carry on.

Look, when a game starts off with a quick lay-up, and on the ensuing inbounds pass, a steal and another layup, you know it could be a bad night. The lack of effort, intimidation, etc., was very obvious from the tip. There is a huge lack of discipline among our leaders - Duvivier, Ivey, and Utomi. Duvivier is out of position, so I can't fault him as much. Ivey is a head case at times and can play out of control. Utomi makes some bone-headed mistakes; I think he has double dribbled twice in the past two games. I have a hard time putting their lack of discipline all on coaching, as Ivey is a junior and Duvivier is a graduate student; not sure if "it's hard to teach an old dog new tricks" applies here or not. The rest of the team obviously seems to feed off of these three players. Ivey committed the ridiculous turnover to start the game and grew increasingly frustrated. Duvivier was pressing and seemed rattled by Buffalo's suffocating defense. Utomi's presence was non-existent, aside from his double-dribble violation. This set the tone for the game and the underclassmen followed suit. Groce needs to focus on the underclassmen separate from Ivey/Duvivier. They need to learn how to play without them - run offensive sets without Duvivier/Ivey at PG, set up correctly on defense without Ivey/Duvivier, etc. There will be lumps, but we can still turn it around. I wasn't entirely impressed by Buffalo last night. Definitely the cream of the crop in the MAC, definitely athletic, but to me it says something that they weren't able to put the game away within the first 10 minutes. I still think Akron can put it together and make a run in Cleveland, not necessarily at the title, but I wouldn't mind being a bull in a china shop, surprising teams and eliminating some of our unsuspecting rivals.

I would pull a Herb Brooks and make everyone run up downs or suicides, or whatever the kids today call basketball court sprints.

8:01 left in the first half, and we are 0-11 from the field.

Not sure I've ever seen an uglier start to a basketball game in my life.

Excellent schedule for Bowden to take the next step.

There might be some answers here.

Buffalo beat Ball State today by 20 in Muncie. Considering how Hurley has already turned ASU around, I don't miss him at all.

You're dead right that the MAC sucks. But you can't hate the MAC our lack of tournament success/notoriety. If an A-10 team posts the records we have in the last 11 years, of course they're dancing. Their conference is worth a damn and their wins would be quality. This is why the OOC scheduling discussion is so prevalent. The MAC doesn't help us, but we never did ourselves any favors by not scheduling more quality programs.

Zips playing much harder tonight. Really fighting hard on boards, jumping passing lanes, etc.

I think it's a win to only be down 10 considering Toledo shot 57.7% from the field and 56.3% from beyond the arc in the first half.

Those OU seniors got spanked without Groce, and beneath them was a transition year. And then Akron went on to get spanked by 40+ in the NCAA Tournament. Do 21+ win seasons assist in recruiting? Absolutely, especially when some of those wins come against legitimate competition. However, those seasons are pretty empty in the eyes of many when they end without any noise in the NCAA Tournament.

I covered this in a previous post by mentioning the majority of schools that have made tournament runs had coaching changes. The same applies to OU. Ask Caris Levert why he committed to OU before decommitting and going to Michigan when Groce left for Illinois.

Groce's second year at OU. 22-15 was their final record, including 7-9 in the MAC regular season. They had 4 MAC Tourney wins and won their first round NCAA Tournament game. That's 5 postseason wins. So in the regular season, they had 17 wins, got to Cleveland, and then got to the NCAA Tournament AND won a game. By the way, they beat a 24-11 Akron squad in the MAC title game. They may not have won 20+ in the regular season, but they won when it mattered. Two years later, they nearly went to the Elite 8.

I was young when Hipsher was here, and do not recall as vividly our level of play when he was here. I remember he had awesome players (Weinkein, Ball, Bosley, Phillips, etc.). I've been coming to games since his era, but really started to notice the level of play when Dambrot took over. I am very appreciative of what he did to grow the program, and I dislike when the accusation is made that "Dambrot bashers" are not appreciative. I didn't like Dambrot's excuses, I didn't like that the program had plateaued, but I am very happy he took this program to new heights. The best recruiting tool is making an NCAA Tournament run, and I don't think that can be questioned. That's also what I'm arguing for, not just an occasional tournamnt appearance. The amount of exposure an NCAA Tournament run provides is 10x what ten 21 win seasons and an occasional tournament appearance would do for recruiting. All these programs that make the NCAA Tournament runs, their fall out comes when the coach leaves for the next job, not because they were just a flash in the pan. George Mason had Coach L leave for the U. VCU had Shaka Smart leave for Texas. FGCU had their coach leave for USC. Butler had Stevens leave for the Boston Celtics, but look at what he left behind - a strong foundation. Really the only couple of programs to keep their coaches are Gonzaga, Creighton, and Wichita State. I think he meant to quote my post. No, but typically those valued wins come en route to NCAA Tournament success, or are otherwise viewed as less valued if the end result is less than desirable.

What does this mean for Duquesne and Dambrot? He's right at the $1M threshold, correct? I think that's a great provision, by the way. Everyone complains about the money-hungry corruption in the NCAA, and this targets that. It also helps keep colleges more balanced with athletics/academics.

I mentioned that those private schools don't have football, but some of the other mid-majors do have football. The Info's financial situation certainly hurts UA's athletics budget, specifically men's basketball, but we still turn revenue that ranks in the upper half of the MAC, a conference that has had several schools make serious NCAA Tournament runs (OU , Can't , etc.). I apologize for my fixation with the NCAA Tournament. I didn't realize millions upon millions of people filled out brackets for the regular season, and took time off work to watch a day's worth of regular season college basketball. The NCAA Tournament is one of the greatest events in sports, and I'm sorry for my wish that Akron has success in the tourney. Myself and a few others are being realistic. We had a coach that, in 13 or so seasons, had zero NCAA Tournament wins despite consecutive 21+ win seasons against low-level competition. In 4 years of that same time period, our current coach took our rival, OU, to the 2nd round and the Sweet Sixteen. My takeaway from those stats is realistic optimism that we made the right hire to take this program to the next level, which is winning in the NCAA Tournament. I don't see a banner in the JAR for our 21+ win seasons; I do see a banner (I believe) at the Convo that shows their 2nd Round and Sweet Sixteen accomplishments.

This discussion is still happening? I had no idea. I've been having such a hard time accessing this site and many other since they overturned Net Neutrality. I'm also going broke due to the amount I have to shell out each time I even want to view a news website or simply use my internet. Oh wait...

Sounds to me like you don't have to bet or root against "your" Zips, considering you've already written them off. A fellow MAC school recently advanced to the Sweet 16, two years after advancing to the second round, with our current head coach. Look at the financial numbers; there isn't much of a difference, except they teach budgeting down in Athens. Gonzaga, Butler, Xavier, Creighton are all private schools I believe, without football; I wouldn't use them as comps. Other schools to win an NCAA tournament game since 2013 (our last appearance): Stephen F. Austin (twice), Arkansas Little Rock, Georgia State, Northern Iowa, UAB, Harvard (twice), Mercer, La Salle (Sweet 16), Florida Gulf Coast (Sweet 16). How many of those teams would you expect Akron to beat in a normal, non-rebuilding year? I'm sure their financials are equal to, if not worse than Akron's basketball financials. The Xaviers, Butlers, Creightons, and Gonzagas of the world all came from the same place: nowhere. They came out of nowhere, built solid programs, enjoyed success on the national stage on numerous occasions, and now their private school budgets are bigger. Big whoop. Akron can be them, we just need the right leader to get us there and build the proper program culture.