Blue & Gold

GOLD BASKETBALL JERSEYS ARE CURSED!!!!Lol. But we were wearing the whites against Miami 2 years ago in Cleveland. THOSE are the cursed jerseys! In the golds we almost pulled off the big upset of Nevada! During Dru & Rome's junior years we wore the golds for all home games the entire second half of the season and we went undefeated wearing them! Then we got upset by someone (Ohio?) in the quarter finals of the MAC tourney in Cleveland while wearing... WHITE! Why, oh, why didn't we stick with the lucky golds?!

I wouldn't want an almost exclusively Ohio-based league. I think there are too many teams in the MAC from Ohio as it is. I think that might be one reason the MAC suffers with such a low image locally; Ohio isn't the population base it once was & most people, for some reason, think that if you sat the bench in high school you could still start at a MAC school. The sheer ignorance of MAC sports is perplexing to me. (I actually know a guy who thinks Mount Union is so good because the MAC is lousy! I.e., he thinks Mount is getting MAC-caliber football players. This is ignorance to the extreme. Even if Mount played lowly EMU, Mount's entire team would be in the hospital emergency room before halftime.)Now, I say drop EMU, BGSU and Can't (even though it pains me to include Can't because I love the rivalry.)EMU because they are 10 minutes from Ann Harbor and thus will likely never amount to anything athletically.BGSU because they're 30 minutes from Toledo, out in the middle of nowhere, and they're, well, BGSU. Nobody in the U.S. knows or cares where BG is.Can't because they're 10 minutes from Akron.That leaves:1. Akron (NE Ohio)2. Ohio (SE Ohio)3. Miami (SW Ohio)4. Toledo (NW Ohio) - and that makes plenty of schools from a single state - Ohio ain't Texas anymore5. Buffalo6. Temple7. CMU8. WMU9. N. Illinois10. Ball StateDecent conference. Cut some dead weight.

Those are extremely cool. I love gold jerseys. I was ecstatic when we switched back to true gold from the pee-yellow color we went with for a while there. However, I've wished for about a decade now we'd play on the gold in our colors more. Especially in basketball. Gold basketball unis are the coolest things on the street. Next year when we get our GOLD LBJ23's (I'm crossing my fingers that our marketing dept is finally going to see the light and get in touch with the street a little) I'm gonna buy 2 of them! Same with these cool football jerseys. We definitely need to raise our "coolness" factor with the kids. Make them and I will buy!

Here is TG's OU game article. TG's OU ArticleA win's-a-win? Yeah, maybe. But when athletics are a form of entertainment I think style does come into play a bit. I agree with Tom & wish our games weren't so difficult to watch. I took a group of guys to the game last night and, while I am definitely happy that we won, the game just wasn't a whole lot of fun to watch. Let me clarify that last statement: it was fun for me - I'm a diehard Zips fan who hates OU. But for my newbie friends it kinda just looked like a sloppy, not-so-well played ballgame. When for loooooooong stretches neither team looked like they could throw the ball into the ocean, in order to keep the guys zealous for the game I had to keep reminding them of how tall the players were and how good of defense each team was playing and how physical it was down low. That's okay, but I wish the guys had left the game saying, "Wow, those players can flat-out light it up!"

I see Da-Von Moore is still on the roster. What an enigma.

I took a couple of junior highers and a couple of senior highers from my church to the Zips - OU game last night. We arrived downtown around 5:30 to get a little something to eat before the game. I took them by the Info to show the place off (2 of the guys actually knew about it and wanted to see it of their own volition). All 6 of the fellas stood in awe of the Info. All 6 are now getting amped about the upcoming Zips football season and are drooling at the opportunity of watching games there! Mission accomplished UA!!!And I also must say, it had been about a month since I had walked around the construction site in person and it is immensely impressive! Naturally, the webcams don't do her justice. The Info is a sight to behold as-is and she doesn't have her "skin" on yet. She is honestly going to be a beautiful landmark! Home run!

Just wanted to try this...Linhart LinkSweet! Thanks Dr. Z!

I'm actually excited about our future and our place in the MAC. Not only do we have some natural rivals in the MAC that we love to hate - Miami, OU & Can't, but we also are honestly putting ourselves in a position to dominate the conference. If we dominate the MAC like Boise State does the WAC in football and Memphis does C-USA in basketball, then we'll receive plenty of national attention. I honestly don't think we're too far from pulling this off.

Here is a link to a story in The Buchtellite on Nate Linhart. I haven't read the article yet, but it's by Vincent Dorsey so I'm sure it'll be very good!http://media.www.buchtelite.com/media/stor...tmlemaileditionP.s. Could someone try to explain to me how I can simply change the name of a link like so many of you on ZN are able to do?

Nate has been a pleasure to watch. He's got a high basketball IQ and always seems to be in the right place at the right time. CK said it best about Nate's hustle: 100%. Infofan mentioned that without Nate we would yet to have a 20-win season. Couldn't be more true. Nate has been at the core of this team for years. He will truly be missed on the court next season, but he'll always be a member of the Zips family!My favorite Nate moment: last year's last-second, follow-up tip-in to beat OU! Priceless! Nate will remember that the rest of his life! So will I.

In cams 2 & 3 I believe you can see a cement-filled trench that looks like it should be the eastern sideline of the playing field?

Oops, I see the Captain beat me to posting a link to this article! Sorry for stepping on toes!

Here is a link to yet another interesting story in the ABJ about the new coaches @ spring drills.http://www.ohio.com/sports/40694842.htmlAs an aside (perhaps I should start a separate thread for this next point & question) but the Beacon's coverage has been what I would consider excellent for quite a while now. I've been upset with the BJ for years for lack of Zips coverage. But I'm a softy and they've won me back. However, to the more cynical out there, am I being naive and will I have my heart broken again, or has the BJ truly changed their philosophy and are they really focussing on Akron as opposed to Columbus and Cleveland as we had all hoped they would?

I was able to see him play on one of the ESPN channels about a month ago. He had a great game! If I remember correctly he was the game's leading scorer.

Wow, that is an awesome prize!But a 4-hour practice on Saturday?! Good grief, that seems like a long practice to me. How long does a normal practice last? I would guess 2 hours?

I don't think anyone knows yet. Welcome to the frustration!

It would be nice if they'd put the model in the foyer of the JAR on Thursday for people to gawk at. You'd think they'd try to expose the model to AMAP - As Many People As Possible. (Or does that just make way too much sense for our athletics marketing staff?)

I agree. I think we may be expecting a bit too much from a true-freshman Zeke. He'll be good, no doubt, but still developing. Which is completely natural; we have to be patient. He may not hit his stride right away. None-the-less I expect he'll fit right in and be a contributor next season (though, honestly, I had the same high expectations for Steven Sweich).

That's what I've heard too. Mike Rasor reported it on his Zips' blog @ Ohio.com. I don't know much about the 3-4. Are the 3 down linemen all DT size?

JT's fire for football was cooling last season. Isn't JT looking for a few gigs in Hollywood? If not we could always use a DL coach! With the quality of our current staff he'd fit right in!

Gamechanger has said similar things a couple of times on ZN. So Ray is probably spot-on in his observations. Thanks for the article, Ray!

I know I should be satisfied with simply getting rid of the 3-3-5, but I want to hear JD proclaim that, "We're going to line up and run the good old fashioned and proven 4-3. We're simply gonna get the big uglies on the freaking line of scrimmage and we're going to kick your ass. Here we come. Be afraid."

I'm with you, Dave in Green. I can never understand it when big men don't dunk! I'm only 5'8" and used to be able to almost dunk a volleyball. Dunk the freaking ball! Of course, being only 5'8" I was always pretty coordinated, which can be much more difficult for someone a foot taller than me. I understand that. But none-the-less, they are D-1 scholarship basketball players who work on their games everyday. Nothing frustrates me more than big men who don't attack the rim hard and don't want to just absolutely crush it home and tear the thing down!

Btw, I just read KD's post game comments concerning the McKnights and I didn't get the feeling he was throwing them under the proverbial bus. I thought he was just being matter-of-fact that the McKnight bros. both had below average performances, that sometimes that happens, that sometimes the ball doesn't fall and that it probably wouldn't happen again. And I was always a pretty psychologically sensitive athlete - I always needed encourament from a coach. But if I was one of the McKnight bros I wouldn't take offense to what KD said.

I LOVE to hate Can't, Miami and Ohio. Those schools are why I actually enjoy being in the MAC. If we'd look to another conference I really would miss those rivalries. These rivalries are also why I'm more for just trying to dominate the MAC rather than jump ship. I think if we'd become the Boise State of the MAC we'd have great attendance averages. People love to follow a winner and we haven't won much of anything yet - even though those of us who follow the program more closely realize how far we have come.However, for the sake of this discussion, I think our "newer" rivalries should be with other metropolitan/urban universities. I'm excited about the budding rivalry with Buffalo! I think we should stoke the natural rivalry with Toledo. This is also one reason I actually enjoy having Temple in the MAC - though I agree with many of you that we should require them to join for all sports. I also think we should work on keeping games with Syracuse and Cincy (yet more urban universities) and try to get a little something going with Pitt (though I honestly think Pitt may be a little afraid to start scheduling us - they don't have much to gain but a lot to lose in playing us.)