ZachTheZip

That word. I don't think it means what you think it means. We will be favored in every game except for the one in Athens. That tells me that we probably will finish with one loss in the regular season, and none in the tournament.

Toledo has no depth. None.

247sports.com is reporting that JUCO DT Keontae Hollis has given a soft verbal to Akron. Looks like he has a visit to South Alabama upcoming, but is currently leaning towards Akron.

TheDZone (thedzone.net), who covered Hamilton's commitment and decommitment the first time around, put him back as an Akron commit in December.

Confirmed through local newspaper or a recruiting service: LB Dontae Moore, Kenmore HS, Akron, OH ATH Jerome Lane, Firestone HS, Akron, OH S Logan Cox, Parkersburg South HS, Parkersburg, WV QB Tommy Woodson, Gateway HS, Monroeville, PA TB Anthony Lauro, Manatee HS, Brandenton, FL C Stephen Ericksen, Carrollton HS, Carrollton, OH OT Ryan Kortokrax, Wayne Trace HS, Haviland, OH TE Michael Kish, Brentwood SHS, Pittsburgh, PA S Zach Guiser, Greensburg Central Catholic HS, Greensburg, PA OG Dominick Hamilton, Cass Technical HS, Detroit, MI DT Tyler Vaughn, Union Grove HS, McDonough, GA Known through social media: RB David Gaydosz, Winfield HS, Winfield, WV WR Deandre Adams, Hallandale HS, Hallandale Beach, FL

A good pickup.

The NCAA rule changes make some sense, although I liked the restriction on the number of coaches allowed to do off-campus recruiting. It evens the playing field for schools who can't afford to fly everybody in their coaching staff around on a grand recruiting tour of the entire US.

The problem with tie-breakers this year stems from how post-season ineligible Toledo is treated.

It's possible that they overlooked it because of the transfer. Maybe the stats person wasn't looking at points totals from UMBC. They should announce it on Saturday.

Good thinking on the ESPN rankings being used over the RPI. That seems more likely, since ESPN thinks they can just make up their own methods of rating things and that everyone will accept it as a new standard (see Total QBR). Something else to consider with the TV games is that they are made to get ESPN good TV ratings. They will select match-ups that will make them the most money. After the top 10 or so home and away teams, the teams become no-names who won't draw well. But they can and will fudge things around to produce what they believe are exciting match-ups.

The MAC has developed a convoluted tie-breaker system.

Match-ups are announced on Jan 28th. One week doesn't allow for too much movement.

No, it's because they show up to road games and put the other student sections to shame, all while being better behaved. I've been on road trips where not a single Rowdie uttered a curse out loud, but the home students pissed on the door to our bus as we were leaving the arena. The Rowdies have been insulted and called every word you could think of, and taking it with a smile and courtesy. The AK-Rowdies are freaking tame. They can't do a damn thing without half a dozen university departments breathing down their necks, but Can't prints "Screw the Roo" shirts for their students and lets them chant "bullshit" on national TV, Ohio lets the OZone do whatever the hell they want with no recourse, Penn State students break into our lockerroom to steal the uniforms, Ohio State is worse than all of that. You have no idea what you're talking about.

You're going to take the word of people who naturally dislike the Akron student section under any circumstance over actually going down there yourself for a game to see how things are? Fine. Be miserable in your self-imposed exile. The AK-Rowdies are just people. Students from a bunch of different majors and walks of life who all enjoy watching sports and cheering for their fellow students to succeed in those sports.

An update on the top 8 home and away teams, using the bbstate.com RPI ratings. Home: Wichita State (13) Belmont (23) Indiana State (44) Saint Mary's (63) Akron (65) Northern Iowa (79) Long Beach State (86) Oral Roberts (89) Away: Creighton (24) North Dakota State (55) Stephen F Austin (69) South Dakota State (70) Eastern Kentucky (74) Detroit (87) Evansville (98) Pacific (106) The selection for road teams is awful compared to the home teams. In all likelyhood, we're going to get stuck with EKU or Evansville.

The section has been mostly full all year. They students are sitting down there, Rowdies or not. What's your problem? You don't like how the Rowdies were five years ago, even though nobody from back the is still a part of the organization? The leaders you remember are all gone, either retired from the board or graduated.

We won, but the officiating was beyond horrid. They really kept Can't in the game after we fought back early in the 2nd half.

Clubs.

It would be more accurate to compare how much the basketball program spends on the students. Promotions at the games and marketing are really all that applies there. I bet that the amount spent per student is quite a bit less than what other university funded clubs or activities spend.

5% of the student population at a school like Akron is orders of magnitude larger than the amount of students that most clubs or activities serve.

It all makes sense now.

Well, unless we build a larger arena, then student attendance is nearing its saturation point. At some point, they can't be blamed for not showing up in bigger numbers than they already do. They showed up on Wednesday, and what reward did they get? They're herded into a dark corner of the upper arena to sit on crappy wooden bleachers and promptly forgotten, all the while looking down at the chairback sections at 50% capacity and wondering why the university doesn't want their students to create a loud and intimidating atmosphere.

Hell, name a decent mid-major with one under 5,000.

That's 13% of the total capacity, and 23% of the crowd on hand for that particular game. Generally speaking, 20% students and 80% paying ticketholders is the sweet spot. For a typical JAR home game of 3500, 700 students is perfect. Part of the problem is that we don't play any exciting opponents at home that would draw student interest. Imagine if it were a sellout situation (Can't or Ohio). You don't really want more than 1000 students taking up seats unless you're sure that a game won't have many paying fans.

Exactly.