ZachTheZip

Why? Why do we need even more "big men" on the roster? Why are there a bunch of threads urging Dambrot to do something that clearly doesn't need to be done at this time?

Why are there suddenly three threads about bringing in a player we don't have a scholarship for and doesn't fit in with the style of team we have?

I think the city is losing money because they don't have an arena. All the events are going to Cleveland or the Canton Civic Center. The question isn't whether Akron can afford an arena, but whether Akron can afford to keep losing out on events that bring people into the city.

New offer: DE Bryan Cox Jr

New offer: OLB Ifeadi Odenigbo

Yeah. The MAC needs to drop football like C-USA and the WAC did. Oh, wait...

Rasor's recap and thoughts on next season. Here's a snippet: I like being compared to an A-10 team. MAC teams will struggle to play with us next season, and we will be built to compete against better teams than we have been in the past.

T Anthony Stanko verbals to Penn State.

The NCAA tournament. Hands down. It's not even close. The NIT is a nice consolation prize, but it's still just a tournament of also-rans. It doesn't get your name mentioned to hundreds of millions of people, not all of whom follow college sports, who are filling out their brackets. When you're recruiting players, what would you rather say: that you made it to the NIT Elite Eight or that you made it to the NCAA Tournament?

If the RPI doesn't count them, they don't hurt our resume at all. What does quantifiably hurt us are the 300+ RPI teams we play, the only problem is that most of the worst teams that hurt our SOS are in the MAC West and we don't have a choice. Also, remember that we originally were to open at Michigan State, but they backed out late and left us scrambling and the only team who was willing to fill the spot was Milliken. Replace Milliken with MSU and our schedule looks pretty decent with games against the Spartans, Temple, Dayton, Miami, CSU, and Minnesota all on the road. I also think what hurt us was not picking up a single marquee win against the good teams that we actually did play. Maybe we should worry about beating at least one of them before we try and load up on even stronger teams.

I hope they win the NIT. We've already proven that we're the better team this season, so anything they do just makes us look even better.

We play VCU, Dayton, and Temple at home, for certain. We play on the road at YSU and CSU. Should also have another pre-season tournament (hopefully the pre-NIT). I think Creighton has deferred their bracketbuster return game (in Omaha) for a year, so no Bluejays next year. Also expect three or four paycheck games and some bought home games. That should fill out the entire schedule.

Think about this. Zeke making four or five of his many missed layups could have won the game for us, not only by scoring more but by changing how the game looked for both teams. I'm not knocking him, it's his first game against a team like that. I'm just saying that he is the difference between us being a regular, boring, heavy underdog 15 seed and us beating the #5 team in the country. He knows this, but I don't think he's embraced it yet. I think this game has woken him up to the fact. I also think it's why he takes every mistake he makes so seriously, because he wants to be that superstar player and he knows he's almost there but not quite.

The only one with significant collegiate playing time is Gilliam. He averaged thirty minutes a game as a true freshman and sophomore. As a freshman, he averaged 11 points and 4 rebounds a game and as a sophomore he improved to 13 and 4. Good FT shooter at around 80%. Shoots the three very well. To relate his game to something familiar, think Brett McClanahan, and add 50 lbs of muscle, attitude, and athleticism.

No partial scholarships. Egner and Euton could transfer and take next year as a redshirt year if they sit out, so they still get three years afterward. Not saying either of them will leave, just a possibility.

We may lose a lot of experience, but I think that this year has provided a huge amount of experience for a lot of the guys who are returning. McClanahan and possibly Nik will return as two-time MAC champions and having played in two NCAA tournament games. Everyone on the team has been to every MAC tournament final since the year they joined. Gilliam and Walsh were on the team all year, they practiced and went through the mid-season struggles and played a part in overcoming them. And there's this to look forward to.

Hopefully it was a wake-up call for Zeke that he needs to work on finishing around the rim. He's good, but has such incredible room for improvement. Sky's the limit. He needs to work on three things: strength, shooting touch, and endurance.

New offer: DE Darryl Render

Here's your sign. Here are my signs.

New offer: OT Ryan Anderson

4 more offers: FS Jay Mastin SS Mike Svetina T Anthony Stanko DT Alex Pace

Can we finally see Bardo and Zeke out there at the same time?

Use the conference tournaments to do this or eliminate the conference tournaments. Do one or the other, but don't do both. I like the idea of making the conference tournaments mean something for more than just the mid-major conference schools. What if the Duke vs. UNC game last Sunday actually was meaningful? So make the tournament 96 teams. The 31 conference champions get a bye along with the top at-large team. This makes the big conference tournaments very meaningful. It also introduces a play-in round made up of the at-large teams that would eliminate the "bubble" teams before the real tournament began. So teams that didn't belong this year like UAB would get knocked out and teams that were supposedly snubbed have a chance to prove they belong. You end up with a field of 64 that's stronger than what you have today.

Maybe his sophomore season is already ended. Most teams are done already.

SG Austin Grimes from Cincinnati