ZachTheZip

Dollar hotdog night.

Dublin Coffman will be playing undefeated 24-0 Gahanna on Wednesday. If Green can pull his team through that test, they'll likely play the #1 ranked team in the country Columbus Northland. Good Luck, Michael. Pull this off.

This whole season's ticket sales have been very disappointing. Casual Akron fans are down about not winning on Saturday. To them, the season ended already. We know the benefits that the CBI gives the program. We want to see the seniors play one last time. Casual fans don't care enough about that stuff to buy a ticket. Student attendance will be way way down thanks to Spring Break. The only way attendance is decent is if we get to the best-of-three championship series.

Must be that Taylor Institute of Direct Marketing finally being put to good use. Thanks again, Infocision!

Very cool. We have no room to complain about EMU getting into the WNIT. This is only the second time Akron has played in a post-season tournament in the history of the program. We'll take what we can get. It's good for the development of such an incredibly young team. Here's hoping they can pull off a win or two. Go Zips!

CBI Rolecall. Who else is going?

Ianello has wasted no time in setting up a recruiting class for 2011. He's aiming very high. Here's who Akron has received verbals from so far. -------Verballed to Akron------- CB Bryce Cheek, Olentangy HS, Lewis Center, OH: Rivals profile. Scout profile. ESPN profile. C John Clay Jr., East St. Louis HS, East St. Louis, IL: Rivals profile. Scout profile. ESPN profile. DL Dylan Brumbaugh, Green HS, Uniontown, OH: Rivals profile. Scout profile. ESPN Profile. OT Andrew Bohan, Avon Lake HS, Avon Lake, OH: Rivals Profile. Scout profile. ESPN profile. QB Kyle Pohl, Valley View HS, Farmersville, OH: Rivals profile. ESPN profile. No Scout profile. HB Nick Rossi, Riverside JSHS, Taylor, PA: Rivals profile. Scout profile. ESPN profile. RB Karell Bostick, Bergen HS, Oradell, NJ: Rivals profile. Scout profile. ESPN profile. OG Travis Switzer, Conestoga Valley SHS, Lancaster, PA: Rivals profile. Scout profile. No ESPN profile. ATH Jabari Thomas, Archbishop Carroll HS, Washington, D.C.: Rivals profile. ESPN profile. No Scout profile. FB Cody Grice, Firestone HS, Akron, OH: Scout profile. ESPN profile. No Rivals profile. S Bre' Ford, Bethel Park SHS, Bethel Park, PA: Scout profile. ESPN profile. No Rivals profile. CB Johnny Robinson Jr., Glenville HS, Cleveland, OH: Scout profile. ESPN profile. No Rivals profile. S DeVonte Morgan, Glenville HS, Cleveland, OH: Scout profile. No Rivals profile. No ESPN profile. ATH Tyler Williams, Colerain HS, Cincinnati, OH: Rivals profile. Scout profile. ESPN profile. DL Dajour Morris, Greater Johnstown HS, Johnstown, PA: ESPN Profile. No Scout profile. No Rivals profile. DL Isaiah Williams, John Adams HS, Cleveland, OH: ESPN profile. No Scout profile. No Rivals profile. PK A.J. Fox, Cardinal Mooney HS, Youngstown, OH: Rivals profile. ESPN profile. No Scout profile. LB Justin March, Danville HS, Danville, IL: Rivals profile. Scout profile. ESPN profile. QB Tyrell Goodman, Archbishop Stepinac HS, White Plains, NY: Rivals profile. ESPN profile. No Scout profile. DT James Price, Woodland Hills HS, Pittsburgh, PA: Rivals profile. Scout profile. No ESPN profile. -------Junior College and Post Graduates------- OL Vinnie Rizzo, Nassau CC, Garden City, NY: Rivals profile. Scout profile. ESPN profile. QB Clayton Moore, Mississippi Gulf Coast CC, Louisville, MS: Scout profile. No Rivals profile. No ESPN profile. -------Transferring to Akron------- OT Oren Wilson, Michigan State. Will sit out 2010 and have one year to play in 2011. Counts toward 2010 class scholarship limit, not 2011. -------Grey Shirt------- PK Zach Paul, Padua Franciscan HS, Cleveland, OH: Scout profile. No Rivals profile. No ESPN profile.

UWGB message board not much of a reaction yet. Their main fan site is down, presumably from heavy traffic.

One big benefit to this is it keeps the team in action, practicing & playing. Anything to extend the season for Zeke, the other youngsters and seniors is a good thing. It will have benefits for the future. It's the most important thing. Keep playing. Keep practicing. Keep getting more film on the players. Other MAC schools would kill to have that advantage. And if we win a couple games, we could get more practice in than Can't or OU.

Updated my list for RPIs.

I'll be there Wednesday. Too bad it's Spring Break so most everyone won't be there.

No need to yell.

That Northwestern blog, assuming it's accurate. here are the RPIs of the teams that are in: CIT: Marshall - 69 Louisiana Tech - 77 Portland - 80 Fairfield - 82 Missouri State - 90 Harvard - 100 Appy State - 101 Southern Miss - 113 Creighton - 115 Northern Colorado - 117 West Carolina - 122 Pacific - 132 Princeton - 133 George Mason 159 Loyola Marymount - 175 MTSU - 177 South Dakota - 214 (auto-bid from Great West) CBI: VCU - 65 IUPUI - 83 Morehead State - 84 St. louis - 87 Indiana State - 88 Akron - 89 Charlston - 91 Green Bay - 107 Duquesne - 114 Colorado State - 118 Boston - 141 Hofstra - 145 George Washington - 147 EKU - 155 Oregon State - 184

When the CBI is announced, the list will appear here.

Just looking at the names, the CIT looks better. It's a tournament full of teams that look equal to Akron. Perfect to see just where we stand in the basketball world.

If WMU gets an invite and won't pay to play it outs the WMU admin as one opposed to athletics, along with BGSU and EMU. I've been trying to guage where all the universities stand when it comes to athletic support. There are factions within the MAC.

Do we need to upgrade our schedule? According to this we were 2-6 against top-100 teams and the two wins were against an Ohio team that barely made it. Maybe if we start winning a few we should consider upgrading. If we went 4-4 against top-100 teams (beat Can't and URI at home), and didn't lose to EMU and Austin Peay, we would have been a lock for the NIT and had an RPI in the 50s at worst. Would playing a tougher schedule with more losses have helped? Not if we can't beat any good teams and continue to blow it against weak ones.

The Michigan Bucks College Cup, that is.

Maybe if the MAC paid a decent amount of money for refs they wouldn't have the inconsistency that makes so many games unwatchable. It hurts the product that the conference is trying to sell. I read a quote from the commish that he still doesn't know what the main problems are with the MAC. The biggest one by far is being cheap. You want to improve the MAC, Steinbrecher? Here's something you can do that won't put you in too much opposition of those that control you.

The biggest problems with the Zips are mental ones. They let the refs get in their heads and change their play style because of it. They lose their composure and make mistakes which more disciplined teams take advantage of. This is what Dambrot needs to work on the most. Not defense, not strategy, but mental toughness.

NIT selection show is at 9pm. KDs post game show suggests theyve been in touch with CBI, and possibly hosting. the 16 teams will be finalized pretty quickly after the NIT show. In past I read you could host a game for 60K. Sounds like a lot but youd offset some of that with 2500 gate receipts and youd save cost of a chartered jet and hotel so while unlikely it is possible. Paying $60K is a small price to ask to be able to continue practicing and playing after the season ends. Anything to get an advantage.

The NIT has to announce first. After that, the CBI and CIT announce. I don't know which is more important than the other. I've heard that the CIT is more prestigious. The CIT only takes teams from conferences that have less than 50% of their teams in the NCAA tournament, which makes it a tournament of good mid-major teams. The CBI is more of a tournament for BCS also-rans who couldn't get into the NIT.

Well, the NIT bracket should be released soon, and once that's done the other two will come out.

I would hate that...playing a team barely above .500 and lost in the first round of the A10 tourney? But I thought people wanted us to play more teams from the A-10. Isn't a crappy A-10 team better than what we have been playing? Or will people not be satisfied until we play every team in the top 10 every year all on the road to try and make up for playing the suckfest of the MAC West?

Akron's record against the MAC refs for the past four seasons: Terry Anderson (6-0) Chris Beaver (1-0) Frank Bordeaux (1-0) Bo Boroski (6-5) Phil Bova (1-1) Dennis Bracco (1-0) DJ Cartensen (5-4) JD Collins (5-1) Tom Clark (1-0) Alvin Cox (2-0) Eugene Crawford Jr. (0-1) Randy Drury (3-1) Mike Eades (0-2) Bill Ek (5-2) Kevin Ferguson (2-1) James Ferrari (4-2) Tim Fogarty (2-0) Mike Foote (13-2) Dan Fouser (2-2) Craig Griffith (1-0) Jim Haney (2-2) Rick Hartzell (0-1) Ed Hightower (1-0) Tim Hutchinson (0-1) Jeff Janosik (1-0) Bill Kaminski (2-0) Mike Kitts (1-1) Rob Kruger (1-0) John LaRocca (1-0) Glen Mayborg (14-4) Dan Nawakowski (2-0) Kevin O'Connell (1-0) Tom O'Neil (0-1) Mike Roberts (1-0) Sid Rodeheffer (4-1) Mike Sanzere (6-2) Jerry Sauder (8-2) Jim Schipper (1-0) Larry Scirotto (5-1) Lamar Simpson (7-1) Lamont Simpson (3-4) Steve Skiles (4-0) Darryl Smith (3-1) Frank Spencer (8-1) Gene Staratore (1-2) Ken Turner (3-0) Ted Valentine (1-1) Todd Von Sossan (1-0) David Walker (3-0) Bret Wegenke (2-0) Bart Wegenke (4-0) Todd Williams (3-2) Terry Wymer (15-8) John Yorkovich (1-0) The only one that you can say might really something against us is Lamont Simpson, brother of referee Lamar Simpson. The more games they ref, the closer they should be to our MAC record if they were impartial. We are 57-20 in the MAC the past four seasons for a winning percentage of .740, and the 54 refs we've had average 4.2 games against us. So I'll say that 6 games against us is a good cutoff point for being a "common" MAC ref. Of the refs who did at least 6 games for us over the past four years: Above Akron's winning percentage (+0.051): Terry Anderson, JD Collins, Mike Foote, Jerry Sauder, Larry Scirotto, Lamar Simpson, Frank Spencer, Close to Akron's winning percentage (within 0.050): Bill Ek, Glenn Mayborg, Mike Sanzere, Below Akron's winning percentage (-0.051): Bo Boroski, DJ Cartensen, James Ferrari, Lamont Simpson, Terry Wymer So there you have it. Most refs appear to either be impartial or even favoring Akron. But there are those five refs who seem to be biased against Akron. Of course, this doesn't take into account the number of fouls called or not called, or who the opponent was (if we played a horrible MAC West team and they tried to throw the game but couldn't). And then there's the "guest" refs, who don't ref us too often. We are 61-21 against them for a .743 percentage, which is just about right.