ZachTheZip

URI is a much better team than UNC this year, in terms of the RPI and other metrics. UNC was vastly overrated by the human polls. UNC had an RPI of 48 before losing to Charlston. I would much rather play URI than UNC if we're going for a real statistical advantage.

Central Michigan: One of our sources tells us Curt Mallory (Illinois) is still in the mix for the head coaching job.

I think the reason that we haven't heard an announcement yet is because Curt Mallory is in the running for the CMU head coaching job.

Kara Murphy deverves a mention for the WBB team. And you can't leave out our two national champion athletes from last year.

The Zips are shooting under 60% as a team so far this season. That's good for 337th in the nation.It lost us the game against Austin Peay. It's going to be much more of a factor once MAC play begins and we're constantly . This is the biggest weakness of the team, and it's something that needs to be fixed.

The winner of the award is announced this Friday. I don't know if it's on TV.

And here's Elton's take: Akron Zips look to make a statement against Rhode Island

Okruch provides some continuity for the defense. Continuity is very important to a coaching staff.We'll have to wait a bit longer, but hopefully the staff is complete by the end of next week.

The students are NOT back for this game.

Kurt Gamby from Green HS signs LOI to play baseball for the Zips. Welcome, Kurt! They also mentioned that the baseball field is getting new dugouts. Maybe it's the first phase of the plans for a grandstand like we saw in the soccer drawings?

They look like a good team, but I still think that Akron can beat them. We'll need a real crowd at the JAR.

Shane Montgomery has been interviewed for a spot on the staff at YSU.

It is good news for the recruiting class, at any rate, because our class this year is kind of small.

Akron's RPI jumped again to 149 last night. Four of our opponents played and three won. The one that lost was NC Greensboro, and they played NC State so it evened out. UIC and Valpo both picked up solid Horizon League wins against Detroit and Milwaukee, respectively.There are no games of note being played today, but on saturday there are a few. Rhode Island plays Oklahoma State, and a win would help set up the "trap game" effect for us. Also Niagara hosts Iona, Howard plays at George Washington, St Francis hosts Hartford, UIC hosts Wright State, Valpo hosts Green Bay, Austin Peay plays at Morehead State, and Texas A&M hosts Northwestern State. All of those teams winning would be ideal. I see them going 5-3.Wyoming plays a D-II team so that won't affect our RPI.

Akron soccer assistant Dave Giffard named head coach at VCUBest of luck, Gif! Seems like VCU is becoming the preferred destination for Akron assistants looking to make a name as a head coach.

Our RPI jumped from 191 to 162 with last night's win.The RPI doesn't count what rank another team's RPI is when you play them. It just looks at their record (50% of the RPI) and their opponent's record (25% of the RPI). That means that the trick is to play teams with decent records, regardless of what their RPI is. If you beat an average team (.500 record) that plays an average schedule (.500 opponent's record), then when you combine it with your record against them (the final 25% of the RPI), you get a RPI number of .650 for that game. This is for a neutral court game. A home win counts for 0.80 and a road win counts for 1.20 in the calculation. The overall RPI is an average of this calculation for all D-I games that you have played. The problem with the schedules of the other MAC teams is that when we play them, they have losing records but their opponents have good records. Unfortunately, their record counts twice as much as their opponents record when factored into our RPI. That's 16 games against teams that hurt your RPI. If every MAC team scheduled a little weaker and won a few more games, it would raise our collective RPI by the end of the season, which is exactly what the MVC is doing. Look at records and their SOS. They win their games against weaker teams, which translates to more conference games against winning teams.

Who says I didn't notice her? :)I just didn't know she was Miss Teen Ohio.

That's what it is.... area distractions.Time is running out for nominees for the 2009 yard nome post of the year.The Browns games aren't a distraction, then? Wasn't there a conversation on this board about Zips fans going to those games or watching them on TV instead of being at the JAR?

Does anybody remember the Texas A&M pre-game story?http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/preview?gameId=293380245Their coach's friends (the coaching circle?) told him not to schedule us.

4,414 is a meager crowd when you play in a 15k seat arena and you're the only show in the entire state. 4.4k in the JAR is a very loud, very dense crowd. 4.4k in Laramie is a sparse crowd and lots of empty seats. It's about the same as having 1.5k at the JAR.I would kill to not have so many area distrations that keep people from going to the games.

For the record, those were MAC refs last night. Of course, you probably could tell just by the way the game was called. Any Wyoming fans reading this, we have to play with those people reffing our games all the time and they really do suck.

http://www.akron.com/akron-ohio-community-news.asp?aID=7760Apparently she was named in October. I've been sitting a few feet away from her all season at basketball games and had no idea. She'll be participating in Miss Teen USA pageant. Congratulations, Bridget.

URI is our marquee OOC opponent. Better than Texas A&M or NC State. And they're playing at the JAR. If they beat Oklahoma State in their next game, they will be ranked for our game. We will have an advantage on them because we'll be plenty rested from the trip to Laramie while they'll be coming off of a tough game and possibly looking ahead to playing a ranked Temple team right after us. Akron is their non-conference trap game: a good team that's easily overlooked.Get as many people out to the JAR as you can for this game. This is the final test before playing the MAC East. This is where the Zips apply everything they've learned so far. It's the game to see where they really stand, to see if they really are good.URI Message Board

A good win at a tough place to play.Wyoming's full-court press caused a lot of turnovers for Akron, and it's something to work on. But you saw here how the Zips know how to win. They didn't fold and they didn't lose control even when Wyoming was threatening.

Up 42-37 at halftime. Wyoming loves to run. Last year's game in the JAR was a race.We let them back in the game a little at half time. Hopefully KD can figure out a way to exploit some of Wyo's tendencies. I think we were bothered by the full-court press a bit, but I'm glad we're experiencing for the first time this season it against this team and not against URI.