ZachTheZip

Two Akron guys at VT as freshmen. Plenty of opportunity to get the Hokies to arrange a homecoming trip for their guys.

DJ Blanks (Junior) - Texas Southern Ricky Johnson Jr (Junior) - Bethune Cookman Jalen Hudson (Freshman) - Virginia Tech Satchel Pierce (Freshman) - Virginia Tech Victor Dorsey (Freshman) - Longwood

A Chromecast dongle costs $35.

Yawn.

The NIU game is going to be on ESPN3. Other than that, everything is considered a wildcard by ESPN, which means they will pick a MAC game from a few options to air on ESPNU.

The MAC this season has a lot of teams with inflated records coming from playing weak schedules. Lots of paper tigers.

I noticed that they added some new graphics to the scoreboard. Maybe it was a part of an overhaul to the AV system.

I'm still wondering where Kretzer and McAdams went. Kretzer played 30 minutes and you would never have known he was out there if you weren't looking for him. McAdams played 10 and got three fouls, two points, and an otherwise completely empty stat line.

12 players already on the roster. So the six transfers, the two newly signed JUCOs, and four greyshirts? Add to that the eight-ish high school recruits, and you're very close to a full class.

You don't trust my list? Who cares about how many commits they have listed. Kids tweet out their commitments on their own now. No need to announce through a site that charges you for the privilege to announce and then turns around and charges fans to see the report.

It's pretty cool.

None of our coaches have connections to the recruiting services. They don't even bother to notify the services of commitments through any of the back channels. As a contrast, look at PJ Fleck at WMU, who has an "inside guy" that bumps his recruits up to three stars after they commit.

He spent a good chunk of his high school career playing at the JAR. He also has shown a strong interest in improving the community, particularly for disadvantaged youth. Having a convention-center/arena downtown to host things in during the winter months helps in that regard. I don't want him to step in and bankroll an entire arena, but I think it would benefit him, his brand, and his foundation to have some naming rights to the court or lobby or something. Even among the big financial players, something as significant as an arena needs to be a collaborative effort. It's much easier to fundraise if you have plenty of options for naming rights.

If he were to come here, and if he were to win the starting job, then we're in even worse trouble at the QB position than anybody has realized.

I don't know if it's been mentioned yet, but the total construction cost for the JAR was only $12.5 million, or $28.4 adjusted for inflation. Even after adjusting, it's both difficult to believe that a D-I school could build any kind of arena for that price, and disheartening to know that that's exactly what UA did and we're stuck with the results. Even worse, that price was originally supposed to be $8 million for a 10,000 seat arena as presented to the state, but somehow construction costs rose so rapidly during the years that CSU was blocking the proposal that they had to scale the design back massively and at over 1.5x the proposed cost by the time they broke ground.

The worst thing about the JAR sn't the bad seats, or the blurry video board, or the glitchy stat boards, or the lackluster concessions, or the seating layout, or the teams on the floor. It's the fans. They complain when others stand up and they complain if you cheer too loudly. They complain about the team, and about the gameday experience. They complain to everyone who will listen and to everyone who just wants to enjoy a basketball game. Get rid of them and the JAR would be an alright place.

30 minutes in and Akron hasn't hit a three. Is that right?

Go big or go home. Half-assing it is what got us stuck with the JAR in the first place.

It's not too late to make a Christmas wishlist, is it? All new seating. The stands themselves have to go, with the blue chairs and bleachers attached to them. The new seats should be closer to the court up top, leaving a small walkway instead of the track and a concourse behind the seats with tunnels that come out. You no longer need the upper JAR areas for phys ed classes since the Info supposedly has facilities for that in the 2nd and 3rd floors of the press tower. A way for fans to get to the restrooms and concessions without having to go up and then back down sets of stairs. A unified student section, with a dedicated way for students to get to it without having to mingle with the GA crowd. This should be the only section with bleacher seating. HD scoreboard (1080p led screen or better) and replace the stat boards with ribbon boards like the ones at the info. Replace the outdoor lighting around the top of the JAR. No more depressing orange globes. Put up some Xenon or LED lights that can be seen all the way from Canada. Do whatever it takes to install a bleeding-edge broadcast and streaming infrastructure while everything's torn apart. A raised playing surface that can be disassembled and removed for other events. A sound-proof booth for the band.

When you add up the odds, it comes out to less than a 1% chance of winning out. That's infinitely better than about 340 other D-I teams.

Unfortunately I won't be able to make the trip. Hopefully there are plenty of Zips fans that go.

Paying all those cupcakes for "buy" games really adds up, especially without one or two payday games of our own to offset it.

Yedlin to Tottenham

That's great, but why was he talking to you about Auburn?

Looks like a solid hire.