mes102

Great piece on the women's basketball program: http://www.hustlebelt.com/mac-womens-basketball/2014/12/10/7353847/akron-zips-womens-basketball-update-end-of-first-semester-mac-jodi-kest

Michigan is looking really bad right now. A loss to NJIT, and now EMU? They caught them at the right time. Good for the Eagles, and good for the MAC.

The brand in the recruiting trail would change significantly too. A student-athlete in Ohio may see Ohio State as the pipeline dream. If not realistic, then Cincinnati. Then after that, they'll just pick a MAC school, which all the ones in Ohio always seem to be "blended" to recruits. No one really sticks out. If you replace the MAC label with a C-USA label, you will stick out from the rest of the current MAC schools in Ohio. That mentality alone may get you a few better recruits. Playing better competition will always draw better recruits as well. It's something different, and it may boost Akron in every sport in recruiting. I know this is football forum, but think about this for a second. Akron women's basketball is currently 7-0 and beating their opponents on average by 20+ points per game. And that's after losing three 1,000 point scorers and one of the best point guards in the country statistically the past two seasons(also the best class ever in women's program). Can you imagine what type of recruits Coach Kest could get if she's not "just another head coach of a MAC program in Ohio"? The above is just an example of what the recruiting could be like in every sport. Coaching is great, but student athlete talent level is where your program can improve the most. I'm all for attempting a change to C-USA.

With Ohio losing today at home to East Carolina, the Lady Zips are now the last unbeaten team in the MAC.

It's been incredible on what they have done to this point after graduating Tecca, Luburgh, Young, Cassell, and Guyton. You add in the fact that they play 4 freshmen with significant playing time, with one of those freshmen as your starting point guard. The fact that they haven't skipped a beat is really remarkable. I even think this team is better than last year's team when it comes to playing solid defense. They still have one more hurdle for me to completely buy into a "special" season. They have to win in Florida. They have their first true road games this season, @ Bethune Cookman and @ UCF. I expect them to win, but struggle against B-C. I expect the real test to come against UCF. They have 9 days off until that Bethune-Cookman game. Study hard, finish the semester strong, and get better in practice ladies!!!!

How was it for you? I had a meeting and couldn't make it, so i had the stream on my laptop during the meeting and the stream kept skipping and rewinding. I always thought it was my old technology, but maybe my technology is too advanced for our video stream...

Game Day today. Should be a win tonight for the Lady Zips, but they may have growing pains tonight. I expect them to have more trouble at Bethune-Cookman and UCF because those are their first true road games. If they are 10-0 going into the YSU road game, that could be an upset special since both teams are playing well right now and a little bit of backyard rivalry. Sometime tomorrow I will post a recap of how each team in the MAC is doing so far. Some interesting wins over big conference schools. Still looking for that big signature win from a MAC school still. Hopefully it happens this season.

Ohio defeated Morehead State 86-67.

In case anyone wants to see a couple of Akron's opponents, Morehead State plays @ Ohio this morning, with tip approximately 11:00am. I don't know if there will be video stream, but thought it would be good to watch if there is since Ohio has looked really good so far at 5-0(not surprising to me with the coach they have...he's really good), and Morehead State being our opponent on Friday.

Also, here's a few stats that will have your jaw drop a bit with what we know about the graduation losses the Zips WBB had this offseason. From their twitter account: - Anita Brown ranks 15th in the nation in scoring average(22.3 PPG). Sina King ranks 18th(21.7 PPG) - 14th in the nation in scoring(84.5 PPG) - 13th in the nation in assist/turnover ratio(1.41) - 17th in scoring margin(+23.2) - 21st in defensive rebounding(32.0) See you at the JAR on Friday!!!!!!

What draws me to the women's basketball game is the authenticity of the game. The men's game can have the fundamentals of the game overshadowed by athleticism. Women's game has athleticism too(just look at Anita Brown's reverse layup-and-1), but they use that to improve their fundamentals. The men's game seems to use the athleticism to hide their lack of fundamentals. Call me an old soul, but the men's game just isn't pure basketball to me anymore.

I found this:

MDZip, I can't thank the great Mack Rhoades enough for hiring Coach Kest. Akron has and will continue to benefit from Coach Kest being at the helm of this program. These freshmen are going to make a huge impact this season. Other than McMahan, the freshmen that would have made the biggest impact would have been Sefcik, in my opinion. She's been out with an injury, and I expect her to be redshirted. I'm expecting this freshmen class to become the winningest class in Akron women's basketball history in 4 years. I wasn't expecting much this year to be honest. I was expecting a down year, somewhere between #4-#9 seed in the MAC tourney with basically bench players from a year ago and incoming freshmen as the core of your team. I was expecting a lot of growing pains. However, she gets the most out of her players. They get better every day, game, and season. They hardly regress, other than injuries. I'm just glad some are finally seeing how this program has stabilized itself as a MAC contender every season. Especially where this program was when Kest took over the program. Hope to see more of you on December 5th against Morehead State, another top 50 RPI team in women's basketball.

Siena is off to their best start in over two decades, so someone's historical start to the season will end tomorrow. Let's hope we finish this trip strong!!!! #Finish #TurnUp #AllIn The next game for the Lady Zips after Siena tomorrow at 4:30, will be December 5th vs Morehead State...another top 50 RPI team...

Lady Zips beat Belmont 73-58. Mile High City, holiday tournament, and a young team on their first road trip were reasons why I think this is why they had a rough start today. Hopefully they grow from it and play a lot better against Siena. If not, the Lady Zips will lose their first game of the season.

I also forgot to mention that last night's victory was Coach Kest's 350th career win! Congrats to Coach Kest! Good luck to them in Denver!! Next game is 2:00pm vs Belmont...Looking to see if there will be a video stream or not...

If the Lady Zips play like they did in the second half on a consistent basis, this team will be better than last year's team. Also, what a nice athletic play by Anita Brown here: Just a little side note here: Lady Zips are averaging 86 points per game, and are only giving up 59 points per game. That's a 27 point margin of victory. Lady Zips should win Friday, and then should be playing Siena on Saturday. A win over Siena would really help our RPI with Siena currently at #10 in the RPI.

Myron Medcalf believes the Zips will pull it off: http://espn.go.com/blog/collegebasketballnation/post/_/id/100864/weekend-predictions-uconn-could-lose?ex_cid=espnapi_public EDIT: USC comes back and beats Drexel, 72-70.

Drexel up on USC at the half, 40-28.

That rivalry shouldn't be bigger than the whole season, and I'm disappointed in the football team right now. I'll make my decision next Tuesday by how tonight's game is played.

Back to actual basketball on this forum, the Lady Zips came back from a 12 pt deficit and won 82-73 against a very, very good Northern Iowa team. They were picked to finish 2nd in the Missouri Valley Conference, which is always a good conference for RPI if you can beat a team from that conference, let alone the 2nd place projected UNI Panthers. Another tough one against Horizon League contender Valparaiso. Torn between going to the football game at Can't or going to this game. I might DVR the football game and head to the JAR Tuesday night. Also, forget about All-MAC freshmen team. Kerri McMahan might make the All-MAC first or second team as a freshman.

My point though is that if she did do something wrong, she WILL be suspended by the team. There's no doubt about that. Even if she didn't do anything wrong, the fact that if she put herself in a situation for this to happen, she would not have played Saturday afternoon. Coach Kest would have said it was because of "violation of team rules" just like the student-athlete the previous night. It was the night between game days, and Coach Kest wouldn't let that slide. If she plays tomorrow morning, that tells you all you need to know about your assumptions. From past history, Coach Kest doesn't tolerate that and there would be no way she plays if she had any role in the way you described. It might be better for you to stop throwing multiple theories out there.

The dating rumor is irrelevant and is false. It's assumptions being made...

I am not saying that at all. "Going too far" can be a lot of things, just not sexual. I'm not going to name them all, because 1) You should know them, and 2) I don't want to put multiple rumors/theories out there. You seemed to be very focused on that though with all your posts.