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It's easily justifiable if it is determined to be a net gain. I don't see how its really debatable. Cheaping out and spending 250k on a coach who sucks and in turn losing 300k in season ticket holder revenue/donations/general admin sales/vendors/etc is not justifiable.

Hopefully Larry has some more sense than TW and makes the new coach's buyout to leave something more than chump change. The search firm we are paying along with other time/resources used probably easily surpasses the amount we received from KD's buyout.

Saying that sports results at Akron have never attracted a single student or benefactor is unsubstantiated and flat out wrong. I'm sure all of those large spikes in donations and applications/enrollment for those schools were just coincidences

1. Maybe.

I did not say to cut Women's basketball. I said cuts should start on the women's basketball side. To be more specific Jodi Kest's run seems to be over. They've had a few down seasons now, including a very bad one last year and the future does not look bright. The sport produces essentially no revenue yet has similar expenses (give or take a few hundred thousand due to coaching salaries) to the men's basketball team. Jodi is paid somewhere north of 320k. In my quick 10 minutes of research, that seems to be close to twice the amount of the average MAC women's coaches salary. As for you calling bullshit about good sports teams attracting students, donors, etc., I will simply leave this. http://ftw.usatoday.com/2014/03/a-cinderella-story-how-universities-benefit-from-being-an-ncaa-tournament-underdog

It should be able to get you a lot, actually. Paying a coach 250k and him not performing vs paying a coach 600k and him being at Keith's level or above can have much more than a net 350k impact. I am guessing anyways. I said it before and I'll say it again. I believe cuts should start on the Women's basketball side, and that probably won't happen until after this season.

I'll say slightly lower than KD. Still top 3 in the MAC. The guy will most likely be unproven at this level and doesn't deserve top money without earning it. Now if its a perceived big time hire...think Crean or Groce, then I am okay with top dollar. If they low ball this whole thing I think I'll be pissed.

No updates man, unfortunately. Seem to be some updates for everyone but us.

How many Zips fans at the meaningless bowl game? I don't understand why everyone wants to make it basketball vs football. There are many other less value-added sports to take aim at.

Original post is updated and here are the updated numbers: Made the tournament in 08-09. Avg. attendance - 2,984. Attendance the following season was 2,824. Made the tournament in 10-11. Avg. attendance - 2,821. Attendance the following season was 3,440. Made the tournament in 12-13. Avg. attendance - 3,782. Attendance the following season was 3,609.

i think I pulled a year off for each as the NCAA only lists whole years rather than labeling seasons as 2012-2013 for example. I'll post the updated numbers after I fix them.

Because I have not came across anything that states he had an offer from us. I don't see why that isn't considered a fair observation.

I agree that the FBS system is a joke. I agree that there is an over-saturation of bowl games. I disagree about nobody watching. If nobody watched then there would not be sponsors for these bowl games with the sponsors giving away gifts and hundreds of thousands of dollars at minimum per team for participating. Football is the most popular sport in America. Is the NCAA tournmanet a joke? Here is Akrons' huge "boost" in attendance after making the tournament 3 times under KD: Made the tournament in 08-09. Avg. attendance - 2,984. Attendance the following season was 2,824. Made the tournament in 10-11. Avg. attendance - 2,821. Attendance the following season was 3,440. Made the tournament in 12-13. Avg. attendance - 3,782. Attendance the following season was 3,609.

Hell yes I'd sign that. But I don't think its completely an apples to apples comparison. If we were to make a majority of MAC championships and lose most of them, well at least we would have the bowl game to look forward too, which is as good of a prize as you are going to get with the way college football is currently set up, which is unfortunate. In basketball, there are 68 teams who get a shot to play for the championship in this super popular tournament. And if you aren't one of those 68 teams then nobody outside of 1/4th of your fan base cares about how do you in a tournament that means nothing. It also doesn't help when as great of a regular season run as we had the past 11 seasons, we have accumulated a total of 3 post season wins, especially when we couldn't even capitalize against crappy competiton (IPFW anyone).

Before the Info, the next newest stadium was built in 1993 and the one before that was 1983. Most of the rest were built in the 60s or much earlier. I really don't think that is having much of an affect at all on the quality of MAC basketball. Even so, MAC football is much more respected than MAC basketball and I don't see why that has to be a bad thing.

Dix Stadium - 20,500 Doyt Perrty - 23,724 Yager - 30,012 Info - 30,000 Peden -24,000 UB Stadium - 29,031 Glass Bowl - apparently 26k, but had record 37k once. Husky stadium - 24,000 Kelly Shorts - 30,255 Rynearson - 30,200 Scheumann - 22,500 Waldo - 30,200 Looks like we have a pretty middle of the road sized stadium compared to our peers. Seems reasonable to me.

I am assuming you mean Parker Stewart. 247 only shows 13 offers, but that is besides the point. If what you say/read was true, then I am disappointed we didn't even try to recruit a kid as talented as him whose dream growing up was to play at Akron.... http://247sports.com/player/parker-stewart-86699

And as for the 3 small guard starting lineup to begin the season, that is not a good excuse because it was horrible. Hence the loss to YSU. KD got away from it and for good reason.

Correction: Hall was a 4 (but numbers don't matter). I seem to remember him getting owned by 6'11" Marin Maric as well. If Big Dog couldn't contain those types of players do you expect somebody much smaller to? Yea Utomi might have to play undersized and be a liability on the defensive end, but that doesn't mean it is preferable. So numbers and matchups DO matter.

That's probably fine on the offensive side of the ball. Doesn't work so much when you are guarding players much bigger than you and you need to rebound.

Well I think a lot will agree that something like that would happen next season whether he was here or not, unless some players REALLY develop. Its almost a certainty now that he is poaching our players.

I think it's hard to deny Utomi's potential. He is naturally a 3 though, which causes some overlap with Ivey. Ivey can play the 2, but then one of Tino/Noah will be on the bench, which the new coach could very well look into as both are really point guards and not 2 guards. I prefer Tino to Noah, but I see Tino as the perfect 6th man. But then those changes leave us very thin on the front line. If we can keep Poke and Mike and Aa. Jackson finally puts it together and then a freshman like Isaiah Williams comes in and contributes...we could be fine.

"Wlliams was with donors at a golf outing." Seems he isn't on vacation like was reported on here. Then again, I can't imagine too many golf outings were happening in Northeast Ohio today.

I believe the Browns paid for all of it up front and will get a fraction back from the city over time. Does Summit County have a sin tax?

MAC schools now play in the Dollar General bowl. Might as well fully embrace it.