OU Dude

expecting more than Walt Offutt? Walt was a leader on the court and in the classroom, as a Bobcat he averaged 11.5pts, 4rebs and 2assts per game. In the 2012 NCAA Tournament he was named to the Midwest Region All Tournament Team, averaging 19.3pts while shooting 62% overall and 58% from 3. Players and coaches credited him with getting the team to focus on playing tough on defense. You'll be lucky if Hester has as big of an impact on his team as Walt did on his.

this could be your Walt Offutt.

minor correction, it would be for a 5th year, not a 6th. side note: I find it amusing that Jaaron Simmons pulls a Dambrot and blames his conference for not achieving his goals while Tony Campbell is willing to postpone a pro career overseas (and possibly in the NBA) for a year for a chance to play one more time in the MAC.

for comparison: when your new coach left a Sweet 16 roster to take a new job he didn't poach a single player. In fact, he even refused to take Caris LeVert with him who had committed to Ohio but was not enrolled yet. LeVert was angry about it, he said he told Groce to call him and he'd sign with Illinois but Groce never called him back. when Jim Christian left not a single player followed him either, but its not because he didn't try, it was because nobody wanted to play for him. lol.

"My grandmother in her 70s cut harder than some of you guys." - John Groce to a group of 10yr olds. lmao.

well this is certainly an interesting development. congrats on the hire. One thing that concerns me about Groce as a non-Akron fan is the loyalty he builds with recruits and players. You might not get a 5 star guy like Tilmon to commit but I wouldn't be surprised to see one or a few of his recruits/players come to Akron in the next couple of years. Perfect example is Walt Offutt. Offutt was a 4 star player in HS that Groce recruited to Ohio State. Offutt had signed his LOI when Groce took the job at OU, Offutt wanted to follow him but Groce, out of respect to Matta, talked him out of it. Couple years later he transferred to OU and was a key player for them. See also: Armon Bassett and Jon Smith. Saul Phillips said today that he sent Groce a text that said "I guess we have to hate each other now. ;)" he went on to say how gracious Groce had been to him and how their wives have become friends. Needless to say, its going to be interesting when the Zips come to Athens next year. I hope Groce becomes the coach that gets you guys all of the at-large bids you could ever want.

Conferences don't earn at-large bids, teams do. Weak OOC schedules are the problem, but we don't want to risk ending our 20 wins/season streak, right? As for trying to blame the commissioner for not speaking out for the MAC to the selection committee- he doesn't have to, Ohio AD Jim Schaus is on the committee. I have no doubt that he will fight passionately for any MAC team that has an at-large worthy resume. No excuses.

I'm not opposed to the Double-Bye format in theory but what killed it was when the MAC went from 16 conference games to 18. At 16 games its even- every team plays all 5 teams in their division twice, and all 6 teams in cross-division once. Adding 2 more games makes it uneven, you get 2 more random cross-division games. In 2014 Ohio and Akron split their head to head series 1-1. They both shared the same division record of (6-4) but Akron(6-2) edged Ohio(5-3) in cross division play. By random scheduling Akron got to play the #12 seed and #6 seed twice and went 4-0, Ohio played those teams once each and went 2-0. On the other end, Ohio had to play the #1 and #2 teams twice and Ohio went 1-3 against them, Akron went 0-2. As a result Akron ended up the #4 seed and Ohio was #5. This slight difference over 18 games resulted in Ohio having to play a campus game on Monday, travel Tuesday, then play another game on Wednesday, just for the chance to play a well rested Akron on Thursday. Ohio lead the Zips for the first 37 minutes and then looked like they ran out of gas. There's an argument for whether the regular season champ or tournament champ should get the auto-bid, but when it comes to the tournament format design, the current design is the best fit.

Trivia Question: When was the decision made to change the format to the Double Bye? Answer: After the 2010 season when the 9 seed beat the 1 seed in the Quarterfinals. Afterwards, fans of the 1 seed complained that it wasn't fair that they didn't get a bigger advantage for winning the regular season. Sound familiar?

Johnson/Campbell's minutes- 2014 Gm1- 10min/5min (Johnson +5) Gm2- 25min/10min (Johnson +15) Akron loss 2015 Gm1- 12min/28min (Johnson -16) Akron loss Gm2- 25min/27min (Johnson -2) 2016 Gm1- 22min/29min (Johnson -7min) Gm2- 22min/39min (Johnson- 17min) You assumed Johnson played at least 10 minutes less in each of those 6 games, your assumption was incorrect. We can all agree that the wins are what both fanbases cares about, but saying Johnson ( I refuse to call another grown man Big Dog) dominated Campbell is simply incorrect.

You are correct, Akron's 8 MACC appearances in 10yrs is the most by any team in a 10yr stretch. Other teams have been close though. MACC appearance in a decade- 8 Akron (2007-2016) 7 Cant St (1999-2008) 6 Ball St (1986-1995) 5 EMU (1988-1997) *EMU won 6 in an 11yr stretch 4 Ohio (2005-2014) MACC wins in a decade- 5 Ball St (5-1) 5 Cant St (5-2) 3 Ohio (3-1) 3 EMU (3-2) 3 Akron (3-5) It says a lot about Akron's consistency when they can lose so many important pieces and still be expected to be on top of an improving MAC.

so the entire basis of the claim that Ohio "isn't even the same league" UNI is the results of the last 2 seasons. lmao. ok, if it makes you feel better. Northwestern, a program that has never been to the dance, is a marquee win? lol, ok. Ohio beat teams from the Big East and A10 but who cares, right? oh, and they also beat NORTHERN IOWA but that doesn't count either. and the funniest of them all- claiming that the reason Xavier won't play in Athens is because Ohio's program isn't good enough for them and not because its an instate program with a 13K seat arena and the fanbase to fill it. (insert laughing emoji x infinity) what a weird, weird obsession you have.

and when people who like to rant for the sake of ranting are asked to explain their position they can't do it. I'll ask again- what unit of measurement are you using to determine that Ohio is "nowhere near Norther Iowa's league"?

what a weird thing to be obsessed about, but ok, I'll play a long. RPI doesn't matter? at all? what about head to head match ups? again, Ohio played them twice in the past 5 seasons and won by double digits both times. let me guess, you dismiss that as a small sample size, or they over looked the Bobcats or...??? Yes, Ohio recently had a 10 win season after getting its 3rd head coach in 4yrs. In the other 4 years of that 5yr period Ohio averaged 25.25 wins/season. So one bad season proves they're no where near UNI's league how? And if I point out that both teams have won a total of 111 games each in the last 5yrs you'll say total wins don't count because their schedule was harder, right? What about tournament play? In the last 5yrs both teams have played in 4 post season tournaments and both teams failed to make a tournament 1 season. Here are their post season results- CBI- Norther Iowa(N/A), Ohio(2-1) CIT- Norther Iowa(3-1), Ohio(2-1) NIT- Norther Iowa(1-1), Ohio(0-1) NCAA- Norther Iowa(2-2), Ohio(2-1) that puts UNI out of OU's league? really? if its not RPI, and its not head to head results, and its not overall record, then what is this magical unit of measure to say that UNI is not only better than OU, but they aren't even in the same league? Why the hyperbole?

Ohio has played UNI twice in the past 5yrs and beat them by double digits both times. A comparison of RPIs over the last 5yrs has OU over UNI three out of the five- UNI/OU 70/81 14/232 111/86 83/67 72/45 "no where near North Iowa's league" is a bit of a stretch.