legendofzippy

If I'm not mistaken, Brazil hosts the next World Cup and Summer Olympics. Good luck with that.

One thing LeBron has made clear time and time again - his loyalty is to Akron, not Cleveland. Yes, that seems kind of weird, but as many mistakes as he's made he's been very consistent on that point. Overall, I'm not a fan, and I'll admit I was openly rooting for the Spurs. But he's done a lot for the University, city, his HS, etc., and his talent on the court is unmatched right now (and it's not even close IMO). Again, not a huge fan, but the constant bashing is kind of stupid at this point.

Teams ran out because he was hitting 40% of his 3's. And he had a 2:1 assist to TO ratio. To say they functioned better under Melo is crazy. In the MAC tournament - total - Melo had 6 points and 5 assists. Again, I hope he improves, but let's not rewrite history.

I like Melo and all, and I expect him to be better, but better than Abreu? No, he has to earn that on the court. Teams had to run out on Alex at the three point line, and with Melo they backed off. That alone was a huge disadvantage to our offense. Again I like Melo, but he's got a long way to go. Despite an unthinkable end to his Akron career, Alex had developed into a very good player.

Um, because if you don't have a PG, you're screwed. As they point out, we don't have a proven PG.

I'll be interested in what they say about the MAC teams ahead of us, but this is a pretty good preview. I'd say fair - right now there are questions at PG, but if that doesn't turn out to be an issue the team will be fine. Again though, will need to see how they justify the teams ahead of us. Buffalo I could understand, but not sure beyond that.

Looks like only two centers on the 76ers summer league team. Great opportunity for Zeke. 76ers Summer League Roster

The Spurs are known for stashing guys in Europe, which they may do with Deshaun Thomas. It appears the team still keeps their rights? Deshaun stashed in Europe?

Nice info, good to hear. Deji seems to be the forgotten man for some reason.

First, your description of Dambrot's style is great. I think that's what makes this team so hard to beat in the MAC. How many programs can go 10 deep? Anyone? Even with a very young team, it "feels" like a veteran squad. As far as this year's incoming class - can you elaborate? Anyone in particular standing out?

Why do you say that doesn't work with American players? Plenty of American players have been drafted and sent overseas. They're resistant to it, if that's what you meant, but it's still done.

Yes, coach Dambrot was on 1350 this week and mentioned to Dunn that he is the only senior. It's weird to think about, but it's still a very young team.

This reminds me of the Brian Scalabrine challenge a little while back. All these guys lined up to take on Scalabrine and he destroyed all of them. Google the video if you've never seen it, pretty funny. It was just a good reminder that even the guys in the NBA that you probably think suck are infinitely more talented and athletic than any of us were on our best day. As much as we think we know, truly evaluating talent at that level is beyond all of us. But it's still fun, that's why we're here.

I guess it was disappointing for all of us last night, but still looking forward to following his career anyway.

Wow, this a big "get" for us! Sounds like he left OSU on good terms ... Se'von Pittman

Interesting post on Zips FB page today... All of Akron's NBA draft picks.... Marcel Boyce, 1987 6th Round, 8th pick, Phoenix Joe Jakubick, 1984, 7th Round, 3rd Pick, Cleveland Nate Barnett, 1975, 7th Round, 11th Pick, Houston Len Paul, 1973, 11th Round, 6th Pick, Detroit Bill Turner , 1967, 3rd Round, 8th Pick, San Francisco Lou Arko, 1950, 7th Round, Syracuse Joe Wahl, 1948, Philadelphia Fritz Nagy, 1947, Pittsburgh Obviously the draft being only 2 rounds now makes comparisons difficult. Anyone know of a list of all MAC picks ever taken in the first 2 rounds of the draft? I wonder what company Zeke could join tonight if drafted.

I think there's a bit of a combo here. It's not just Can't - sometimes the ESPNU/ESPN2/etc. games just don't look right. They muse use lower quality equipment for some of those games, which would make sense. But I don't think the gym lighting at Can't is great either. It's like the Q - when Gund ran team (blue seats era) I remember watching games on TV and wondered how our arena could look so lame compared to teams like the Lakers. Then Gilbert comes along, throws in a ton of renovations, and now everything looks fine. Obviously the court was upgraded, but I think it mostly comes down to lighting.

Well if he gets drafted it won't be Miami - right now they have no picks. But let's say somehow he does wind up there.... every time he enters a game the announcers will talk about his connections to LeBron via Akron and Dambrot. For the program, that would be awesome. And they're the two-time defending champs, so for Zeke it would be awesome. Granted, it's the last place I want to see him go (ok, I'd rather him a 'Heat' than a 'Pelican'), but it would be a great fit.

Agree. We had tons of conflicts with football last year because of kid's games. I don't know why everyone (not just Akron) has such a resistance to later games. I love late starts.

Provided Zeke winds up on a team by draft or signing after the draft, is anyone else considering switching NBA loyalty to that team? I am, though the Cavs management has a lot to do with that as well.

I guess my point was that it wasn't directly beneficial to Akron. It's exciting we have a 3 star, but Central (where player was actually from) has 3. Western has 10. I'm not convinced we're in the top half of the MAC yet for potential recruits, but certainly we're moving up the list.

IMO, the MAC knows exactly what they're doing. They're giving the best teams easier schedules to help them get bowl eligible. Steve French has talked about this for a long time. Everyone does it. As great as the SEC is, even their OOC schedules are mostly a joke. As a conference, you want as many bowls as possible. For the MAC in general, it's working. For our team, it stinks (right now).

Where to start? Are you suggesting that Solich has never used JUCO transfers or players from any pipeline other than HS seniors? I hope not. It's life in the MAC - program success is cyclical and when you're on the bottom you grab players from wherever you can. Throw in a depleted roster after the last "coach" and Bowden is doing what anyone would do. As far as prospective QB recruits (your example), that was answered this week. The mandate from the Akron administration has to be pretty simple - build a winner and start to fill up that stadium. As long as nothing illegal is going on, I doubt they care about one-year players. And while Solich has done very well at OU, I wouldn't say that's the team the Zips are chasing. The program is headed in a positive direction and Bowden is the primary reason. Yeah he might leave one day, but if he does it'll be because the program is in good shape. I'm ok with that.

This was Tom Linder's point on 1350 yesterday. If he has a big senior season we could absolutely lose him, but the good news is he seems to feel very comfortable with the program right now. It would probably need to be a pretty big name at this point is my guess, and it's not like those teams don't already know about him. Keep fingers crossed.

In that same article, it also shows that by age, smoking declines. So is a teenager working at McDonald's who happens to smoke really "poor"? Impossible to tell without knowing more facts. I had a low salary for a while, but I wasn't poor. Your income tends to rise as you age, when smoking is also decreasing. So the article almost argues against itself. The original point was that sin taxes unfairly affect the poor. It's not true. The larger issue would be why do they even exist. Billionaire owners, billion-dollar franchises, and we're subsidizing the stadiums. Crazy.