legendofzippy

You're suggesting a coach tells a player not to accept a full-ride from a school like Michigan? As a coach you'd have a very short career.

ULL is now up to 21 in the AP poll. There were some people on her kind of trashing them at the time, but they're having a great season. UCF is 17, which could be a little low for them. Throw in NIU and that's a pretty tough schedule. scUM is not having a great year, but that's still a pretty good team. Only one of those games was out of hand. If we're a little better on the road next year, that could be the best sign of improvement.

Good info on Ferns, thanks. Seems like a good kid. I don't like scUM, but hope he does well. Dante Booker was being questioned, but I don't know about that one. Bill Greene is a good follow on Twitter and he posted this last week: @BillBankGreene 22 Nov Dante Booker just played the best game I've seen from a defensive player this season. St Vincent rolled over Hubbard. Looking to repeat.

Is that why you were questioning Ferns? Have you seen him play? I haven't but he seems like a solid recruit.

Agree. Now when he's recruiting he can say he'll be their coach the whole time. More importantly, other coaches can't plant that seed of doubt.

I like this line: internal spats such as these are the norm, not the exception on any sports team. Look at the infighting on this message board - now imagine if we were actually competing with someone!

Comedy is hard. Fact checking is hard. Keep working, you'll get there.

This is where we still need some work, IMO. I'm not convinced our recruiting is at a competitive level yet with the top MAC teams. Staff did a great job of finding guys (for the lack of a better term) on the waiver wire, but I'm not sold on recruiting yet.

This has been an interesting thread, along with a few others, to follow the past week or so. So far, on this message board that is allegedly filled with Akron fans, people have taken shots at our players, our point guards in particular, our coach, our conference, our OOC opponents, our past accomplishments.... It's becoming very clear that we have two definitions of what a "fan" is. Coach Ianello did not deserve our support. But in my time of being a Zips fan, we have never had this combined level of coach/player talent for our major sports, so I'm enjoying the ride. Hopefully this is a case of two very strong-willed people butting heads. It's probably hard for Tree to see it right now, but this should make him better in the long run.

Second that. Does anyone know Tree/his family at all? After the MAC championship last year I went down on the court, and for a while I was standing next to a large group of people that were clearly family. It turned out to be Tree's family, and when he made his way over they struck me as very supportive and proud of him. That's virtually nothing to go on, but my thought/hope is that he has a decent support group, so hopefully that's true and they help him out. It's easy to forget - especially with a guy like Tree - that these are young guys. I did dumb stuff in college but I didn't do it under a spotlight, and certainly not in this news environment.

Nice work. Heart attack averted.

That last play against Michigan would be great for a "do-over", but if I could pick one game it would be OU. I really don't think that final score is anywhere indicative of the talent level of the two teams. IMO, that game was a fluke. I'm not saying we're definitely better, but things went downhill, then stayed downhill. I wish I had a stronger word than downhill, it was just crazy. I'd love to see some payback next season. My other thought on the game last night, those OU unis are pretty sharp. Great for a national TV game. I'd say one of the better alternates in all of CFB, though I hate to admit it.

Kind of odd to drop a statement like that without elaborating. Can you add more to this? He did have some strange tweets the other day, but leaving the team doesn't make sense to me.

Agreed. Yes, App State is an interesting one. That one will be remembered for a long time, but what did it really do for long-term success? Why would someone they're recruiting today be influenced by a win 6 years ago? The runs Can't and Valpo made were impressive - but ask the average 20 year old across the nation about those wins and enjoy the blank stares. Let's go very recent. Belmont just upset UNC. They're 3-1, UNC is 2-1. Guess which team is ranked in both polls, and guess which falls under "others receiving votes". Small schools beat big schools in college basketball all the time, and it gets lost in the news cycle almost immediately. Earning respect is almost impossible for small schools. Gonzaga has been very good for a very long time, and they were ridiculed for the #1 seed (that they deserved) last season. Someone mentioned UK losing in the first round of the NIT... what did that lead to? Perhaps the greatest recruiting class ever. It's not a level playing field. We'll get one of those wins eventually and we'll enjoy the heck out of it. Within 48 hours (or less) it will be gone from the national headlines. Watch any championship post-game show and see how long it is before the "can they repeat?" question comes up. The success we're enjoying right now is good enough for me. Keep getting to that championship, keep bringing in good recruits, and I'm happy. Think right now if our football team was in the situation. Good lord we'd lose our minds.

My point is that it won't matter with regard to the national perception of the program. We should celebrate those as big wins, but they're not more than that. Again, it sucks, but it's the life of a mid-major.

And if the argument is we need bigger wins to draw more fans - I don't buy that either. Bandwagons come and go. It's great to take their money for a while, but they don't stay.

I think what you're saying in the first part of this post is what bothers me the most. Most of the argument against what I'm saying right now seems to center around the national perception of our program. What I'm trying to say is - that doesn't matter, and it will never matter. Look at our soccer program. They've been very strong for a long time now. They have a national championship for crying out loud. Shouldn't they, in the soccer community, have a strong "national perception"? Well look at the draw they got and tell me how that worked out for them. Some big road wins would be great. Some NCAA wins would be great. But it's never, never, never going to matter. Except for rare exceptions, we're a one-bid league in basketball. What if we weren't guaranteed that one team, do you think the NCAA would take any MAC teams most years? No way. Hell we got screwed out of the NIT one year. It sucks, but it's reality. What I'm trying to say is that winning our conference is still a great accomplishment. Did anyone hear Dambrot on 1350 yesterday? He talked about how they have great respect for their conference, and winning the MAC was still the #1 goal. If you support the program, then that's what you should support too.

You're the tough guy saying it means nothing to beat a MAC team, or a team like North Dakota State. Let's see a fight between you and any guy on any of those rosters. Your ass gets handed to you in less than 30 seconds.

I didn't get to see this game. Out of curiosity, why so much criticism of Pohl? His stats look ok, though the team's 3rd down conversion rate was pitiful. Did he miss every 3rd down throw or something? I guess I'm neutral on Pohl, but competition at QB is fine with me. There should be competition for every position.

You strike me as a whiner too. At any rate, everyone seems to be so concerned about national perception, which I'd say is nearly irrelevant. Look at Belmont. They've had a nice program for a while, and just upset UNC. Can the average fan tell you what state they're in? Their nickname? Who the coach is? Beside, we beat MT last year. They're a good program and it's tough to win on the road. If we stink in MAC play, that's different. But so far I don't think Akron has played poorly.

Do everyone a favor and take your "fandom" somewhere else. I'm sure you played your D1 ball at a much higher level than the MAC, but the rest of us slobs are pretty happy with our team.

Well said. People that aren't happy with winning the MAC are babies in my opinion. Go look at the history of our program. Decades of fans would have killed for the success we're having now, so enjoy it. Not saying we can't criticize anything, but stop acting like a marketing campaign of "think bigger" entitles you to NCAA wins. I'd say the best MAC team in recent memory was Wally's Miami team. They made a nice run, then basically fell off the map. Can't and OU in recent years made nice runs, but would you trade places with either right now? Keep winning the conference, keep the top notch recruits coming, and enjoy the ride.

Don't backpedal. You said a bad team. Average on a national level? No, stick to your original comment.

You tried. But you know, serves you right for trying to be clever.

Dambrot is trying to push us to a different level. It's not easy and it doesn't happen overnight. We're playing tougher teams in non-conference now, so you simply can't expect wins every night. Win the conference - that's success to me. If winning a few NCAA games is the only thing that will make you happy go bandwagon with Kentucky or something.