skip-zip

I see that Rivals has us ranked this morning near the bottom of the MAC in recruiting class, only ahead of Eastern, UMass and Buffalo. However, that really looks to be a result of the size of the class. We had Three 3-Star Recruits, which puts us up there with everyone except the top few teams in our league.

I like that Keith called OU "fortunate" last night. I get it. I can't remember the last time I saw a team score 80+ points with absolutely no offensive continuity whatsoever. They won't make all of those shots in Akron. They may not even make half of them. So, I am looking forward to them coming to Akron also. It will be a 20+ point Akron victory.

I can't decide which is worse: Having only 6 opportunities? Or, missing every one of them?

The only thing that concerns me about this matchup is that, with Maurice, they are far more athletic than us in the paint. He probably won't have trouble getting around Big Dog, Pat, and Jake. If this means he has a big night, the perimeter guys could capitalize from it, and make it a 70 to 80 point game, which would be difficult for us to win on the road. I see this as OUs only path to victory.

Won't happen because it makes too much sense? I'll never stop saying this......We already have a major problem with creating our Blue and Gold identity. There's plenty of cool things that can be done with those two colors. I'm done with the black. And I'm more than done with the SILVER numbers on the basketball jerseys. I just don't get any of it. Maybe the players like wearing something different, like the black, as some people suggest. But for God's sake, we are Blue and Gold. Play around all you want with the Blue and Gold. You can even do Blue, Gold, and Black together, or lighten/brighten the Blue to put Blue and Gold ON black. But Gold numbers on black just doesn't make any sense at all to me.

Unfortunately, they seem to look at their audience as it exists, and not the new readers that they could energize. I wish there was an answer, but it won't change until they get a sense that Zips Fans are a formidable local group. With all of the inserts and commemorative editions a few weeks ago, anyone reading the ABJ would have certainly thought it was a Columbus paper. In fact, I'd be willing to bet that they'd cover OSWho better than Akron, even for any similar accomplishment, simply based on their perceived interest from area readers.

As far as our NCAA tournament opponents are concerned, Yes, I think that Michigan, Gonzaga, and Notre Dame being from major conferences would have undoubtedly produced the biggest impact. I'd rather have that kind of matchup, if I had a preference. But at this point, I'd take any first round win. And I'd have to think that the Mentor vs. Student matchup against Shaka would have to go in Keith's favor at some point.

I think that fits with the "Team Ohio" theme. For sure.

And isn't it funny that it happens on Ground Hog Day ??????

Yep, there's another good point I had not thought about. Throwing on 2nd down was the only way to get 3 plays in 26 seconds.

Not arguing with you. But I guess the only way to know would be to look at guys who have taken other D-1A scholarships that could have gone to Penn State and paid their own way as a walk on. Without that knowledge, it's just a generalization about PA players. And we have had great success recruiting there over the last few decades. I'm sure we're not the only one.

I have two questions for this.... 1) What is the solution now that we've already built the Info? We can't turn back now. 2) Where is the money going to come from to double the basketball budget? I wish it was that easy. The only easy solution to that problem is to pack the arena with paying customers.

The only thing I ever recall getting repeated often is that he doesn't like taking them on out on frequent road trips in December. I've never heard anything in regards to him feeling that we can't beat big schools. If he felt that way, we probably wouldn't schedule them at all.

Let me throw something else in here.... If Russell Wilson just throws the ball away on 2nd down, because the coverage was too close for comfort, Seattle could have still ran the ball on 3rd and 4th down, with the threat in the Patriot's defensive players minds that they may try to throw again.

At first, I thought the call was ridiculous. But, I will echo most of what Dave said above after seeing the situation several times and listening to interviews, and add a few things. And I am not defending Seattle at all. I actually wanted New England to win. 1) Seattle was simply reacting to the defense. It was a goal line defense that was going to be hell-bent on stuffing the run on the next couple of plays. 2) Based on where the DBs were as the receivers broke open, if Wilson throws it to the opposite shoulder of the receiver, away from the defender, his receiver would have been the only guy on the field who could have caught that ball. 3) As Dave stated, it was an unbelievable play by a guy who made a perfectly timed jump on the ball. 4) That type of play happens so fast, underneath the DBs, that the odds of something going really wrong are very improbable. You could probably run that play 100 times, and it's either caught, knocked down at the last moment, or simply falls incomplete.

Here's a few thoughts about the Stroh Center that I have gotten over the last year or so from a few people who are involved with BG basketball and someone who played there. It works for them. That's the overwhelming opinion. It's a rather isolated small town campus, which may be able to draw a little bit from alums in the Toledo area 30 min. to an hour or so away, but for the most part, it's a campus/student and small town draw. Very, very different than what Akron has to work with. They know their potential draw, and scaled it accordingly. Fortunately, our ceiling is much higher. There's no way we'd build something like that. For the reasons I have stated above, for starters. Plus, it would be like building something too close to what we have already. At the very, very least, we will definitely be building something that increases capacity by at least a couple thousand. And we will definitely have more corporate amenities to accommodate a very different segment of gameday attendance that we can attract here at Akron than what they attract at BG.

Exactly my point when I responded to a-zip. They can apply that logic to why we don't support a football team, but the situation with basketball is completely the opposite.

I think our ability to pull in some great talent from PA, dating all the way back to the early 90s, tells a different story.

The game highlights are posted on gozips.com now. I think it takes a little longer when it's a road game. Great view of the final play from the baseline.

I saw it. It's about football

Dave, I always have to comment on things like this. Coaches don't experiment for the future when they are in the last minute trying to win a key basketball game with first place in the conference on the line. Don't overanalyze it. He felt like we could win the game with the guys he had on the floor.

Where is this "rating" about Akron Zips fans being some of the worst in the country? I'd love to see it.

I kept talking about how we needed to find some way to win at least 2 conference road games. I think there may even be a couple more out there, including Wed. at OU. I'm pretty happy right now though. After the NIU debacle, I think we were all questioning if we could win any road conference games. And this one last night was so improbably. I don't think we played more than 5-10 min. of decent basketball offensively the entire night. Maybe this says something about the relative strength of the MAC this year more than anything else. And this year, I'm fine with that. When Tree left, we truly had only option to getting to the NCAA tournament this year. And if nobody in this league is going to step up and take control, that's just fine with me. It gives us a chance.

WOW