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Instead of "player development", maybe the topic should have been changed to "recruiting". If there is a big concern about the number of people who we never developed into contributing players, maybe the problem is that we didn't do a good job of selecting players with that level of talent in the first place?

Great point. I actually buy a section of tickets for myself and other people. So, I screwed some other people too, since they said they could not make enough games after I already purchased their tickets for them. People who bought game-by-game tickets really made out this year, since they were able to skip those games, and we had already paid for 6 of them. And while we are ranting about the fate of season ticket holders this year, maybe I should get on my soapbox again about all the sweet deals they offer to people once the season starts, like discounted tickets, parking passes, concession vouchers, etc., for those who wish to attend any remaining games. That's always a slap in the face to the season ticket holders also. And this year in particular.

The Tuesday and Thursday games did put the nail in the coffin of this year's attendance numbers. No doubt. But overall, I completely agree with Balsy that the teams we play has the greatest affect on drawing attention from potential fans right now. After 20+ years, people have literally fallen asleep at the thought of watching us play Buffalo, EMU, etc., whether we win or not. See Northern Illinois.

You're not playing devil's advocate. You are absolutely correct. Especially when you are talking about a non-nationally-recognized entity that's winning against other non-nationally-recognized entities. I often find it amazing that people who consider themselves avid Zips fans will jump into attendance discussions regarding football with the "if only we started winning" argument, when 10 years of a consistently winning basketball program already provides that data. There would be some impact. But it wouldn't be what some people want to believe it would be. Not in the MAC. Sadly, most sports fans in NE Ohio couldn't tell you what Akron's football record is during any given year.

Why? Cincinnati has the Bengals, and Cleveland has the Browns. That's even. Cincinnati is closer than us to Cowlumbus. They are also in the same city where Xavier is often a contending, nationally-recognized basketball program. They also have Dayton, Miami, and even the mighty Kentucky Wildcats, in relatively close proximity. In our situation, there are NO D-1 schools in the entire Northeast and North Central part of Ohio that play D-1A football other than Ken+. That's a pretty populated area to really have only 2 "local" choices. I always harp about what Cincinnati has accomplished in their area. But when you really look closely at the geography, I think NE Ohio is an even more favorable climate for an Akron uprising than the SW corner of Ohio was for Cincinnati.

That's why I said many more than 2. Is 40 enough to convince you that if you are really good, you have a shot at playing in the NBA? I think everyone here would agree on that. I'm no statistician, but it tells me that ON AVERAGE, at least one of the first-teamers on the All-MAC team every year will be on an NBA roster. How did I do, Dave?

And many, many more before them.

The travel costs would be astounding, based on how that conference is arranged, geographically. If you can imagine the loss to send the volleyball team to Texas for one game, and doing that several times a year, it's mind boggling. Multiply that by every other sport. It all comes back to this (I just said this in another thread yesterday). Akron is a city of 200,000 people, with hundreds of thousands more in the surrounding areas. You would think that this serves as an incredible advantage vs. athletic programs who don't have this type of population from which to garner support. And we need their FINANCIAL support more than anything else. It should be a no-brainer, but it's not. The potential fan base along with the robust business community, many of whom are within steps of our campus, should give us all that we need. The bottom line: Until some people around here get the Buckeyes pulled out of their a$$es, and understand that there IS a local team D-1 program right here that has operated with integrity and deserves their support, and a University that drives this community, we can't fund this type of move.

That's not true. Plenty of MAC players develop into NBA talent. Zeke got better during the time he was here, but it was very obvious to me early on that he was not going to get to that point. He was good for a MAC player, and maybe could have played in a lot of more highly regarded leagues. But, he never had an NBA skill set or determination, in my view. Like you said, Keith does a great job with what he has to work with. And Zeke was what he was, and they made the most of that and made him effective for us against MAC competition. Unfortunately, that was as far as that was going to go. The NBA takes big-time chances of lots of guys his size. The fact that he never even got one of those plentiful breaks should tell the entire story about how he was viewed by the NBA teams.

I'm getting N. Dakota's audio, but a blank screen. Anyone else?

I'm with you. I have been around this program way too long to listen to that. We've averaged FAR higher numbers with similar type success. Settling for an answer like that is just a cop-out. But even if the numbers were better, Northern is the perfect example of the ceiling that we all face, being MAC level teams, and showing that you can beat other MAC-level teams. Northern has even had a taste of success beyond that, in addition to being able to draw from one of the most populous areas in the entire country! We need to do a much better job of selling what we have right now. It's been done before. We've had much better community involvement with similar average success. And we no longer have the ancient facility that supposedly kept some people away for years, according to feedback. This 9k average is just pathetic. But those expecting big things if we just become a "winning MAC program" are dreaming. We're a D-1A program in a city of 200,000, with hundreds of thousands more in the surrounding area. We are not Miami, or OU, or CMU, in that respect. We have a decided advantage over all of those schools in terms of our potential fan base. And they outdraw us? They shouldn't even be able to get remotely close. It's inexcusable.

I'll say this much. If I needed about 5 long shots in a relatively short period of time, I think I'd go with Kretzer. If I needed one when it counted, no way. I still have visions of what he did in that big 2nd half comeback two years ago at OU. But, I still want to believe that Reggie is the "best" long range shooter on the team. And since you brought it up, I'll assume I am not the only one who is very disappointed with the offensive output from both Kretzer and McAdams this season, so far. I felt that these two guys would automatically pick up the scoring slack with Tree gone. Right now, with 2 seconds left, go with Cheatham. He's shooting 41% on 39 attempts. That's a great percentage with a relatively large sampling. Could that maybe explain why he was selected to came off of a screen on a set play for a 3 after a timeout with about a minute to go last Saturday?

Yep, there could be another side to that...... The worst being that none of them were deemed to be good enough to play in front of someone else in a higher class, which might be alarming, considering the performances of many of the players on this team during a below average year. If a few of these guys could have possibly helped us win another game or two THIS year, then I would be pissed if they were sitting. And if they really weren't good enough to play, then the fact that we were somehow "saving them" for the future isn't something to get too excited about.

When he first arrived? He never stopped going into the paint and throwing up wild shots near the rim. But, he did become pretty good at tossing those little short lob passes to the big guys around the basket. He was good for a couple of those a game. Noah could certainly become a greater asset to us by doing that a few times a game as well.

I have a friend who travels to Fargo on business quite often. He says that it's usually below Zero every time he is there. Fortunately for the Zips, it will be a very warm 7 degrees in Fargo tomorrow night.

Not only that, Dave. But in response to Zippy5's solution, I can understand encouraging your players to match another team's physical play, but I don't know any coach who would ever "adjust" by telling his players to go ahead and commit similar fouls just because the other team is not being called for the same fouls. I am certain that Keith would have just wanted the obvious fouls to be called.

Better yet, when you are down by a point, you need to take that shot with at least 5 seconds left on the clock, to allow for a possible tip-in or rebound and put-back. I can live with doing what they did if it were a tie game. But, that situation was awful. It seemed as if everyone was afraid to do anything.

I'm glad someone brought this up. I pointed this out during the Charleston tournament, and I saw it again. Although he certainly needs to penetrate more, the problem isn't that he's not penetrating. The problem is that when he does, he seems to always try to go all the way to the basket. I'd love to see him penetrate and dish. A point guard becomes pretty easy to defend when you know what he's going to do when he enters the paint on the dribble. I recall at least 3 times during this game where he went right to the basket, almost as if he had made up his mind, regardless of how the defense reacted. I think 2 of them ended up being charges, and one resulted in a very awkward attempted one-handed scoop shot from way too far away from the basket. He can do a much better job if he keeps his head up, and becomes unpredictable when he enters the paint. I'm sure he'll learn.

Instead of just saying "the officiating was awful", I'll focus on a few specific things that bothered me on Saturday. 1) It could NOT have been the case that nearly every time we drove to the basket, it was a charge, and every time MT drove to the basket, it was called a block. That's just not possible. 2) The palming call on Forsythe was just bizarre. Flat out bizarre. Again, if you are going to call it there, then call it the entire game. Or leave it alone. 3) MT loved to jump on the back of Zips players on rebounds. True, it was a physical game. But, other than the one where Nyles grabbed a rebound and was pushed out of bounds, I don't think it was ever called.

I have a few thought here regarding Tree.... 1) What does "not enrolled" mean? We're between semesters. Spring semester won't begin for several weeks, so any student still has a lot of time to schedule classes. 2) Was there some sort of course for him to be reinstated, and he decided not to pursue it? Or, was it our decision? 3) Was he indeed booted under the student discipline code? In Quincy's situation, that was public knowledge. Why would this situation be any different? Many of these questions never get answered. This goes all the way back to the McKnight suspension.

See the incident with the OSWho QB. Same thing. That article a few days ago indicated that in Ohio law, if nobody presses charges, the police aren't going to take any further action.

Just imagine if we could hold a program like Pitt to 7 points.....twice....WOW. I have to wonder who the "hungry" team will be. The team who scored the upset the year before? Or, the higher profile program who got embarrassed at home? I can only hope that they don't pay us back mightily for a loss at their place, like Syracuse did a few years ago.

Yes, that would be another interesting, and different, variable. But, if a program was going to discipline a player, and possibly put them on "indefinite suspension" because of a situation like this, would it matter if they are injured or not? Would our handling of the Tree situation been any different if he was injured?

I think we might be about to get our example of how Akron handles these situations, compared to other "bigger" schools. I'm sure everyone now knows about the OSWho QBs domestic issue with his pregnant girlfriend. Besides the fact that she provided details that he "choked her and threw her across the room" (I don't recall any details coming out of the Tree situation), the two situations seem to mirror each other. The police were called, the police responded, there is a report, and neither party chose to press charges at the time of the incident. Akron chose to put the player immediately on indefinite suspension, and referred the matter for student conduct review. I have yet to hear that any action has been taken in the several days that have followed the OSWho case. It'll be interesting to see what happens vs. the action that Akron has taken.

This is very interesting. I would think that ANY conference would be happy to be publicized in the Cleveland TV market. It's a very large market. But as we all know, the Cleveland TV market thinks that the "home team" is the school about 3 hours to the south, when several others are in much closer proximity. I don't even think some of those folks realize at times that we are even in the same division. If that inaccurate perception would not change, then I would probably agree with you. What would the Cleveland market mean to another conference if they would not be getting the publicity for their league, and that team, that is actually right in heart of the Cleveland viewing area?