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I have to agree with you that I would be disappointed if we lose any games to the West. At the same time, I like to remind myself and everyone else that these are college kids. To say that they don't play well every night is an understatement. That's why even the best teams every year lose several games. So, whenever I see someone expecting excellence over a long stretch of games, I have to ask them to exercise a bit of understanding and caution. Last night should be a good enough indication of what can happen. But thankfully, two road games are out of the way.

Not so. They finished 2nd in the MAC East last season, and earned the #3 seed in the MAC tourney.

That's because we at least have enough individual talent right now that someone is capable of making a play when we desperately need it, despite the boneheaded plays and scoring droughts that get us into that situation.

I have to question the genius gameplan by CMU to try to pressure us in the backcourt after we get a defensive rebound. We're beating them up the court or passing over the top every time. If they do manage to stay with us up the middle of the floor, our wing guys are wide open. They don't have the depth the play with us like that. We'll beat them by 40 if that continues.

I always have to ask. Why wouldn't we want to play the best team?

How about if we take this one step at a time, and just wish that he can get better than many of the post players in the MAC? Watching him score 2 points while watching J. Jones score 25 on Tuesday night doesn't get me excited about his chances of ever playing in the NBA.

Dave, What you think you are seeing from last year was a result of some good games in the early part of the season. The 2nd half of the season was pretty much a return to the "same old", which has now continued into this season. The mind-boggling part is that performance he had in the Miami game in Cleveland. Where in the world did that come from? A career game,completely out of the blue.

I like Charlie. But, I am not shedding a tear over this. A lot of people who go to that school think they are special. They act like they go to Harvard. "The Sweaters" is such a great collective nickname for their student/athletes. Those guys stole a MAC title 5 years ago in the most bizarre and unlikely circumstances. Other than the fact that it might weaken our SOS a bit, I'm not sad to see their demise.

He does every once in awhile. Last weekend against Ken+, he had a couple of buckets, and put a couple of other digits across the rest of the box score, and really hustled. That's about all you can really expect anymore, from someone who really never progressed much in his career here. Looking back, I remember how stupid I thought it was to burn his redshirt midway through the season 3 years ago. But now, I don't think it really mattered. We had some injuries at the time that left us with a thin backcourt. We really needed him at the time. We probably needed him much more that year than we will need him in the 2012-2013 season. So thankfully, I think we'll find that the move move ended up not really hurting us much at all.

He's a regular guy, and a sports fan. But currently, for whatever reason, he is not taking much of an interest in athletics at either of the only two D-1 colleges in the area.

I was thiking the same thing. If you noticed, there were several times later in the game when he was able to drive after he got people to leave their feet out near the 3-point line with a pump fake. When you have people thinking you can hit shots out there, it does indeed help your ability to get into the lane.

I also glanced at the season stats and was sadly reminded that he AVERAGED 17 minutes per game that year, while shooting 31% from the field, and 17% on 3-pointers. I guess this explain why the guy calling the shots that year has never returned to a D-1 head coaching job anywhere.

I think Treadwell, with a year of experience under his belt, getting more starter-type minutes in place of Nik might be about the only significant thing that changes from what you see right now. The biggest concern would be, we could get pretty weak in the paint in those games where Zeke gets in foul trouble.

CBS has it at 67,77,93 and 106 The amazing thing to me is that our SOS has risen as well. Sad that we have to play the MAC West over the next few weeks.

Excellent, excellent post. KD gives a few hints of possibly being more flexible, and some people suddenly get delusions of us turning into the Runnin Rebels of the 1980s. If anyone thinks that KD is going to employ anything that resembles a "just let them play" philosophy, you're crazy. In many respects, these guys might need more discipline and "coaching", and have more need to develop a strong work ethic, than any group that's ever been here under his leadership. As we heard during the many articles, videos and interviews after this game, these guys are an erratic product capable of losing to anyone, and one of our former players accredited our MAC tournament success over the last several years to practicing and striving to do everything right. Yes, a dramatic change in our style could increase our chances of scoring big upsets against top schools, which would have obvious benefits. But the risk of "letting go" to any great extent could be very dangerous for this team as well, and I'd be shocked if KD ventures too far away from the philosophies and practices that have made us the consistent product that can be successful in MAC tournaments.

As the game was ending last night, I'm wondering how many of you had thoughts of the 2007 MAC tourney semifinal game. We trailed Ken+ by double digits at halftime. Everything was going wrong. Yet, in the 2nd half we were ignited by a string of 3-pointers by Dials and Joyce, and won somewhat confortably, scoring 42 points in the 2nd half after scoring only 19 in the first.

From the first game that I saw Treadwell play, I said to myself, "This guy was made for the Ken+ game", and I confirmed that tonight. He led us in rebounding, and 5 of them were OFFENSIVE rebounds. There were just so many things to talk about with this game, but one clearly stuck out for me: Early in the 2nd half, we had 13 turnover.....but had only TWO the rest of the game. That was the story, folks. All we needed was to get possessions that resulted in shots, and we cashed in when we finally gave ourselves those opportunities. Secondly, I think Ken+ really lost control offensively when we started to make a run, and several players decided to try to make things happen on their own. It was pretty stupid, and their coach obviously falied to get them back on track. How in the world did Harney score 21 while only playing 14 minutes? LOVED the stretches with Diggs playing out top, offensively and defensively, and Treadwell replacing Zeke. It really helped us defend the perrimeter, and push the ball. Ok...I'll stop now. Great win!!

I'm not complaining about anyything. The question is, can we afford to put something like this into a large arena? When it takes so much to switch back and forth from basketball to hockey? We're in an area that has failed repeatedly to make hockey work. This goes all the way back to the 70s when we couldn't even keep the NHL Crusaders. I'd love to see those profitability figures of some of those teams you mention. But, that still probably doesn't answer the question of the feasibility of putting small hockey crowds intio a large, brand new arena, and making it work.

Spin. Just a point of clarification. I was a Monsters game recently. They don't even open the top part of the arena. And the lower seats were very sparsely populated. I think they announced the crowd at 4,000, and it was against a good team. Maybe some games are drawing better. And maybe it's good when compared to some other minor league franchise, but it wasn't impressive. The Monsters are on the tail end of several NE Ohio minor league hockey failures. The only reason they are surviving is because of the money being thrown at it by a very, very rich man.

I've never operated an arena. But, the only point where I disagree with you is in the feasibility of just opening the doors of a nice, new 8,000-10,000 seat arena for every event imaginable. If it's not generating revenue, I'd think that just opening the doors and turning on the lights is a big money loser. So, I don't think that using it for every imaginable event would be a wise move for the operator. Especially when it would involve making massive changes to the floor for every event, which you would have to do with the permanent ice surface. I would presume that more knowledgable people than you and I may already be talking about these issues. But, this is still a great discussion, and it's fun to think about the possibilities.

I don't know. But, I can't possibly think of a better time to bring a football recruit on campus than during a Can't/Akron basketball game.

Good point. That's the 10 million dollar question. If Akron had a decent size downtown arena, how much use could they really get out of it?

We're now talking about what we'd do if Akron made Hockey a scholarship intercollegiate sport. Maybe we need to separate that from the discussions of a downtown Akron Basketball / Minor League Hockey arena. I seriously doubt if a large downtown arena could justify accomodating an upstart college hockey team.

Since the game is now sold out, they will be announcing attendance at 5,500. As I pointed out earlier, the last two times we played them at home in January (as opposed to March) we had 5,000 and 4,500 announced. Although, we really should put a (*) next to the game that drew 4,500, since it was a noon game. Great to see the increase. Maybe we are returning to past heights in the rivalry again. I guess the Wednesday losses by both teams didn't dampen the enthusiasm. It's going to be an exciting night.

I'm not sure we're grasping the magnitude of a combined Zips Basketball / Zips Hockey arena. If I'm correct, the ice has to be maintained all the time, with the ice being covered for basketball, and then back again. That, along with the changes in seating configuration on a daily basis is a really big undertaking. I'm not even sold on the idea of sharing a downtown arena for Zips basketball and minor league hockey, because of it's limitations. Selling me on our own facility for Zips basketball that could also accomodate Zips hockey is going to be even a lot more difficult. Having a place somewhat misconfigured for basketball is just not worth it to me. If the hockey thing happens, I say build a small venue for hockey, that can also be used recreationally, would be more than enough. The notion that we'd draw thousands for college hockey (we barely draw 3,000 for most basketball games) is just crazy, in my opinion.