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Here's the problem for me concerning Akron hockey. If we build an arena to accomodate both basketball, and what would be a very upstart college hockey team, does anyone else see a real problem with accomodating that hockey at the detriment of a good basketball arena? I don't know. I see a Zips hockey team being far less of a draw than a minor league hockey franchise. I'm thinking that if Akron scholarship hockey emerges, a small venue built for hockey would be sufficient.

Bingo !

It would be interesting to see how that goes. On the surface, I would think that if Harney plays a lot of minutes right now, it means that other people weren't playing well, which means that we're not playing a very good game. I guess I'd certainly prefer to focus on his production rather than his minutes to measure his impact. Beyond that, I hope that he is getting close to being a 20 minutes per night player anyway. Maybe that means we'll win all of the rest of our games

and the new student center... and the fieldhouse... and the new simmons hall... and the new student rec center... and... ... I'm wondering if any school in the country, in the last decade, has tapped itself out with new building expenditures as much as Akron has.

I'm starting to have too many chats again with fellow fans about Abreu playing so wrecklessly. He was doing it again tonight, and then I forgave him when he made a few good decisions with the ball in the 2nd half. But........then I just EXPLODED when he made that bonehead play on the inbound pass leaving the ball on the floor near the end of the game. Just a complete lack of focus. I guess KD got all over him. As far as the game goes, forget about the 3 pointers. Their interior play opened all of that up. They dominated us in the paint, especially with their ability to make the extra pass.

We're from similar eras, and I remember it pretty much the same way. I understand that a lot of things we see there now, including the classroom wing in the back, had to be put together that way in order to get the funding. It left us with a gym, and not a basketball arena. Although, at the time, it was pretty exciting just to have something that was soooooo much nicer than Memorial.

You're on the right "track" (no pun intended). One of the primary renovation ideas being analyzed right now does indeed include moving the upper seats forward and eliminating the track. ANd you would exit those upper sections to the rear, and not the the front.

One problem: Even the greatest salesman in the world couldn't remotely compare the Rubber Bowl situation to the JAR situation in front of the board. And it happens to be a board that just went through a round of very expensive capital projects. Really, I am trying to come up with a compelling argument to completely demolish an arena that's not even 30 years old, and draws a big crowd only a couple of times a year. It might help recruiting? That's not gonna do it.

Well, it is a crap city where there really isn't much to do. And come to thik of it, this kind of advertising makes them resemble Canada more and more every day (those who have been to Windsor or Toronto know what I'm talking about).

Right on the money. And as I've mentioned before, I don't know why some naive people choose to talk about young college athletes as if they are seasoned professionals that are expected to be focused and perform flawlessly on the court whenever needed. That's a high expectation for even the best players and teams.

This one has been tough for me to predict lately. I look back at the last 4 games in Akron and I see 5,000, 5,500, 4,100 and 5,600. Yes, the end of season games were at the higher end. And can we expect "Joe Akron Basketball Fan" to notice the difference as to whether Akron is 3-1 or 4-0 in MAC conference play? I'll be happy if we can be over 5,000. That would match or beat the best attendance for the January game in Akron the last two times we've had it.

I'm hoping this game tells us a lot about our team. Are we going to continue to be up and down from game to game? Or, are we on a steady path upward with the OU game being some sort of breakout point? A victory by one point would be good enough for me at Buffalo. I just hope we can find a way to get it done. But, with this game sandwiched between OU and Ken+, I won't predict that we will be focused enough to play the kind of excellent road game we'll need to play to win this one. Buffalo by 7 is my prediction. But, if we do win this game, I think the great news looking forward is that we'll only have a few difficult road games left in MAC play, which dramatically increases our chances of being over 20 wins even before the end of the regular season.

I'm just figuring that they are referring to Valpo since they are the lowest ranked team that we've lost to.

That's the key point right there. We have venues for smaller events. And you can add the JS Knight Center to that list. And Cleveland is the attraction for bigger events. So, we're limited in what we could attract. I'm sure the city would love to have it, but I can't blame them if they want their obvious biggest user (The U) to help with a big chunk of the cost. And I can't blame the U of A for being hesitant to hand over money for a facility where they may not have much control. I'm sure that making it a reality will be a real challenge for all parties involved, including some big egos to satisfy.

Had to be referring to Valpo. Although, they just shot up quite a few spots to #119 after the CSU win.

I think you're on the right track. The bottom line is, if you don't schedule enough good teams, then you are forced to achieve near-perfection. And young kids play bad games.

I don't disagree with you that one scenario is better than the other. But, it's not enough. Adding "we beat Valpo and Duq." to our resume isn't going to elevate us to an at-large candidate.

If none of them are from non-power conferences, that would indeed be discouraging. But for me, that's not an excuse to stop trying.

Thanks for the stat, Dave. What might give us a good barometer is to see the profiles of the teams that have made it in the past at the lower end, since there might be a chance that we can duplicate that, and at least have a remote chance at a bid. Especiallly if any of them are from non-power conferences.

Well, one of them is around 102, and the other is about 135. Those numbers would be slightly worse with them each subtracting a win and adding a loss. So, it could have possibly helped us, but probably not significantly. Plus, I think it's probably foolish to think that adding wins against teams like that would change the opinion of a selection committee. Remember, we're talking about 30-some at-large bids. Even with only 4 OOC losses and a a 94 SOS (which will drop further during conference play), we're not even close to being in the discussion.

That's why we live in a free country I just though it was funny reading your previous post, since I had just had a similar conversation with some people who felt much differently. We'll see how things go.

Interesting observation this morning. Even with 6 losses, we're at #75 in CBS's RPI. Does anyone know when we have ever been that high, if ever, at mid-season? I'll say this for the hundreth time. The higher SOS (94) has certainly helped. It pays to play tougher teams, even if you lose more games. And giving yourself plenty of chances to knock off big programs has to be a necessary part of growing a program. It won't be long before another Mississippi State upset happens, if we keep challenging ourselves with the scheduling. And could this have better prepared us for the beginning of conference play than we've been in years past? I don't think the schedule is where it should be yet because it's not good enough to get at-large consideration. But, I think this is a little taste of what it can produce, even if you do take a few beatings, and don't have a stellar overall record.

I didn't want to forget to talk about the attendance. The announced is about 1,000 more than I anticipated. But, where did it come from? Too many empty seats in the lower blue sections. But, the GA seats, especially the ends, were much more full than they were for the VCU game. Is this an indication that maybe some of the regular fans stayed home, but the casual fans dropped in on this contest in pretty high numbers?

Agreed.

First of all, let me say how happy I am that we've gotten two tough ones on the road, and found a way to win this one against a team that throttled us at home lastd year. Being 3-0 at this point is fantastic. Dave, it's funny. I was having some post game discussions as well with some people, and in most respects, we all think that pretty much nothing has changed. Yes, there's some new parts. Some athletic parts that we may not have seen before. And we might be a bit deeper than in most past years. But so much hasn't changed. The styles, both offensively and defensively. The very spread out scoring. The scoring droughts. Not much running. So, I'm really surprised that someone got the impression that the game we saw tonight was something dramatically different from what we've seen before.