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I saw him a few weeks ago, and I almost didn't recognize him. Does anyone else who's seen him lately think he's gotten thinner and fitter looking? He might be my favorite Zip of all time. Some of his radio interviews are classics. Actually, I used to really like Dials too, until I saw him celebrating great plays on the Miami bench in Cleveland this year. That really hurt.

Then there's still hope. I feel much better now. I'm sure this just continues to reassure us that there's nowhere to go but up. So I got that goin' for me, which is nice. He's the man. We'll hope to repeat his "Cinderella Story" this season.

Then there's still hope. I feel much better now. I'm sure this just continues to reassure us that there's nowhere to go but up. And I'm not seeing too much in terms of position upgrades from things that have happened since November. It's gonna be a tough road just to get back to respectability.

Dave, You'll launch me into a whole book about how difficult it is for college athletes to run the table, or nearly run the table. Especially at our talent level. And you actually touch on a couple of the things that have happened to us over the years when we appeared to be heading in that direction. The truth is, waiting for a 30+ win season is likely a once in a century type of proposition. It takes so many things to fall the right way, repeatedly. I can dream about it, but it's not likely to happen. But unfortunately, unless our current strategy changes, it's our only hope. Some might agree with your "beat more teams at your own level before moving upward" philosophy. But, I think what you fail to see is what just a couple of big wins can do for a program. Among them is the possibility to get the kind of publicity and subsequent recruiting power that could prevent some of those "bad losses" in the future.

Easy Answer: I'd applaud us for putting ourselves in a position to give ourselves a chance at an at-large bid. Right now, we give ourselves no chance. Look at your last sentence too. If "just winning games" is good enough for you, that's fine. I love the winning too. But, our quantity of wins continue to garner a lack of national-level attention for 6 seasons now. And we're not doing much to change it. I'd like to see us challenge our players much more, challenge our program much more, and do some things to put ourselves in a much better position....while we still have the pieces in place to make a move on the national scene. The selection committee's apparent mindset right now regarding the MAC certainly makes it difficult, but when you virtually eliminate yourself from their radar before the season even starts....when you have so much control over your OOC scheduling.... it amounts to nothing more than just a big missed opportunity to me. If "just winning games" was the answer, our status on the national stage would have changed over the last 6 high-win seasons. If making small, incremental improvements were enough, wouldn't we be seeing results also? So, I don't understand how one can argue that our efforts to improve our national ranking are on the right track. Six seasons of winning basketball, and the contunued lack of respect nationally, should be a clear indicator that we need to do much more.

Dave, This is a good post. Some good and fair thoughts here on the different sides of this issue. I know my best answer would be...."At least enough top-tier games to make our SOS high enough to get us some NCAA At-Large consideration if we knocked off a couple of those top-tier teams". I think schools have enough knowledge of where teams will stand in a given year to know if you've put together a schedule that will have a formidable SOS. My argument all along has centered around the fact that, before the season even starts, we already don't have the elements in our schedule that would get us this kind of attention. So this would be my question for those people who just want us to grow our schedule slowly, as the team gets better, and the program grows... Question: Take yourselves back to 2006, when we just won 26 games, and the post-season tournaments gave us the snub. Would you be happy if I told you that 5 years from now we'd still be playing the #180 ranked schedule in the country, with only a very. very rare matchup against a Top-25 team, and only an occassional Top-50 team? I think our speed of schedule growth has been rather frustrating. If we should ever return to being an unsuccessful program, wouldn't you have wished that we took more risks to grow this thing when we had the opportunity?

+1 I agree 100% The easiest way to improve RPI is to reduce the # of weak opponents with very low RPI. That is much more likely to succeed than adding top 25-50 teams that are likely to be away games and unwinnable. That's a no-brainer. Yes, replacing a few of the opponents with 200-300 RPIs with opponents with higher RPIs would certainly increase your own RPI. But, what does beating a 200 team as opposed to a 300 team really do to improve our standing on the national stage significantly? Where's this mindset coming from that we can't beat a Top-50 team? And beating one of those teams.....just one time....would earn our program 1,000 times more attention than beating number 187. The bottom line is....in order get the attention that we all want, you have to knock off a couple of bigger programs. And if we aren't playing enough of them, we don't have enough opportunities to make that happen. And we'll continue to have a #100 program that gets no national attention....just like we've been doing for the last 5 years.

Yes. And conference games count more because of the feedback they create. You also play more conference games than non-conference games, so the winning percentages of your fellow conference teams is mroe important than the winning percentages of your non-conference opponents. So if the MAC played a weaker OOC schedule but consequently came away with more wins, the RPI of every team in the conference would improve. The MAC commish mentioned in the article that teams should be scheduling according to how good they are projected to be. No MAC team is projected to be in the top 25, so no MAC team should play a top 25 OOC schedule. It also works the other way, where the terrible teams out west should tone it down and focus on getting wins instead of hoping that a killer schedule will mask their poor record. That would boost the better teams' RPIs and raise the conference overall. Why not? If it works for them. I still fail to see any validity whatsoever in labeling Miami as a team that dragged down the MAC with their ambitious scheduling when they were the #3 RPI team in the league. Their excellent SOS earned them a near-equal RPI to Akron, despite having 4 more losses. They also finiished 2nd in the MAC East, earned the #3 seed in the tournament, and earned a first round bye. And this is the resume of a team that is hurting the league? I think this is a completely separate point which might be better addressed in another thread, but I actually like their scheduling. It gives them great exposure, battle-tests their players against good competition, helps recruiting, and most of all it gives them opportunities to record a high-profile victory. And in the end, they enter the MAC tournament with the same or better chance to get an NCAA bid as everyone else in the league.

Sorry. I have to tell you you're wrong. According to Real Time RPI, despite having several more losses than us, Miami had an almost identical RPI. Why? Because they had a 55 SOS vs. our 180 SOS. I know this is yet another attempt by someone on this board to try to prove that a strong SOS doesn't make a difference, but the facts in Miami's case sure show otherwise. And if they scheduled more home games and got a few more wins from it instead of destroying their winning percentage, they would have had an even higher RPI. You mean....like Akron did? The difference in RPI between the two of us was 0.0015 Your original post is just bizarre. Miami's scheduling did not drag down the conference RPI.

Sorry. I have to tell you you're wrong. According to Real Time RPI, despite having several more losses than us, Miami had an almost identical RPI. Why? Because they had a 55 SOS vs. our 180 SOS. I know this is yet another attempt by someone on this board to try to prove that a strong SOS doesn't make a difference, but the facts in Miami's case sure show otherwise.

I couldn't have said this better myself.

Are we talking about quality or quantity of coverage? If it's quantity, how can anything rival GoZips.com or the Buchtelite? I'm always amazed when I see "just win if you want more coverage" come up as an argument relating to our volume of Cleveland TV coverage. Our basketball team has been doing nothing but winning for 6 years. And still, I don't think some of the biggest of those wins earns us the TV coverage up north that an OSWho team gets for a practice session. The magnitude of the wins is the only thing that's going to change this for us.

$1.2 million dollars. That makes an impact in a MAC Athletic Department budget. Just to clarify, Can't State is highly, HIGHLY unlikely to see a $1.2 million dollar payout on this. Even if the case eventually does go to court, which in all likelihood it will be settled for a much smaller dollar amount well before it ever sniffs a jury, these types of liquidated damages clauses are just not favored much in the courts. The courts will likely look at that big, $1.2 million dollar figure and say you are essentially trying to put a barrier in front of the guy ever leaving his position. They will likely look at it as a loose form of indentured servitude (we've got a big problem with that in this country) and would be very hesitant to issue a judgment anywhere close to that amount. It really is puzzling to me why Can't State is continuing to push this. They are unlikely to receive a payout that is going to cover their costs, it is going to have a deterrent effect on future coaching hires, it isn't going to bring Geno Ford back. It just seems like leftover bitterness and animocity is clouding their judgment to the point where they are making a bad decision just to try and screw with Ford and Bradley. This is pretty good. I touched on some of this earlier. Just because it's written in a part of a contract may not mean much. Some other part of the contract may negate it, the law may not support it, the details may be interpreted differently by different people, or a jury could find the breach penalties to be extremely excessive. Please don't fool yourselves into thinking that this is likely a clear issue. As I said, in most cases this is merely an attempt to push for a settlement. If they pursue this all the way to the end to try to get some portion of that amount as a judgement in their favor in a courtroom, it may not even be worth their time and expense. I also agree with those who have stated that Ken+ is a good enough job for an up and coming coach that this won't be a deterent. In fact, I think this kind of thing happens more often than we ever hear about.

There's the issue. Having been involved in many employment contract situations, you can bet that all parties in this issue will paint a much different picture of what things "say" and "mean". And it probably won't even matter. Much of the time, the filing of the lawsuit is nothing more than an attempt to pressure someone into negotiating a settlement.

We have to remember something when deciding what basketball and football deserve, based on success.... Just 5 years ago, basketball was changing coaches and had yet to win a MAC title, or go to the dance in about 20 years. Football was winning a MAC title, and going to a bowl game. Things change. We can't use current success as a determining factor in facility improvements.

Don't like the seed, but would love having only a 2-hour drive to see the Zips in the dance. I'd take it, as long as they don't put Cowlumbus State in the same region, and I have to spend my tournament experience getting ill from having extreme exposure to all of that blinding bright red color.

I've been watching this for awhile. It's funny that we are ahead of OSWho when they spend over 100k per year, per athlete, and are at the front of the pack when it comes to cheating violations. But of course, OSWho fans are famous for excuses, and the people I know just ignore these results by defending only their football and basketball success vs. Akron. But these days, I am not hearing that too much since their football record last year will soon be changed to 0-12.

I'm guessing his proven production might make him a much bigger commodity than we can attract right now.

Great for the athletes and for recruiting. Not much for enhancing the fan experience. I know it had been rumored that the North side of the arena was potentially the location where they could eliminate the track ,and have seating going straight up. But, knowing the location of that lounge area, I'd say that eliminates that possibility. I still think that we are a decade away from a new arena. The JAR is still relatively young (and I love to keep saying that because I was still a student when it was being built). We saw what it took to invest in a new football stadium. I just don't see it happening anytime soon with an arena that is only 25 yrs. old, and still in good condition. The mistake was the way we built it in the first place.

Speaking of trying to boost their sagging popularity....Obama apparently tried to invite Bush to his rah-rah speech in NYC. Was this an attempt to try to take some kind of credit for cracking down on terrorism with the man who is responsible for putting all of these programs in place that have led to all of these captures over the last decade standing by your side? Nice try. I'm glad Bush declined.

I'm completely puzzled as to why there are a few people who feel this way. If you watched the way we ran him on isolation plays more and more frequently as the season progressed, including at critical times during the MAC tournament, you'd clearly realize how pivotal of a role he'll play in the future. How long has it been since we had a guy who could beat a defense off the dribble straight to the rim? His physical tools give him teh potential to be an outstanding defender too.

I was especially touched by his emotion when he talked about the great sacrifices made by his family to support him. He's a class act, for sure.

Great recognition for our kids. But seriously, can anyone think of a reason why a Columbus pro sports team would honor anyone or anything from Akron for any other purpose besides trying to get some folks from Akron to drive down there and buy a game ticket?

Beat marquee opponents.Win an NCAA tourney game. Market Zeke. Nothing can come close to creating the buzz to increase general attendance, or student attendance, as much as just a win or two over a highly recognized program. Not a decent yearly win percentage. Not a consistently viable MAC contender. Those things mean practically nothing to most area college football fans who currently have no interest in coming to Akron football games. Ask one of these people where we placed in the MAC standings last year, or who won the MAC last year, or what our record was the last couple of seasons. Most wouldn't know, and wouldn't care. Beat someone of some significance, and they'll probably never forget.

Ask the basketball team, its not that simple. Thank You