skip-zip

For the first time in maybe 30 years, I started to see some promise in the womens team beginning last season. And that's great to see.But...I don't think it would be good news if they exceed the men in conference wins, considering that the mens team should be much further along at this point.

My answer is very simple....The method of reform I want....is whatever benefits Akron the most.

I sure hope Buffalo continues to work themselves out of the picture. I want it to turn into a two-team race with the season finale being a huge game. I'm still surprised to see so many West teams getting a good amount of respect.

Best News: We played a good game on the road. What a relief.

Sure would. And it would also help us prepare for conference road games.But realistically, just adding a couple more games per year against teams of this caliber would be a benefit to us in a number of different ways.

One can only hope.

Not gonna happen. I think there are at least a dozen other conferences that will send a champ that is far more deserving of those 15 and 16 seeds.As much as we complain about the strength of the MAC, there are certainly far worse places to be in terms of how you are viewed come tournament time.

I say this with respect, but are you serious!!!Just qualifying for the NCAA basketball tournament brings hundreds of times more publicity than a soccer title. Winning a game or two in the NCAA tournament would bring thousands of times more publicity to our University.As much as I think it would be a cool thing to win a soccer national championship, just remember that NCAA first round basketball tournament games are on CBS, while even the final game of the soccer cup can't even make it to the main station of ESPN.IDK we went last year and hand Gonzaga on the ropes, and we got nothing a highlight of McNees getting dunked on was all....I'd rather win it on in a sports which still gets time on ESPN 2, and the News around THIS AREA! we were on Channel 5 for Men's Soccer not that much for basketball....Cleveland St. was more important to Cleveland....ej....if what you are thinking about is the publicity, you seem to be ignoring two very big factors.1) The NCAA tournament selection show, watched by tons of college basketball fan nationwide, followed by all the national sports analysts talking about the pairings for days afterwards, the brackets appearing in the sports section of newspapers all over the country, and the distribution of brackets in offices all over the country.2) The entire game televised in several part of the country on CBS, in prime time. And it's one of the most-watched yearly sporting events in the country. Sure, I'd love a soccer national championship. No doubt. But, noting that one of the Cleveland news stations may have shown a longer highlight of our soccer title game, as opposed to our NCAA basketball tourney appearance, doesn't address the much, much bigger chunks of publicity we got from basketball. There is not even a remote comparison in the amount of publicity we received from these two events.

And Boyce did that in just 2 years......playing a small forward spot. I loved watching him play, but never noticed that he was blocking enough shots to be 10th all time.

That is the most true thing ever stated on Zipsnation. When i think about a team i'm proud of i think of the Soccer team from last season. If the mens bball team had HALF the heart and put out HALF the effort that those guys put out last season we would have beaten Can't easily on Saturday.I may put Soccer in 3rd place in terms of importance, but those players are the best role models this university has...I know 100% of you agree as well.1) I think our basketball team plays with plenty of heart and effort.2) The soccer team has more success than the basketball team because they also have more talent than most of the teams they face. Our basketball team doesn't have the same advantage going into many of their contests.

I say this with respect, but are you serious!!!Just qualifying for the NCAA basketball tournament brings hundreds of times more publicity than a soccer title. Winning a game or two in the NCAA tournament would bring thousands of times more publicity to our University.As much as I think it would be a cool thing to win a soccer national championship, just remember that NCAA first round basketball tournament games are on CBS, while even the final game of the soccer cup can't even make it to the main station of ESPN.

More specifically, the MAC champ will be decided on how you play in just a couple of games. If you recall, we were not playing well at the end of last season, with the losses to NIU, Valpo, Can't, and the home loss to BG....all coming in the last couple of weeks of the season.That's my entire issue. If the philosophy is that we play the entire season to warm up for an anything-can-happen MAC tournament, which puts us in a position to get a low seed, and an almost certain first-round loss, then I disagree with that philosophy.

As I always say, MAC East road wins are bonuses. And although OU stinks, we already have a bonus win under our belts. If we can pull out a road win again in the 2nd series of games against the East, we'll end up at 7-3 in our East games this year, and that'll be about what we could have expected, in my opinion. My concern is how badly we've played on the road against Buffalo and Can't. Without going back and looking at scores, I think it's been awhile since teams in our own league beat the crap out of us like that, espeically in two games just a week apart. We'll see how things go, but the lack of good road experience could be a factor. In addition, I think that possibly some teams in our league improved a little more than we did between last March and today.

I'll keep repeating what I have been saying for a couple of months....I'm hoping for another situation like we had when JD got hired, and brought a good QB with him. I still think that we'd have never won a MAC title without that move.

Actually, I believe we only had 4,200-something announced crowd at last year's home game against Can't. As I stated in another thread, I would have attributed that to the fact that we had the mid-season home game, instead of the end-of-season game. However, we were packed to the rafters at the JAR for a weekday game against Can't two years earlier.I don't think the rivalry has lost it's luster...permanently. We had huge crowds for Can't games in the past, and will have them again when all of the right ingredients combine again. Maybe "the punch" from last year will be enough to kick-start the excitement again. We'll find out on Saturday.

I hope that entire game was a big confidence builder for him. I sure know the crowd was noticing, and was acknowledging every play he made. The way he powered in that one dunk while being fouled was not somthing I expected to see.

Our comrades from up North did not do so well. Unless an 89-54 kersplat @ Can't is a success. I think they just allowed the kerflushes to get even more overconfident than usual. They'll be even higher than normal tonite.I guess this last week shows us that Akron, Can't and Buffalo are all still in who-knows-what's-gonna-happen mode.

AKRON VS. BUFFALO AND Can'tNot too early to look ahead....is it?Can't:I like the years (like this one) where we have the home game against Can't to end the season. If we all recall, that gave us a great chance to knock off that good Can't team 2 years ago, right on the eve of the tournament. And I think it would have given us a lot more confidence when we played them for the crown a week later.I also like that Can't has already lost a home game, and has the disadvantage of only having 2 of the last 5 East games at home at the end of the season.Buffalo:Like Akron, Buffalo also has 3 of the last 5 East Div. games at home. So, since they are sitting at 3-0 right now, and already have a road win, I think it's critical for them to lose to either Can't or OU on the road this coming week. If not, they could very well be on their way to 13 or more wins. And they'll surely have some confidence when they come to Akron. MAC West Home/Road games:This is something I look at every year now. Three years ago, when Toledo was clearly the best team in the West, we had the misfortune of playing them on the road, while Can't State got them at home and won. That loss nearly cost us the East title, and did cost us the MAC regular season title and an NIT bid. So, if we assume that Western and NIU are the two best teams over there, here's how the scheduling falls.....Can't - plays BOTH teams at home.Akron and Buffalo - has one of them at home, and one of them away.

Are you sure it didn't say co-champs? I'm guessing that they are looking at the fact that Buffalo and BG tied for the best record in the MAC. BG got the #1 seed in the tournament based on a tie breaker, but they did indeed have identical records. As we know, the MAC awards the NCAA tournament bid to the tournament winner, and not the regular season champ. But come to think of it, does our conference really officially acknowledge or award a regular season championship in any way? Someone might want to look this up, but I believe we had a year in football about a decade ago where we tied with Marshall for best record, but lost the bid to the MAC championship game to them on a tie breaker. I think we referred to ourselves as MAC Co-champs. But, I might be wrong.

A 13-3 record is certainly attainable. But we probably can debate for days over whether it's a good possibility. I would choose to break things down a little bit like this...- With one loss already, we only have room for 2 more losses in the next 13 games.- Assume that we still can find a way to win all of our home games. But with BG beating Can't at home, as always, we know anything can happen in the MAC.- But if that were to happen, we'd still need to win 4 out of 6 of the remaining road games. And we still have trips to Can't and Miami. Attainable? - YesGood Possibility? - We've had a lot of shaky periods in these last two road games. So at this point, I'd consider 13-3 to be a great conference mark. But, I'd rather see where we stand after our first run through the MAC East.

Lets just hope this doesn't mean that Miami could be better than expected. But, we really needed Can't State to lose this game. If they had recorded back-to-back road wins at Ohio and Miami to start conference play, they would have been in really good shape. I also don't believe that Can't State can get an at-large bid with a 13-3 conference run. I think they would have gotten it 2 years ago if they had lost to us in the MAC title game, but I don't think this Can't team has the potential to be as good as that 2008 team.

In what might be an unsuccessful attempt to get this back to the topic I hoped it would be, consider this for a moment.....1) We've always dealt with a lack of publicity.2) We've been playing the same MAC schedule for nearly 20 years.3) We've been winning for quite a few years.4) We've always had limited coverage on television. These things have become constants. But, if some of the crowds over the last year or so are any indication, we might be trending downward in numbers.Personally, I attribute some of it to the economy, and some of it to the fact that we appeared to have more "casual" fans come to the games when the local ex-high school stars were still around. If we do indeed end up finding that conference home attendance is trending downward, I don't understand how one can blame it on any factor that already exists, and may have been that way for decades.Yes, we all like to play "genius" and offer up dozens of solutions. But, I was actually much more interested in a discussion about why it's happening, like I did with the people sitting around me at the game last Saturday night.

I might also be a bit confused about your perspective here as well.If there has been one "constant" over the last several years, it's that we are winning. And winning often. Especially at home. About as close as you can get to a "sure bet" on most nights. And please don't let my comment start a "but we don't beat anyone good" discussion. Although I support such a position, I'm trying really hard to keep this as a discussion about changes/trends in attendance in the conference games that we have to play every year...and not our OOC scheduling.

The fact is, Akron is by far the largest city within short driving distance of Can't State. And as much as I wish it wasn't true, there are plenty of Can't State alums and fans that live and work in the Akron area. So, why would it not make sense for them to advertise here?

Regardless of the strength of the teams in our division in any given year, the road game at OU is my 2nd least favorite place to go. Winning as many of the East Div. road games as possible is the key every year right now. And since Can't has already won at OU, we have to keep pace.