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I have some friends who have lived in Dublin for a long time. I am sending out some messages, and hopefully I will have something soon to add about this guy.

Thanks for bringing up this topic GP.I don't think I can ever remember a time where I walked into the Tommy Evans Lounge before a basketball game, and she wasn't there. And reading about all of the road trips she used to make is just astounding. What a great fan!!If any of you saw the story, I found something very interesting. They talk about how her father exposed her to Akron sports at a young age by taking her to football practices. Is this not a lesson to us all to make sure we bring our kids to these things as often as possible to instill our own loyalties in them, and hopefully even grow our fanbase in the coming years?If not, we all know what happens.....they'll start cheering for that red and silver team before we have a chance.

I've heard him talk about this idea of adding more seating using this method as well. And I also am not sure how they would get that done. For one, how would you get to your seat? Climb all the way up from the bottom? I know, I'm getting old and I think about these things. This also reminds me again of one major design flaw of our current arena. Most placed have you entering at mid-level so that you can go up, or down, to your seats. Unfortunately, my seats are in upper reserved, so that's a lot of steps by the end of a night.

In more cases than you probably think, college athletes simply have much more loyalty to the coaches who brought them, rather than the school itself.

I think that attendance for HS games will be up quite a bit. I can guarantee that a large amount of people didn't go to the games because it meant having to go to the Rubber Bowl. The SVSM-Hoban game could have at least 15,000 people in attendance, with some of them there just for the opportunity to check out the stadium. Remember that UA gets a cut of the gate revenue and all of the concessions for all the games played there.You could be right. I looked at last year's game info., and it said that they drew 10,000 to the Rubber Bowl, on what they were describing as a rainy and humid night. It just has always bothered me that local high school games could draw as well as, or better than, Akron's D-1A college team.

Thanks uakronkid. I'm still thinking that the Indiana game was still the first game. My bad.

I'm with you CK. That's the first thing I noticed when I saw this schedule yesterday. It would be great to defeat the Hoosiers in Futbol at Jackson Field on Friday and then defeat them in Football at Summa Field on Saturday.That night will be a busy one on campus. Hoban & SVSM will be playing in the annual matchup at Infocision that night as well.Should we be upset that the first game at Infocision will NOT be the Zips? That feels kinda strange to me.

Northwestern should feel obligated to owe us a couple of home games after that debacle last year which helped them advance in the tournament by gaining a home game that they never, ever should have gotten.

More people get to see losses to Appalachian State and Toledo first-hand. Great to hear.I know. What a shame. It is unbelievable to see what they've done to that place....you have to see it. But, Mr. Rodriguez has a lot of work ahead of him to get them back to national prominence again.

Cincy wouldn't be bad. I'd definitely make the trip for that one. Ann Arbor? Don't think I could bring myself to actually have the desire to go to that town... ever...Don't forget Buffalo. I'm sure we'll be making a big student trip for that game.Is it because you are an Ohio State fan? Have you ever been to Ann Arbor?Trust me. I've been there many times. It's probably my favorite place as far as an urban-type city in which a major University is a big part of the city. Great atmosphere, very old buildings, and plenty of great restaurants, bars, outdoor cafes, and shops. You'll love it. In fact, most Ohio State fans that I know admit that they like making the trip to Ann Arbor for an OSU/Michigan game just as much as going to Cowlumbus. And check out the football stadium while you are there. They just made a major expansion. The place is just unbelievably huge. The soccer schedule looks nice. Playing "name" schools like Indiana, Ohio State, Michigan State, and Penn State at home. Can't complain about that.

I will forever call 1-AA schools 1-AA. The NCAA can put whatever lame marketing lipstick they want on that pig, but it is still 1-AA.Amen to that. I don't think I will ever be able to change either. I'm too old.As far as the Penn State game goes, I'll take the 2006 game all over again. At least for about 2-1/2 quarters. We hung close and were only down by a touchdown at that point, before they finished us off. Maybe we can do the same again, and at least make it worth watching. I don't want any part of that 1999 game again.

I don't remember this in good detail, so thanks for sharing this.Is anyone else surprised that a resume like this got them to the #30 RPI spot?

Just guessing, but he's probably going to earn at least 25 to 50 percent more money in Columbus. If I got a raise like that, neither I not my family would consider it a step backwards. And if you want to be a head coach someday, adding a Big Ten team to your resume sure doesn't hurt.I wish the guy well. I also have faith that the coach who really matters isn't going anywhere any time soon.Go Zips!I like that last line.I'm a little dissappointed by this news, but probably not as much as some of you. The head coach is the foundation of the program. Recruits are all well aware that assistants can float around quite a bit. Jeff was a nice asset to us in his knowledge of post play, and I am confident we'll find someone to fill that void. Other than that, I sincerely hope that his exit will not be the make-or-break factor in the decisions of some of our upcoming recruits. uakronkid...I hate OSwho as much as you, but I'd have a hard time making an argument that this is not an excellent opportunity for Jeff, and a major step forward, by going to one of the better programs in the Big 10.

I know I'm looking at this from my Xavier glasses but I think that statement is incorrect. And this is coming from someone that is from Akron, whose family all went to Akron,and who roots for the Zips as their number 2 team. Akron went to the tourney for the first time in 20+ years and has zero NBA players over that time period. XU pays coaches more...has been to 2 elite 8s and one sweet 16 over the past 6 years, plays to a sold out 10k arena, and develops NBA talent - both in the NBA (West, Posey, etc.) and on the roster (potentially Brown, Crawford).Saying its just another non-major team defies the logic as to why he came to UA from RMU...Now if you said that since he's Associate Head coach and will prbably stay at UA until he gets a head coaching gig rather than another assictant gig, I'd buy that.That is pretty much what I am saying, that I believe his next move would be to some type of head coaching job.But at the same time, don't get the impression here that I am in any way touting the equality of Akron's and Xavier's programs. I'm only stating that I don't see a guy like Jeff leaving for an A-10 assistant job. I think his next move would be much bigger than that.

Seems like nearly a lateral move, which would surprise me. X is often a ranked team, but he'd still be an assistant in a non-major conference.

I believe the deck is more stacked than top 42 for non-BCS schools. I am pretty sure Miami and Buffalo both recently got snubbed with RPI's in the low 30's. I think the Zips have only one real shot at getting to the tournament next year and that is winning the MAC tournament, again. The regular season guarantees the NIT, MAC tournament gets the NCAA tournament and 20 wins gets you into one of those tournament that no one follows except the schools that are in them.Good observations. I think Can't State got their RPI into the 20s in 2008. I think that would have gotten them an at-large if they had not won the tournament. But, that's the only team in recent memory that I really thought had a legitimate chance. I want to see us take steps to improve the situation. And the only place where we can do that is in our OOC scheduling. But unfortunately, I'm not seeing much of a chance right now that anyone can survive the damage that the conference schedule will do to your RPI. The teams in our league have to get better.

The wierd thing is, if they were just looking at record and graduation rates we should win the MAC pretty easy next year. We had the best record overall (if you wanna look at just MAC record BG should be the rep.). We won the tournament to get the auto-bid, and we only lose one player to graduation.Yep...who knows? I knew Buffalo was going to be in pretty good shape next year, but I took a quick glance to see.Of their top guys statistically, they'll lose Gamble and Andy Robinson, who combined for about 15 ppg. Seems hard to believe that the loss of Linhart could equal those two guys collectively. But, they will have 3 good seniors in their starting lineup next year. Maybe they're counting on that to keep them in that first place slot.

I wouldn't read too far into the idea of who they think is going to win the conference. We all know that doesn't mean much, especially this early. I'm always surprised if, as a non-major conference, that they look much further beyond the record, and who they are losing to graduation, and make a guess. But, what should concern us all much more is that the conference is not going to be highly regarded anytime soon. Hence, the #14 seed. Unless someone can rattle off close to 16 conference wins, it probably won't be much better than that.

Here's how I've always looked at it...If a guy is even "marginal" Buckeye talent, he'd probably be a good MAC player. So, he seems worth a shot, as long as everything else checks out.On the other hand, if a guy is actually being recruited and/or being given an offer by a Buckeye-caliber program, then I say we jump all over those chances.

Keep in mind, some of these polls exist just because people want to see them. I'm sure a great deal of extensive research did not go into some of this. Maybe record, OOC SOS, and conference SOS. So, what can we really expect? We need to keep in mind that the last couple of weeks of our season also included losses to a horrible Valparaiso team, an equally horrible Northern Illinois team, lost to BG at home, lost to a Can't State team who played 99% of the game without one of their top players, and needed OT and a couple of miralces to beat the worst team in the MAC (Toledo).I think that many times we as fans tend to evaluate our chances against other teams based on how we performed in our best games. During my student days, the narrow 1986 tournament loss to #2 Michigan was a game that gave me a feeling like we can beat anyone. We've had plenty of similar games since that time. This year, even the first 30 minutes of the Gonzaga game could be pulled out as an example. So, all 25 teams on that mid-major list can make a case for beating everyone else on the list if they look at those teams, and imagine themselves playing some of their better games. It's fun to think like that, but probably not very realistic.

I like to see things like this. It further confirms that he's definitely a star at the high school level. Having seen several players like this before (those who have a decided height advantage in high school, but are moving to major college level), I firmly believe that the shot blocking ability is going to be the first area where you will see him make an impact for us. The others might take a bit longer, since they depend more upon his ability to physically take the step to a much higher level. His scoring will likely come along next, since he will have the ability to shoot over people in the MAC, as long as his footwork is solid and he's not getting pushed out of the paint.I'll be excited to see this guy. Lets hope things move along very quickly for him.

You're joking...right? As I alluded to in my last post, you move up and engage the ball handler, foul him, try to draw a charge, try to get a hand on the ball if he passes, hope he throws it away, etc. Almost ANYTHING trumps letting the ball handler go all the way to the hoop uncontested. I feel bad that a good kid like Steve got caught in such an awkward photo, but I'm sorry to say that those kinds of things were taught to us as 12 years olds in camp, my friend.

BINGO!!!!!!!!First, would anyone here really want to see us lose out on a good recruit for 4 years just because we extended a courtesy to Darryl for his last year of eligibility? The second part is a great point as well. As much as I hate to say this (but I've said it before), with this big stockpile of young talent, it would surprise me if everyone stays happy, and nobody gets disgruntled over playing time and makes an exit. Someone will likely go, and that could give Keith the opportunity to give Darryl some paid tuition for his last year.Please....don't let us blow a chance at a potentially good 4-year player over the Roberts situation.

Yes, I saw the 1 second clip on One Shining Moment. I guess you have to take whatever publicity you can get.The SI photo of the dunk over McNees is not a good thing. It kinda illustrates a dominance in athleticism, which was the case.....but I think it implies that they toyed with "little Akron", which is not essentially what happened in that game. I know that as a player that you have to make a decision at that split second that the situation happens, and when you're on tv, it's exposed. But, I only wish that in that case we had moved up and engaged the ball handler before he could get up, even if it means that he dishes it to someone else for a dunk. You HAVE to do that in that kind of situation. And it was a defining moment in the final outcome of the game. But the picture certainly shows Steve elevating about...oh...18" inches or so?...not bad.

1) For those who don't know the background, Huggins is at his alma mater, and I'd be totally surprised if ANY job would ever persuade him to leave there.2) I'm glad someone corrected the comment about Louis Orr not doing much of anything. Looks like someone didn't notice that he won the regular season MAC title this year.3) Why isn't Hip on the list 4) I'm not aware of any connection with Bobinski and Keith. I don't think their time at the U of A crossed paths at all. 5) I'm not going to be naive and say that Keith won't leave Akron. There's too many schools out there that could make him a very, very rich man. And he's going to start to get looks with his success here. I just don't think this job would be enough.