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My take on the whole situation is this.....Season Tickets:The 3,000 people who have bought tickets did so right away to get the best seats. Those are certainly folks from the loyal part of the fan base. More people will join in once the season gets closer. Will there be 7,000 more? I'm not sure. But I know one thing....those remaining prime seats need to be released to the general public, who will certainly make up the majority of "fans" on opening day. That would be totally embarrasing to leave those prime sections partially empty on opening day while everyone piles into the GA sections. Luxury Boxes:With only 20 of them, I had no doubts that the corporate community in Akron was going to jump all over those right away.Current Fundraising:One thing that particularly caught my attention in the article was that we have 22.0 million in donations, and had 21.5 mil in donations 8 months ago. And I said to myself, "only .5 mil in 8 months"? This is a pretty good indication to me that those who intended to make sizeable donations did so right away, and they may only trickle in from here on out. I'm still hoping that this community steps up and at least sells out the stadium for opening day. But, I will be very curious to see how many of them return for games 2,3, 4 and 5.

Uakronkid...again, go back to my original post. The starting point is to start collectively raising the SOS of every team in the league. The MVC made this work for them in a major way, and now send multiple teams to the NCAA tournament every year.I'd sure be curious to see what respect we would get with a 30-2 record. But, as I alluded to in my last post, do we really want it to be that way? To have to win that many games just to earn a little respect? I sure don't. Bringing in Temple would certainly help. If that is a possibility, I hope that it is pursued.

uakronkid...as an older Zips fan, you know I love your enthusiasm. And actually, I agree with what you are saying in your last post. Yes, we need to win. And yes, winning brings better recruits, etc. etc. etc. I completely buy into that formula, and often profess it myself. But the frustration we deal with as a MAC member, which started this thread, isn't going to change by winning a few more game. The MAC must get stronger. Please read my last post again, and give this some thought as well.....The MAC was an OK league in 06-07, we had a great team, and won 26 games.....and didn't have a prayer of getting an invite to the NCAA tournament. We went over 20 wins in 05-06 and 07-08 as well, and again didn't stand a chance of an NCAA invite. And, these were all years where the MAC was BETTER than it is now. So, maybe some people would be inclined to think that since we have a great group of young players right now, and a few more yet to come, that maybe we can win 28 games instead of 26 games...and maybe...just maybe....the national press and the NCAA tournament selectors will notice us. And I simply don't think that is enough to bring about the changes that we want to see. I think what we REALLY want to happen is for us to get respect on a national level for having a good season...just like anyone else. And be viewed as a team that at least has a chance to compete for a national title, and deserves the opportunity. And playing the kind of competition we played this year won't get that done. We aren't leaving the MAC anytime soon...so the MAC has to get better. If not, we'll either be praying for near-undefeated seasons, or resting our entire fortunes on a couple of games in Cleveland in March in the hopes that we can get a #15 seed in the dance. I don't think that's the way we want it to be. And I just don't want to see it continue that way.

Zip37...I agree with you. Having a revolving door of ADs can sometimes make you prone to a mistake. Although, the very hopeful scenario of having a guy who loves Akron, wants to live in Akron, has all of the tools to make us successful, and won't leave, is like catching lightning in a bottle. That may end up being the case with KD. And if it is, what are the odds of such an incredibly unique situation happening again?Remember, in many cases we're not up against someone offering our people a little increase in salary. There's dozens of other schools out there with the resources to increase someone's salary by hundreds of thousands of dollars (and sometimes millions). And I'd say it would be pretty rare for someone to not at least allow themselves to be courted by such opportunities.

uakronkid....I can kinda see where you are going with this. The problem is, if the entire conference doesn't do something to upgrade themselves, then those 2-3 teams that end up being the real top dogs of the conference carry no credibility when looked at on a national scale. I don't want to turn this into a full-blown discussion about SOS, etc., but even a 25-game winner as the MAC conference champ this year would have looked pretty weak when compared to the 100 or so best teams in the country. Sure...you don't need 10 good teams to have a respectable conference. But, a healthy portion of them need to at least be viewed as formidable competition. And if our conference gets involved to encourage all of us to increase our SOSs, which increases the collective conference SOS, that would be a good start. Not a cure by any means..but a good start.

GP....the marketing issue is indeed a tough one. I've been around Akron athletics for a long time, and I have run out of possible answers.But let me give two examples of things I encountered recently:1) I have a neighbor who is a Cowlumbus State alum and fan. He sometimes will go to an Akron game for something to do, and enjoys going. But he views it as going to some "lower level division" college basketball game.2) There is a couple that my wife and I have been hanging out with recently, and they asked us what we were doing on a recent Saturday. We said we were going to an Akron/Central Michigan basketball game, and they looked at us with a half-laugh and asked "why would you wanna do that?". And, these are the same people who put on their Nuthead gear every Saturday during football season.I think the general public, and even semi-informed sports fans, view MAC sports as something just above the level of a high school. It's unbelievable how much they do not know. And the MAC should consider making a commitment to informing the public that this IS D-1A athletic competition, with D-1 players. No offense to these schools, but this is not Hiram, or Case, or Tiffin. And sooooo many people don't know that we play in the same division as all of those big schools they hear so much about.

Hmmm...basketball arena improvements. I hope it involves taking at least one side of the arena, eliminating the track, and running continuous rows of seats the entire way up. KD mentioned something similar to this in a postgame interview once. I think it's a great idea.However, if the changes are just some cosmetics, I'd rather see us just continue to play with what we have, and save the money for a new arena someday. In regards to Mack, lets face the truth. MAC schools will always have just as much trouble keeping good administrators as good coaches. It's the nature of our situation. Lets just hope, as someone mentioned, that we can continue to bring in the type of people that we've had here recently.

Great question GP....1) Go to bat for your member schools when they get hosed (i.e. our 2006-07 basketball team, and our 2008 soccer team).2) Encourage and aid the upgrading of schedule strength at EVERY school for men's basketball. If everyone doesn't get on the same page, the conference isn't going to improve its standing (this is far less of a factor in football, but that is for another discussion). 3) Spend resources to market MAC Athletics to the general public in the region.

I know we've had many, many discussions on this topic in the past. I'll just comment on a few of the things I saw here, and leave a few more of my own.1) I don't see what affect people moving south has on Akron football and basketball support. Plenty of teams, from high school to pro, get more than their share of support in the Northern part of the country. 2) I still can't see us meeting any of the factors that would make us an attractive addition to a "bigger" conference. Large football attendance? Large basketball attendance? A large donor base? I would think that even C-USA would look at us as falling far short of having the potential to generate revenue for the conference, and be a good draw when we play road games at their other member schools. Maybe long-term, sustained sellouts at the new football stadium would change the way people look at us. But, that's going to take one heck of a commitment from everyone involved. 3) Every sports team is always going to lose some games that they should have won. Could a few people say, "that stinks...I'll never go to a game again"? Sure. But our dilemma is much bigger than that. We need to increase our support by the thousands, not by the hundreds.Here's the best thing we have going for us right now....We have leadership that supports athletics in a big way. We haven't always had that. For the most part, it involves hiring good coaching staffs, and supporting them with good faciilities, training equipment, recruiting resources, etc. We've made some huge strides in this area in recent years. And in the opinion of someone who's been all over the MAC, I can't think of any school in this conference that is in as good of a position as Akron to increase their level of success right now.

RootForRoo...I don't think anyone is going to disagree with that. The disheartening thing is that we have two guys close to 7' tall sitting over there on the bench, and neither of them is really helping us at all.

skhorbotly...we all share your frustration with the center play. But my post was in regards to what is happening with the people who make these decisions. And besides comments that indicate that they don't feel that Steve is ready, and about playing their best players, I don't think it's that difficult to figure out what is going on when one center plays 10-15 minutes per game, and the other one rarely plays at all.I know...it's hard to believe that Mike is the best we have...but apparently that's the thinking right now.

It's my recollection that the MAC moved UP several spots in conference RPI last season.

Dr. Z....I totally agree with you. Just watch his footwork sometime. He rarely...RARELY...gets himself into a positive position with the ball in his hands in the low block where he has any kind of advantage over the defender, and has a reasonable chance of scoring. I've seen everything from him trying to spin and scoop the ball under his defender's arm (yes...a 6' 10" guy), to shooting short jumpers or semi-hooks from point blank range that barely touch anything let alone go in the basket (both attempts during the Ball State game, as an example). I'd be more than happy to never see him take a shot again this year. But then again, that kills your ability to play inside-out basketball. And with the general feeling from the coaches that Mike is further along than Steve S......I'd say....Zeke can't get here soon enough.I want to comment about what I see on the MAC scoreboard from last night also. For the most part, it's an unimpressive list of performances against a pretty unimpressive list of competitors. If anyone noticed, there are quite a few OVC teams in there, and we didn't fare so well. Is this who we compare to as a conference now? A conference that we left 20 years ago for better opportunities? And I think the real kicker is going to be that, even though we are expected to light up the MAC over the next couple of years....is it going to mean anything to anyone on a national level? Don't get me wrong, I haven't seen us in a NCAA tournament game in 23 years...and I'm aching to get back there. But has this conference reduced itself to the point where their tournament participant will be viewed in much the same light as when Akron popped up on the bracket 23 years ago as an OVC member? And will the particular ineptness of our West division ultimately drag the rest of us down with them? These are not "lets get out of the MAC comments". But I just think the MAC as a basketball conference has a lot of work ahead of them. Maybe our new commish can make some things happen.

One thing I don't see getting mentioned here..The lowering of scholarships a few years ago from 95 to 80 players is what's making the difference here. There was a really nice article months ago (not sure if I can find it now) about how well the MAC is doing against the Big 10 (or Big 11) recently. Not only in wins, but simply in much more competitive contests than what we might have seen in the past. Many, many good players are slipping down the line to MAC-level schools becuase of the limitations. How far will the gap close? I don't think anyone knows right now...but it's certainly closing. And before anyone goes and sings on rooftops about Suckeye State's dominance over the MAC, please take a look at more recent contests such as Akron and OU's games against them the past two years.....games that stayed tediously close for the Nutheads well into the 2nd half. Do you think this would have happened 20 years ago? The gap is closing folks.

I know nothing about the IU situation. But, there are many instances where a "larger" school schedules a home and home against a "smaller" school, books the first game at their place, and then bails out.

The only thing that will be missing in the OU game is that Bubba won't be in the house. That got everyone fired up. And that game last year would have to be one of my top-5 games I have ever seen at the JAR.

I have a funny feeling that the Rowdies have something in mind to yell to Ms. McCoy. Let me guess...something similar to the Singletary chant?

I'm with you Dr. Z. To me, as a fan, I find Miami games pretty boring. They are also very difficult games to get the crowd into since whenever there might be a exciting play that gets people on their feet, the next possession lasts so long that everyone is sitting down again. It's pretty hard to get into, unless the game is close enough at the end.

MD...I only dispute your math. If you really think that someone other than Buffalo will win the East at 11-5, then you are projecting that Buffalo will lose 3 of their last 4 games. And I am not quite willing to project that kind of collapse.Dave, although I've grown to accept that McClanahan had to be added to the lineup, considering the situation with Ronnie, it would be hard for me to say that he has "off" shooting nights since his "on" shooting nights have been so few and far between. At this point, we can only really point to a couple of games where he was really hitting shots. At 15 of 52 from the field, I'd choose to classify that as an "off" season that occasionally produced an "on" game. Even considering his youth, I'm a bit dissappointed considering that I heard so much about what a great shooter this guy was. And I have some issues with his alignment to the basket, and his shooting form...but that is obviously for another thread.

Interesting.Personally, after 30 years of watching Zips basketball, and much more than that being involved in basketball in one capacity of another, I am now just sitting back and shaking my head at calls, rather than yelling myself hoarse. I've chosen to take the viewpoint that MAC refs are bad, and they'll make enough bad calls both ways over time. So, over the long haul, I really don't believe it makes any difference.

I said undecided. I want to leave that up to the coaches to decide what works best. As I've said all along, I just want better defensive players on the field who can make tackles.

Thanks MD...I don't look at the tie breaker formats beyond head to head. It gets too complicated after that....especially since it will now change from game to game

hollywood..that's exactly my point. Yes, it "seemed" like a Buffalo loss was good. But, if just getting ANY bye is the objective, then a BG loss would have been what would have benefitted us the most.

I commented about this in another thread, and I trust that your "current" tie breakers are right...but obviously, this excludes that we haven't played the 2nd game against Ohio, Can't, BG, and Buffalo....which will ultimately decide all of the tie breakers.

This is where it all gets interesting as we watch the results of other MAC East games........So....was it best that BG beats Buffalo and gives us still a chance at the #1 seed? Or, was it best that BG loses so that we get closer to securing the #3 or #4 seed? With Buffalo losing ground in the last week, and Can't and BG gaining ground, we could end up anywhere from #1 to 5,6, or 7 with the way everything is stacking up. This is tough for me....because......a MAC regular season title assures us of an NIT bid.....but being in the best position to win the MAC tournament gives us our best chance to get into the NCAA.Personally, I say the heck with the NIT bid....I'd rather see the the teams we are competing against for the #3 and #4 spots lose.