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Just like last year's game at the JAR, when someone decided to get hot for awhile from the field...they won the game. I'm just happy in both cases that it was us.I hate to say that I had to predict in another thread that the total points would be under 100, but it was. That's why I've never really enjoyed these Miami games, but I love the wins And now BG shows their Jeckyl and Hyde personality once again. How do you lose to EMU at home and beat Buffalo on the road? I just hope we get the BAD BG at the JAR.

That's right RootForRoo....NEVER FORGET!! That's why last year was so sweet when we pounded them at the JAR, when McNees buried all of those 3-pointers, and Jeremiah was throwing down a reverse dunk. But...my memory of most Akron/Miami games over the years goes like this...First Half - Second Half - Then everyone stand for the last 30 seconds of the game to see who gets the final shot. I can never predict a winner in these games, but I will predict that the total points for both teams will be under 100, and both teams will struggle to hit 1/3 of their shots.I know...that's being extreme...but it's a reflection of just how much I do not enjoy these Miami games.

Ok...I must agree..the cupcake thing was very funny and entertaining. I enjoyed it. But the reality was that all of these teams were capable of beating MAC level talent....and on quite a few occassions, they did. I only wished that we were the team who snuck through with the 6-0 record, but we didn't.

Dave, Please...don't mention that 3-point bank shot. I was sitting in the first row watching that guy launch that shot right in front of me. I'll never forget it....having not experienced an NCAA appearance since I was a senior in 1986. The funny thing was, I KNEW the shot was NOT on line. Then..it banks in. I still think to this day that Dials got a piece of it. The thing about Can't is that they have so many guys who have been there before, and then go 6-0 against the West with their new transfer really shooting well. They scare me.ZipAlumn....I'm with you. They were not playing like a team early...and let's hope they do not completely get there this year.

I wouldn't think that two guys of this caliber would take asst. coaching positions at MAC schools, so this is great news for us. Maybe the stadium/facilities (i.e. the commitment to football by the University) had something to do with them wanting to come here. I hope that also had an effect on the high ranked recruiting class that we had, and will continue to do so. JD is hiring these two guys (with approval), so I don't think this is any kind of coup to have guys on staff that could become the next head coach. And I don't want to start another discussion about what he needs to do to stay here, but I think he's fine as long as we continue to get better. I'd love to be in position again to move into first place in the MAC East late in the season. But this time, I want to WIN that game.

Clearly, Ball State is getting a lot of credit for being the first team to beat Buffalo in some time.I might be the first to say this, and I hope I'm wrong, and I will as I say it....but....I see that Can't has moved up in the rankings, and appears to be playing well enough to possibly..."possibly"...be the best team out there come tournament time.

Well..here is yet another way to look at all of this.......at least the MAC West part of the schedule didn't do the damage to us that it has the past two years.2007 - We had the misfortune in the scheduling of having to play Toledo (by far the best team in the West) on the road, while Can't State got them at home. That loss cost us the #1 seed in the MAC tournament, and made us have to pull off that dramatic overtime win in Can't on the final day of the regular season just to get the #2 seed. Would it have made a difference if we had played Miami in the semis instead of the finals? Who knows. We got beat up a little physically in the semifinal game against Can't (remember Jeremiah's cut eye?), and had to mount a big 2nd half comeback. Plus, we played the late game, while Miami rested and watched us after defeating Toledo. And maybe the worst blow of all....Toledo was "declared" the regular season MAC champ by being the #1 seed, and got the only NIT bid.2008 - We lost 3 games against the West. An inexplicable collapse against an average (at best) CMU squad, that bewildering loss at home to NIU, and the big loss to WMU on the road. This ultimately cost us our chance to play Can't in that season finale at the JAR for the MAC East title, and the #1 seed in the MAC tournament. 2009 - We don't know for sure if 5-1 against the West will cost us anything. But we did move ahead of Ohio during this time, and lost no ground to anyone else who was ahead of us, or tied with us. I just sure hope that Can't getting through that stretch at 6-0 doesn't come back to haunt us all.

I don't think it had anything to do with looking past someone. Keith doesn't allow his teams to be unprepared to play. We simply didn't play well in either of the last two games. But this time, we payed the price. As I've said before...that's college basketball. It's tough for kids to get through a stretch like that without a loss. My only hope was that someone didn't do better than whatever we did. And unfortunately, Can't State did that, and are now in a good position to get a bye again. They also have 3 of their last 5 conference games at home, including getting to play us at their place to close the season. That could just be the game that decides the #4 seed. The only good thing that happened yesterday is that BG got a big upset loss at home. If not for that, we would have been sitting in 4th place, and would have had our work cut out for us to get back into bye position. As it stands now, we're in a 3-way tie for that #4 seed in the tournament.

Zips fan...that's pretty much it.Redhawk seems pretty confident that he has it all figured out. Yes, there is the stigma that many young teams run out of gas at post-season time because of the longer season in college basketball. But other than that, I don't quite see someone justifying that we're the 5th best team in the East this year. But I guess the 2nd round of East games will tell the story. We're one of the 3 teams in the East that will play 3 home games during the last 5 games. I would think that those teams have somewhat of an advantage in the stretch run.

Dave, I wouldn't even want to speculate about other teams with winning records, and whether their bench players get as much playing time, etc. I don't even know how to go about finding that information. Could we play our bench players more than most teams? Maybe so. You're seeing guys who didn't play much early in the season get bigger roles, and guys who got higher minutes earlier in the season have their roles diminished significantly. But the best players are playing much more. Our #1 guy in playing minutes plays approx. TWICE as much per game as the #10 guy.....if you are talking about only the 10-man rotation. If you go beyond that, it gets even more significant. If you asked the coach, I'm sure he'd tell you that he goes deep into his bench to try to keep players fresh, and not because of some calculated effort to equalize everyone's playing time to try to make them all happy.

Dave,I'm definitely thinking about next year.....when 3 more pretty highly decorated high school kids get added to the mix. In particular, we'll have 6 guards, all of which are certainly capable of playing at many other D-1 schools, and were recruited by those schools already.It's funny you bring up Bubba. Although it's a fair example of a guy transferring over playing time, he appeared to have no patience at all about sharing his playing time. I'd sure hope we don't have another one quite like him. You would maybe be inclined to think that a player being recruited would take a look at the idea that Akron plays a lot of players. But even though we do go deep into the bench, there's still some pretty large differences in amounts of playing time within that rotation of players. GP,I like your point about keeping kids competing for playing time. Sure, that's not a bad thing. But, I'll disagree with you about the fact that these kids in some way might not fit into another school's system. Many of these guys were big-time scorers, rebounders, etc. in high school. I'd be surprised if they left and didn't find a situation where they could play.

Watcher...interesting thoughts to my last post. I agree with some of what you are saying as well. But don't get me wrong. Where we've been in the past (many unsuccessful years), and what I've witnessed here, has nothing to do with my thoughts. Secondly, I certainly don't believe that these kids have a "If I don't start by my sophomore year, I'm leaving" attitude. And thirdly, I use the Duke example merely to point out that a kid, as badly as he wants to play, would likely be more patient about his lack of playing time if he were a part of a national championship program, as opposed to a good MAC team.I obviously don't know how each individual player feels. I'm only sharing some experience here, and raising some questions for discussion. And it breaks down very simply to the following questions: Will there be enough playing time to spread around over the next 4 years to make everyone happy? If not, will the team's success be enough to keep them here anyway, even if they can go and play somewhere else?If KD accomplishes this, I think he's done a remarkable job. I would just be surprised if all of them, as the next 2-3 pass by, would still feel that "I don't care if I don't play...as long as we are winning".

trumpet...correct again !!

Trumpet, your memory is correct. Back in the early 80s, when I was in school, we got all the way to the national title game two years in a row, and lost both times (can't remember the years right now). And we lost to the same team both times....Cal Northridge.

gmann.....add the interception at the end of the Cincinnati game to your list. Jac was hit and the ball popped straight up into the air, and was grabbed by a linebacker. Hardly a situation where the defense was "catching on to our pass patterns".

I certainly don't want to speculate about what is going to happen to some of these players. But I'll say this...it's very rare that I see a young player who didn't feel that he deserved more playing time. The huge difference between now, and a few years ago, is that there is now going to be many bench players who know that they have the talent to play at other D-1 schools, and in some cases were heavily recruited by many other D-1 schools. This is not Duke, where many talented players might be patient enough to sit until their senior year for a chance to play for a national championship. But, will our guys show that kind of patience for the chance to earn playing time for a solid MAC program? I think it's less likely. This is by no means a jab at our coach. I love Keith, and I am thrilled that he was able to recruit so many talented guys at the same time. You have to get what you can get...when you can get them. It's just not appearing to be lining up like a situation where everyone is likely to be happy.

Quickzips...that would have been one of the bonuses of leaving McClanahan sit out the remainder of this year....so that he and Sullivan could have been a guard combination along with Zeke 4 years from now when they are all seniors together. The BJ article yesterday even alluded to that. But let's face it. We had to activate another guard this year. With Ronnie's situation, the more and more I think of it, we had no choice.Unfortunately, we'll have a log jam at guard next year, and someone is going to eventually get disgruntled about playing time, and might transfer. And it might just happen to more than one of them. But plans do not always work out like you expect.

Go Zips...nice job. I can't predict what'll happen at NIU this weekend, but some folks need to be brought a little closer to reality sometimes. You bring up a good point that doesn't get brought up often enough. Not only will Zeke be here next year, but Parrish and Sullivan will be RS-F by then as well. I don't know much about Parrish except for his size, but have a lot of knowledge about Sullivan. Some of my old NE Ohio coaching buddies have watched him play for years now. And I was fortunate enough to hear of his verbal commitment to Akron the moment it happened, and reported it on here. He's a non-selfish player, team oriented, and can flat-out fill it up as evidenced by his well-over 20 ppg average both his junior and senior year. I'll be pretty excited to finally see him play in the blue and gold. And I'm hoping to turn a lot of East-Of-Cleveland high school basketball fans into Zips fans by encouraging them to come down here to see him play.

I don't want to have to play an extra game either, for more than just that reason. However, let me point out that if we end up being the #5, #6, or #7 seed, we wouldn't see either Ball State or Western. Our opening opponent would be one of the bottom teams in the West (10, 11, or 12). One interesting thing to think about is if you don't get a bye, the #7 spot is going to be a very, very lucky spot for someone. That spot could very well go to the bottom team in the East, who would have the good fortune of playing #2 Ball State in the quarterfinals, instead of facing one of the better East teams who will likely occupy the other bye positions.

Yes, we'll miss him, but I hope we don't miss him "a lot".....because.....we're essentially trading him for Zeke.

Bleacher Bum.....they have the image of Mt. Rushmore on the "welcome" signs as you enter the state. Does that tell you anything? It's a vast prarie with one cluster of mountains in one corner that contain Mt. Rushmore. That just about says it all.

Were these all road losses for OU against the West teams? Is the Convo in Athens really that much of an advantage to them? They certainly win the prize for becoming the Jekyl and Hyde team of the MAC this year.Wait...wait...wait...I know the problem. They miss Bubba Anyway, they've taken themselves from being a game behind Bufallo, to having the inside track on a top seed, to being a long shot for a top-4 seed and a bye.......just during the course of the MAC West portion of the schedule.Congratulations

It's funny that we're talking about how we'll stand in the post season. Did anyone hear KDs post game interview tonight? He talked about something I hadn't even thought about myself....about the tendency of freshman to wear down as the season comes to a close, because they are playing so many more games than they play in high school. He even said that he's started to back off in practice because of it. That may indeed have a lot to do with how we played tonight. And I hope he continues to manage that situation well since the most important games are yet to come.

I got ya Dr. Z. It's certainly hard to argue that we haven't been able to count on him....with his injury problems. But, here's to having a healthy and production AA this year.

Trumpet...don't get me wrong. I'm with you on the defense. But the idea came up about the running game being no problem, even if Allen doesn't return. And I personally wouldn't feel that way. I think Alex could possibly be the key to our entire attack offensively.