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I'm glad someone brought up the new dance team uniforms. I'm surprised it took so long.Has anyone noticed our upcoming schedule? Following a Saturday game against Can't with a Monday road game and a Wednesday road game? That's gonna be a tough little stretch for the players.

Usually, I give a complete post-game analysis. But after this game, there was just one INCREDIBLY HUGE factor that made this game go the way it did. Something we haven't really seen against a good team this year. We could score on Can't in the paint. That's it...plain and simple. I hope that maybe Brett and Chris are getting a little bit better and tougher down there. But, in this game, I think it was more that Can't doesn't have the personnel to defend down there. They clearly miss Ham-N-Cheese, and Mike Scott....and I give credit to Keith and his staff for seeing this weakness, and exploiting it.

GJ...I'll agree with you on one point...that the MAC West games could possibly give us opportunities to work on some things, and get ready for the 2nd half of the MAC East schedule. But, my point was that everyone will play the West teams, and it is not likely to give anyone in the East an advantage once that segment of our schedule is complete. I'll disagree with you on another point. Many of those MAC West teams are rated so poorly that winning those games won't matter much in terms of at-large bids to post season tournaments. Remember, we got snubbed from all post season play two years ago with a 26-6 record. And with 7 losses already, do you really think we still have a shot at being an at-large selection to any post season tournament? I think we're almost already at the point where we have to win nearly all of our remaining games, and 2-3 games in the MAC tournament, just to have a chance.

Racer...please don't forget something. We keep hearing posters talk about how we'll pad our win total against the West teams. But everyone else in the East will be playing those same teams. Barring some major upsets, it will all be a wash. You have to beat East teams..period.

I believe Hugo is a Zips fan, and not an OU fan. He is referring to things that OU has done to us. I know this because he refers to the incidents where two years in a row an OU player launched a dirty hit on A. Jones while he was making a fair catch on a punt.

Don't fool yourselves. A lot of people use Spicer on game days, and it's going to create problems. If nothing else, just the idea of forcing some people down alternate streets will increase the traffic on those streets. Plus, the article says that several other events will be happening on campus at the same time. OUCH.But let's face it....is traffic ever really good right before a Can't game?

So....you're saying it will be a similar second half as the game at the JAR last year? I've probably never personally witnessed a comeback in the last 2 minutes like we all witnessed that day. I would only change the ending. Yes, the 1-3 records surprise me a little bit, but both programs did indeed lose some key pieces. I'd like to say that we match up well with these guys, but any rebounding advantage that we should have had this year because of their loss of Scott and Quaintance is tempered by the fact that we are a poor rebounding team without Wood. We know these guys play rough (I call it Thuggery) and we have to match them. But, without guys like Wood and Dials, and Bardo getting significant minutes in the paint, do we have the muscle that we need for this game? Can't 60 Akron 54The only thing that will save us is a good 3-point percentage, and some inspired defense.

Actually,, that's been pretty much the mindset in the entire 3 decades I've been supporting the Zips....Teams don't want to play us here..period. It's a no-win situation for someone who is good. They realize that we have a history of dominating at the JAR, and what team that is going somewhere will take that risk?A ranked Nevada team was forced to play here as a return game for a bracketbuster....and we all know what happened. It's actually just smart business for these folks. Why do you want to play a team that is dominant on their home floor when winning really doesn't help you at all.So...they just refuse.

Captain...yes, the Buffalo game was close also, but not a road game. Lets hope that, even in down years, that nobody is ever able to beat us by a wide margin at home. Dave..I totally agree. Playing in close games should motivate our guys to take that next step to get good enough to win those games the next time. But I've seen it demoralize teams as well. We'll see how we respond to the situation.

UAZipsMan...I have to agree with you that neither loss is any better than the other. However, like I said during football season, you do get a sense that at least your team is competitive when you play games this close. If these first few conference games were all 20 point losses, players could easily resign themselves to the idea that they stink, and the entire season could crumble from there. The late game failures are sometimes tough on players, but I really believe (and hope) that these guys have the mindset to see that they're not a unreachable distance away from being a good team. I will even personally state that I am somewhat surprised that either the Miami or OU road games, or both, did not result in a loss by a much wider margin. Who knows....maybe everything will finally click during one magic weekend in Cleveland.

The big man will love the atmosphere of a Can't/Akron game. It will be much different than when he came here over Christmas break.

I was listening to the game with a friend who does not follow Zips basketball at all, and I told him at the mid-way point of the 2nd half that we just can't score well enough to come back from a double-digit deficit. So what happens? The only other thing that could possibly get us back in the game. Good defense, coupled with dumb passes and cold shooting by OU. It sure made a boring game pretty exciting.1) Humpty still makes me shake my head. He finally gets a night where he starts to look like a real point guard and dishes out a decent amount of assists, but ends the game with maybe his worst night of the season taking care of the basketball. His dumb turnovers kill us since we don't shoot the ball well enough to be throwing it away. I like when KD pulled him in the late stages of the Buffalo game in favor of McNees and Roberts. Although neither has Humpty's playmaking ability, for right now, that's probably the best thing for us to do if we want to maximize our possessions at critical junctures. Plus, he's not shooting well either. As I sensed very early in the season, this guy just has a long way to go before he'll be able to do what we need him to do in the role that's been given to him early in his career by our coach. So, when is Ronnie due to return? 2) I felt that going into this season, C. McKnight was going to eventually emerge as the MVP of this team. Following that problem with his ribs, he looks like he might be getting aggressive again and producing like I expected. Lets hope it continues. 3) Maybe French's early raising of the white flag had something to do with him being an OU grad. But really, I lost count of the number of times that OU was probably only a single hoop away from puttting the game out of reach for us in the 2nd half. The problem was, they never got that hoop when they needed it.4) Once again, as I've said many times, I'd rather see us shoot 3-pointers all night than take the wild shots that we're taking closer to the basket. 5) Bardo...only one basket and two rebounds in 25 minutes. We see this so often, and I still don't believe that it's mathematically possible. 6) I give most of these guys all the credit in the world for competing the way that they do on most nights. But, so much more of what it takes to be a good basketball team just isn't sinking in with these guys quite yet. I still hope it happens soon enough to make something of this season.

I have no idea what KDs plan is to stop Tillman in this game, but I'll be please with an all-out effort from everyone on the floor to cut off the passing lanes and limit his opportunities. Z-Pouch...unless we start to score points, or suddenly stop playing defense, I think for the time being people are going to expect low scoring grind-it-out games when Akron is on the floor. So, I would be surprised if you see very big point spreads in our games anytime soon, even on the road.

Excellent News!! I've been waiting for this. He's our only experience back going into next year, and in my opinion, was the best of the backs we had over the last few years. Now....IF only he can stay healthy

Wow...Cleveland StateI think it would generate a lot of excitement. I'd rather it be here rather than in Cleveland, but that place is big enough to get a good Akron crowd in there. This is an interesting time for Cleveland State. After building that huge arena after they had their success in the 80's, they've never managed to generate any significant following. But this could be their time. I, for one, don't want to see it happen because it's a foregone conclusion that a successful CSU basketball team will get tons of airtime on our news networks. I still remember back in 1986, when we had our last conference title and NCAA appearance, we seemed to take a back seat to CSU since they were having similar success at the same season. They were treated as the home team, and we seemed to be looked at as some other school that just happened to be in the viewing area. When we hit that level of accomplishment again, I don't want to be that "oh..and Akron won today too" 5-second blurb at the end of the sportscast.

An exciting topic indeed. Captain....5 or so more games would have absolutely made a difference in a situation like this.....because there were many games where we had opportunities to get a guy like this some game experience, and work on some things as a team with him on the floor. Those opportunities are gone now. But, Ronnie's situation was certainly more optimistic a few weeks ago as well. Let's hope this is NOT another Alex Allen type situation. Note that much of what I've said about this topic is in the form of a question...which is intended to welcome a response as much as it is intended to illustrate a point. It's a tough decision by our coach, as someone stated, and I sure hope it has a positive outcome.

I think you are both missing the point. And this is coming from someone who has been involved in basketball in various capacities for my entire life.The issue is....as a true freshman, and a guy who has never played in a game with his teammates....how likely is he to get decent playing time, get comfortable with his teammates in game situations, adjust to the speed of the game, AND produce, with only roughly a dozen games left?? When he is not likely to get any kind of significant minutes because we are in the middle of our conference race??This is not to say that we don't need guard help....because we do. And I am sure to some extent you can justify that anything he would contribute will be helpful. But, he was likely redshirted because he was deemed as being not as ready to play as the other 12 or so guys on the roster. And there are a lot of things that can happen to a kid in this kind of situation, many of which are negative, when you decide to go down a road like this mid-way through the season when you are in the heat of your conference schedule.So the real question that is raised here is....if this guy ends up playing 5 minutes or so a game, in a "let the other guys get some rest" capacity....was it really worth pulling the red shirt? I sure hope so, but I would have been much more optimistic about it being a positive experience if it had happened 5 or more games ago when we had some real opportunities to help him get his feet wet.

The real downside to the McClanahan situation is that we're working him into the flow more than half way into the season. He either progresses quickly, or it probably was not a good thing considering that he essentially would only have 3 years to play for us.

ZipWatcher....there's the big question. Which do we need more? Some relief at point guard so that we have solid ballhandlers in the game all the time who can optimize our possessions? Or, another shooter? Or...could we have continued to get by with what we had, considering that you are now trying to develop another new play, in mid-season? I trust that the coaches made the right decision because it could be a decision that has long-term effects on this era of Akron Basketball. Blue and Gold...I respect your observations, but would be hard pressed to name a 5-15 shooting night, including 1-4 from 3-point range, as a performance that would deserve my high praise. But at least he cut out the dumb turnovers for one night.

I sure hope people aren't basing their thoughts about our fortunes this year on a single performance. For the most part, good performances have been few and far between. And many of us pesimistic folks I'm sure have based our thoughts on that, and not on a performance in one, single game....a game which still showed a team that struggles to make baskets. Listen folks...we do indeed play good enough defense on most nights to stay in games. And we will remain one of the best programs in the conference, regardless of what happens this season. There's just a lot of signs that this will be a down year for us. I hope that changes, and I'll look forward to the OU game. Nice to see that we got our fair share of rebounds tonight. And what a joy it was to see that Humpty took care of the basketball. This team needs to get as many shots at the basket in a game as they can get. The appearance of McClanahan might indeed indicate a more long-term problem with Ronnie. But...can he play point? And I sure hope they don't pull Sullivan's redshirt as well. We can't have all of these guys who are the same age playing at the same time, or Senior Day in 3 years is going to be a long, long evening

Isn't a Safety Ambassador pretty much the same thing as a Mall Cop?

I think it's often a shame when a player gets remembered for one play.......but that dropped TD catch in the Buffalo game will certainly be my lasting memory of him.

Concerning Sweich....Sure, what KD said is not writing him off, but considering the youth of all of the players who are getting the playing time, I am sure we can probably make the assumption that we won't have a chance of seeing him as much as we'd like until later in his career. It at least would put a damper on this season, it appears. And that's not what many of us wanted to hear. This is some of what I talk about when I see people getting too excited, too early, about recruits. I know there were a lot of people on here who talked about our fortunes this year with posts that included a phrase in them that read something like ".....and we'll have Sweich in the middle in 2008-09......". You just never know if or when a recruit is going to turn into someone who can help your team win games.

I only wish that when people talk about attendance numbers, they pay much more attention to who is actually in the Arena than the number that is posted in the newspaper the next day.The current configuations have the JAR at about 6k when it's FULL. That's every seat, floor to ceiling, including the end bleacher sections in the top level.Approx. 1/3 to 1/2 of the lower reserved was empty, and those all count in that 3.000 attendance number. In my season ticket section in upper reserved, my group was the only people in our entire row. And many of the people around us who we talk to did not show. Yet, they are all season ticket holders, and their ticket sales count. There's probably room for approx. 1,000 people in each of the end bleacher sections. How many people were sitting there? Maybe 50-100 on each side, at best?Yes...it was nice to see that people actually showed up due to the weather. But, the arena was not anywhere close to being half full. We may have legitimately accomplished that with the Dayton game, but this crowd wasn't half that size.

Oh...just give them the Rubber Bowl Seriously though, does anyone feel that this will get any kind of support here?