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zipsbandman....I respect your opinion. But this is the MAC, where the refs stink, and teams rarely play consistently from game to game. I mean, saying that Ball State won't win a particular game might be something that you can guarantee, depending on the opponent. But, you're willing to be bold enough to say that the top team in the MAC (Akron) WILL NOT WIN a particular game?Just checking.

You got it. But winning on the road at Can't will be one tall task. Let's hope for the best.

OU beat Can't tonight. And did it in impressive style. Without Bubba playing at all. I wonder if OUs coach sees a correlation here.

I love Nick Dials, but this team is nothing without Wood. Without Wood, this team would be forced to fire up 3-pointers every night to try to win games. And without Wood, those 3-point shooters would be getting guarded more closely. So, as far as our offense goes, even when Wood does NOT have the ball in his hands, he is the most valuable guy out there. Just watch how the offense runs without Wood in the game, with nobody else to depend upon to score in the post, and our opponents KNOW this. He completely changes the thinking of our opposition on defense, even when he does not have the ball.

Herein lies part of our problem. It would appear that the RPI is more highly regarded than the Sagarin. I personally like to look more at the Sagarin since it accounts for margin of victory. Thus, we get a little bit of "extra credit" when we play one of those 200+ ranked teams, but beat them by a wide margin. In the RPI, it simply counts as a win against a team ranked 200+, which helps us very little. Zips fan is right. We're already essentially eliminated from any consideration for post season play unless we win the overall MAC regular season title (and get an NIT bid), or win the MAC tournament (and get an NCAA bid).Every other option is almost surely off the table, even this early in the season, because our strength of schedule stinks.

I wish someone had the tv clip of this.

He probably really wanted to come back to Akron these last two years, and show us what we were missing after he transferred.So what does he do??...He was a combined 2-13 from the field in his 2 trips back to Rhodes Arena. Way to go Bubba!!

Rowdies...great job last night.Here's my question. How many seats are there in those two sections? Maybe 300? Is it that hard to get 300 students to each and every game?Question #2...Someone sitting next to me in the reserved section said that they say Bubba yell something at you guys after he hit one of his shots (a rare occurence once again). So..what exactly did he say??

Let's face it. OU forced us to win that game from 3-point range, and we almost didn't get it done. J. Wood needs some help down low, and we better find it....FAST. If not, more teams will copy OUs strategy, and will beat-up Wood all night, and force us to win from the perimeter. About McNees....I think he is a great ball player, but still needs work to "run the offense". He's getting better, but still looks a little shaky at times.

Let's see....if my math is correct....he now has a total of TWO FIELD GOALS in two year at JAR Arena. If I were his teammates, I would start calling to have him benched !!I'll tell you why....Down by only 1 point, with 9 seconds left, and your two big men are having a decent night inside. So, you unleash a 30 footer? with 5 seconds still left on the clock? When you have a time out left? And you could run a play and probably get a shot from inside the paint? And you only need a two-point basket to win?This is the untimate in selfishness. Bubba wanted to make the winning shot in our gym. And because of it, he said "F U" to his teammates.Congratulations.

Ok...I'll be nice for a second. Bubba is certainly good enough to get a scholarship. But obviously, no coach has been able to put the reigns on him. For that reason, I'm guessing KD wasn't too sad to see him leave. From what I hear, OU is getting tired of his style too. He makes a lot of poor decisions. If he had buried that shot, he would have danced around the JAR, and none of us would have ever forgotten it. Good thing it didn't happen.Seeing him laying on the court crying was priceless. It's about time that a last-second game finally falls the Zips' way.

Captain...I'll agree with you. The stats show that we actually shot the ball well. We may have had a couple of silly turnovers, but overall we didn't play badly, except for our lack of rebounding. And that's the best I have seen an OU team play perimeter defense in quite some time. Other Observations.....Bubba....now has made a grand total of 2 FIELD GOALS in two games at Akron as a Bobcat. Bubba....Has the ball in his hands, with 9 seconds left, one timeout, and launches a 30 foot jumper?, when you only need a 2-pointer? When you have two of the conferences best post players? I think that says it all. Bubba....it was priceless seeing him laying on the court crying.Jeremiah....I've said it before, and I will say it again. He will WEAR DOWN if we make him have to do what he did last night for another 20 games.Rebounding....The way OUs big men dominated the glass has me scared when we have to play them again. But once again, it goes back to us having only one legitimate force inside.Crowd....into the game more than I have seen in some time. Kudos to the guy with the microphone getting out there at one of the last breaks and getting us going.OU....lets hope that they played the game of the season. If not, they will get back in the race with that kind of dominance in the paint.

Quickzips... If I recall, I don't think we were doing anything last year strategically to "shut him down". He just couldn't hit a shot. However, I think Nick and Ced might have had a little extra incentive to play him tough in our man-to-man defense. I've said this before....If I were coaching against this OU team, I'd let him shoot all day from 25 feet. It's not very often that he gets hot enough to hurt you. And I am much more concerned about keeping Tillman and Williams bottled up inside.

For those of you who made it to this game last year in the snowstorm, you would have seen that Bubba was completely rattled. He missed all of his shots from the field, made some wild passes, and even missed a free throw (a rare event). Last year, I think the most effective thing the crowd did was BOOO every time he touched the ball. I'm hoping for more of the same tonight.Go Zips !!

I think jeaglet1's comment, and skhorbotly's response says it all. Some people will regard Toledo as the regular season champ of the MAC last year because they were the #1 seed in the tournament, even though they played in a MUCH weaker division, AND did not play everyone from the East, both home and away.Obviously, determining the "overall" champ in this manner is seriously flawed. So, something else needs to be done. There were probably 4 teams in the MAC last year that were better than Toledo, but they were all in the East. I'm not sure what to do. If we play everyone in the entire league, both home and away, it takes away from OOC games. But at the same time, it's wrong to give a weak team the "all important" #1 seed in the tournament when they are not even close to being the best team in the conference.

True...there's a lot of ways to look at this. In response to Zip Watcher and Kangaroo, I'd only say that the tournament winner and the winner of the season in the conference are two totally different things. Sometimes, teams in 6th or 7th place sneak out of nowhere to win conference tournaments. When that happens, I can assure you that the team that finished 1st during the regular season will hoist a "Conference Champion" banner to their rafters at the start of the next season.I guess maybe the fair way to look at this, since nobody in the MAC will ever play every other team in the conference, both home and away, is to acknowledge that we essentially have two different conferences. There's a champ in the MAC East, and there's a champ in the MAC West. Everything beyond that is merely speculation as to how they would have ended up if the two divisions were combined. I guess running the table AND winning the tournament this year would prevent speculation as to who is the champ. Maybe this will finally be our year.

OZoner... The commentary as to what caused that loss for OU came from an on-line story that someone posted on here. But even without that, the stats from the BG game speak for themselves.Williams - 6 of 7 from the field.Bubba - 4 of 15 from the field, 3 of 10 from 3-point range, and 4 turnovers.

Jeaglet1....true, there technically is no overall MAC champ anymore. But I don't think anyone would argue that Toledo would have gotten absolutely crushed if they had to make a road trip to Akron last year. My point is, since there is no "official" overall MAC champ anymore, if someone had to "declare" someone the overall champ of the MAC last year, you wouldn't have much argument that Akron would have been that team.

OZoner....you say that we are not the "defending MAC champs".Well...who is?There are two divisions in the MAC now, which makes it more difficult than it used to be to determine the MAC Champ. But, Akron IS the defending MAC East champs. In the meantime, Toledo won the MAC West, which was a MUCH weaker division. So, I would say it's much easier to make an argument that we ARE the defending MAC champs, than it is to make the argument that we are NOT.

I'm noticing something VERY different than what I saw last year.Before the game at the JAR last year, we were seeing all kinds of messages on OUs board about what they were going to do to us.This year??I scanned this thread, and don't believe I saw ONE post that said anything hopeful about this contest from the OU contingent.

If you look at Bubba's stats, he's only shooting 37% from the field, and 32% from 3-point range. The only thing that looks impressive about his numbers is that he has only turned the ball over 27 times. But, if you're launching shots all night, you probably wouldn't have too many turnovers. If I were an opposing coach, I'd let a guy like this shoot all night, and clamp down on their inside game, if he is only going to make 1 out of every 3 or 1 out of every 4 3-point shots.

Norfolk State....wow. Now that's moving up. Looks like we let a guy with great potential get away.

I agree that playing right away would be an incentive for a guy like this, but trying to sell him the idea that we have guys who can consistently get him the ball is challenge. The fact that Jabari put up the numbers he did last year without really ever having an effective quarterback is really a miracle.

I'm not sure I would have had any clue if you had not put the faces on there. From what I hear, this is essentially why they lost the BG game. I guess the inside game was working, but Bubba kept launching (and missing) shots from way beyound the arc.Tillman and Willams have to be getting frustrated with him by now.

GoZips88...I remember last year's game. I think it was projected to be a sellout (Bubba's first return to Akron), but a heavy snow that day created a lot of no-shows. I sure hope the change in the start time doesn't produce too much of a negative effect this year. But, there will certainly be some people who will be staying home because of it.