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Guys. The root of the problem is just our school in general. They just don't appear to think it's wise to bring in high-level talent that can accomplish these things. And it does cost money. So, for now I guess we will have to continue to settle for being a D-1 school with D-III efforts in these area.I talk to so many colleagues of mine that are UA grads, and frankly we're all beyond the point of frustration over these matters, and it's not accomplishing anything. The school needs to make a commitment to upgrade....plain and simple.

That belongs in Sports Illustrated. The scoreboard picture AND the picture of the crying Can't cheerleader.I vote that she's crying because she realized that she picked the wrong college.

I sure hope that people don't wimp out and decide to stay home and watch this on TV because of the weather.This is a MUST WIN considering that we'll have a real challenge trying to beat Toledo at home. And we cannot afford to lose 2 games against the West.This team won't lose at home with so much on the line. Zips win by 8.

InTheZone....I feel your pain. That's been talked about on here since football season.I've been in marketing and sales my entire career, and I am a UA graduate. That's a huge miscue to be communicating "fear the roo", without communicating any "fear". That's the whole idea of the slogan, to depict the Kangaroo in a more fierce mode, not in it's usual cartoon-ish mode. Does the basketball radio commercial still say "come fear the roo and support the zips" as if we - the fans - are the opponent?? The early-season commercials were saying it that way. I sure hope it's still not running that way. They have also, at times, been running ads for games....after they have been played.

Unfortunately, Illinois-Chicago is 8-11, and Arkansas Little Rock is 8-12. They respectively have RPI's of 169 and 223. We can sit here and say "Well, UIC gave Butler a game", or anything we want. But no matter what way we look at it, those are both "bad losses" when the tournament committee looks at it.

Great News! We need DL's !!

GoZips88...I'm right with you on this one.Even if we can go 25-7, as bigzipguy suggests, that just means that the tournament committee will say, "ok...let's look at those 7 losses", and they'll find Arkansas Little Rock and Illinois-Chicago. That's not what you want them to see.You would think that a 25-7 record would get you into the tournament. But in order for that to happen, when you are a team like Akron, you can't have "bad losses". I remember back in the late 80's, Bob Huggins had a team that won over 20 games, and we were hoping to get into the NCAA as an at-large. But we had a couple of these bad losses. One was to Western Illinois. And everyone believed that was what sealed our fate. This is unfortunate. You should get a shot if you can win 25 games. But the tournament committee has a history of looking at teams like Akron this way. They'll let in a team from the ACC, with a record of 18-13, before they let in a team like Akron with 25 wins.

Sure, anyone can reach the top-25 if everyone above you keeps losing. But keep something in mind....There's probably only a handful of sportswriters that have enough exposure to Akron to even consider casting a vote for us. And as you can see, you need quite a few votes to get into that #25 spot. When it's all said and done, we can't get an at-large bid with the teams we played in our non-conference schedule. Especially with the losses to Illinois-Chicago and Arkansas Little Rock. Those losses will look HUGE to the selection committee.But hey.....let's run the table and see what happens. Things should get pretty exciting over the next month. Go Zips!!

Captain....you are right. Northeast Ohio sports fans do tend to "bandwagon". I hope the momentum keeps going.

skhorbotly....I agree. Whoever they intend to fill that role needs to start logging some minutes.Captain...I REALLY hope that I am wrong, but I do not see Western Michigan and the Bracket Buster game bringing in a Can't-like crowd. I might have been a little bit more hopeful about the attendance at the Bracket Buster if it wasn't for the fact that we only drew an average crowd for Nevada.Possibly the OU game could get close to packing the house, but I really think that is being optimistic too. Let's face it, a Can't game just brings people out of the woodwork like no other game can. Fellow Zips Fans...........please prove me wrong on this one.

I am going to ask a question here that I had started on another thread.Was the Buffalo game our first test to see who can run the offense as the point guard when Dru Joyce graduates?If so, how did we do without him? And who will fill that role? Cedrick and Nick are #2 guards. I'm interested in your thoughts.

Good comments guys.BirdZip.....I don't understand that call either. On a player control foul (a charge) you should not be going to the other end to shoot free throws, even if the team that committed the foul is in the bonus. I think that they may have tried to say that the call was a loose ball foul. I didn't get it either.skhorbotly. I agree. There is nobody on this team right now that is suited to play point guard. Both Dials and Middleton are absolutely #2 guards. And if Sallee or McNeese are intended to fill that role, they aren't getting much practice.I guess we need to stay tuned to see what happens on this one.

For those of you that are not aware, most all of the lower reserved is already purchased. Most of it by businesses who don't use them, or give the tickets to employees, friends, etc. who may or may not use them, which is why we get so many no-shows in those sections.I want some opinions on this....Was the Buffalo game our first test to see if we can win without Joyce? Can Cedrick even be a point guard? I don't think Cedrick of Dials can, or want to play the point.

I really hope I am wrong, but I have had way too much history with this basketball program.I'm going to rely on the trends of the last couple of years, and the lack of quality marketing by predicting that the enthusiasm of Wednesday night is already forgotten, and about 1/3 of the seats will be filled with bodies on a Sunday afternoon with the NFL playoffs and cold weather still in play.However....I think the Zips are hungry, and stay on a roll with a 15+ point win.

After thinking about this for awhile, I'm still shaking my head thinking of a reason why someone from our own athletic department would start a group that is "anti" another group when the objective is to get everyone together to support our teams. It's extremely counter-productive, but not surprising considering some of the brilliant moves that we've witnessed this football and basketball season already.

As an older fan, I am finding this all rather troubling...First of all, why does it matter what this girl looks like? And why does anyone need to comment that none of the Rowdies are worthy of her? That's all quite meaningless and immature.I do feel that it's inappropriate for someone to start another student group, and make it an "anti" to another student group. Doesn't that defeat the purpose of all of us banding together to support our programs? And this is someone that works in the athletic department? I'm baffled.But besides that...I say...the more the merrier. I'm glad to see student interest on the increase.

I know Dan. He's only listed at 220 lbs. Charles Barkley had the "round mound" name attached to him, but he was about the same height, yet outweighed Romeo by nearly 100 lbs. when they were the same age.

Ya gotta love having a defensive lineman who can run hurdles. Sounds like we are getting a nice athlete.

As an older Zips fan, I have a few thoughts on all of this...First, I think it's perfectly acceptable for a Zips fan to hate Ohio State. We compete with them for athletes, students, fan support, and media coverage. People who are Pitt fans tend to hate Penn State, and Arkansas State fans hate Arkansas, etc., etc., for the same reasons. Rotsen...I do think it's ridiculous that the PA system was playing an OSU game for Akron fans. If they want to listen to the Suckeyes game, they should go listen to it in their own car. Akron's administration should never be "promoting" another school in any way. Secondly, people wear all kinds of sports gear. It's really pretty harmless. I've owned all kinds of hats and shirts, from many different schools. Sure, I wish when people come to an AKRON game that they wear their AKRON gear. But maybe several of them were not really Akron or Can't fans, but just wanted to go to a good game. Most of the people were there in our gear, to support our team, and that's fine with me.

I would like to hope that we can get into the NCAA tournament without a MAC title. But, it won't happen this year. Due to our weak non-conference schedule, our S.O.S. is not going to be high enough for us to be able to do that. Remember, once they place all of the conference winners into the NCAA Tournament, they only have something like 30 spots left. And even if we win out, what are the chances that the NCAA Tournament committee will see Akron as one of the top 30 or so teams in the country when they will be looking at the following:1) We only played one ranked school (if Nevada stays ranked)2) We didn't beat any ranked schools.3) We lost to two schools during our non-conrerence slate that had RPI rankings lower than our own.

The first two articles, from Alexander and Pluto, say that the game was closer than the score. Do these guys love Can't?? We were up by 15 with three minutes to go, and ran out the clock instead of scoring more points. If we had kept shooting, we could have won by 20+Am I the only one that saw it that way?At least Gaffney's article indicates that Akron "pulled away" in the 2nd half.

I haven't seen that kind of environment in the JAR since I was a student back in the 80's.The only thing I DON'T want to see is for only about 1,500 people to show up to the next home game. But, the crowds seem to go back to normal levels after the Can't game.Rowdies...you guys are adults...nobody can tell you to stop saying the word "Sucks".Nice job. Let's keep the momentum going through the remainder of the season.

I kept telling my friends that Can't appeared to get slower as the game progressed. We need to keep this in mind for the next meeting. We have much more depth, and we'll wear a team like Can't down over 40 minutes. Let's use it to our advantage again.We had so many more foul shots because we were getting fouled in the act of shooting. Most of those awful calls that were going Can't's way were early in both halfs (before we were in the bonus) and were not shooting fouls. AK-Rowdies....THANK YOU!! Your best moment was the "Can't State Sucks" chant in the 2nd half, which I could clearly hear all the way up in the top of upper-reserved.I haven't seen this kind of environment in the JAR since I was a student back in the 80's. Let's keep in going, and we'll be

I can't even believe that I am going to comment on this, but I will.We all love the Zips, and wish them the best, but there are NO players on this team with even a remote chance of playing in the NBA. I've been following MAC basketball for 25 years. When a MAC player possesses NBA-level talent (not an every day occurrence), he looks "special", appears to be somewhat dominant over everyone else on the floor, and makes even non-fans want to go to games just to watch him play.You think this describes Nate Linhart?A few weeks ago, people were wondering if he was even going to be a starter anymore.There's dozens of players in the MAC at Linhart's talent level, or higher. And only a couple of them will ever wear an NBA uniform. Unless he develops into a guy who can bury shots from every spot on the court, and pull down 10+ rebounds a game, he's never even going to be on any NBA scout's radar screen.

Man, I love the enthusiam that some of you are showing towards the Lady Zips. And believe me, I cheer hard for any team wearing the Blue and Gold. But this program is such a looooooong way from being competitive, even in the MAC, let alone at any other level.We played some really weak teams in the non-conference schedule and got a few wins, which temporarily gave people some optimism. But then we got blown out by 29 and 32 points in our first two conference games...at HOME. Now, we just lost to Buffalo, who was winless in conference play.Just to see us win a handful of conference games would be a real achievement. But getting this program in position to even be somewhat competitive in the MAC is going to take many many years.