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Nobody would contend that they should try to determine who will take it seriously, and who will not Their job is to put the best at the top, and the worst at the bottom. And that does not include giving home games to "name programs" who will cry if they don't get a home game. Further proof that a much-maligned situation has gotten worse. In fact, historically its worst.

Wistrcillia?

I can name at least a dozen Akron players over the years who were much further ahead of Isaiah in terms of potential to be a Conference MVP when they got here. It doesn't matter what some fans had to say on a chat board. What he did on the court when he got here, and what he can do on the court now is what tells the entire story.

At 3 points and 2 rebounds per game as a freshman? That's a guy you would characterize as storming out of high school and taking control of the MAC and heading towards a conference MVP honor? He needed A LOT of work.

There's a huge difference between an AD making a bad hiring decision, and hiring a solid individual who's a good coach who doesn't win enough games here and/or has a flaw or develops a problem here that results in his lack of success that couldn't be foreseen. No, it surely isn't "impossible" to continue, and improve on the success we've had with a new coach. But with the level of success we've had over such a long period of time, that's not a chance I'm willing to take. We're doing everything that we CAN do to keep him here, and I think that's a wise move.

And forget about Zeke for a moment. Keith has produced and developed 2 MAC Players Of The Year. And in my opinion, neither Romeo or Isaiah were anywhere close to being seen as potentially reaching that level of player when they arrived here.

Probably not a very good comparison considering the situation they are in right now, but I know what you are trying to say. But this notion that "things are always going to be the way they are" stuff just isn't true. Just a few short years ago when he took his first D-1 job, I'm sure someone told Shaka that VCU "was no Virginia". And a few years before that, someone surely referenced Mark Few's team and said, "they aren't the Huskies". I guess right now, Illinois State's success has to be tempered with "you aren't ever going to be the Illini". And our opponent last night is certainly "not the Longhorns". But college basketball programs do sometimes move rapidly upward, and get national recognition, and more local attention and donors, and start defeating those very teams that everybody said that they don't measure up to. These situations aren't miracles. In fact, they aren't even improbable.

When discussing how we boast about our overall record, you could make this point. But 18 games we played this year were completely out of our control (plus 3 more in Cleveland). Isn't that something like 2/3 of our games? If we sucked, those conference games where we can't choose the opponent, the date, or the time would have demonstrated that we sucked. Instead, we we ran away with the conference race. Ditto for 2015-2016.

I have a novel idea. How about they give the Top 4 spots in each region to the best 4 teams? Not the ones who think they are above all of it, and the committee is scared that they might turn down the bid if they aren't given a home game? Let them all go home and watch the postseason, just once, and I'm sure they'd change their minds.

I'm well aware of that. You ever heard the phrase "The blind leading the blind"?

All of the Top Seeds who got knocked out of this tournament? And in our region, #6 and #8 playing to go to the Final 4? And if Akron had won, it would have been the BOTTOM TWO SEEDS in our region who played for the chance to go to the Final 4? Ya think the NIT Committee has a serious, serious problem with the way they put together their brackets?

It already is. If it wasn't, why in the world would anyone be bumming about a record-breaking season, as Zippy 5 points out above?

I might have agreed with you until I saw him start to score off the dribble later in the season, and put some focus and intensity into his perimeter defense. I think he's surprisingly quicker on his feet than any of us thought he was when he was taking nothing but spot-up 3-point shots. If you need to worry about someone who's appearing "slow" out there, turn your focus to Noah.

Towards the end of the season and in the two tournaments, Ivey has emerged as that active, athletic guy who is a difference-maker out there. He could be a good one if he keeps his emotions in check. Josh....wow....after so many people on here had thought he'd lost his way as a shooter at some point this year, he became "the man" from long ranger over the last few weeks. Sometimes, I feel like some of Kwan's earlier offensive outputs this year lulled him into a false sense that he could carry a lot of weight for us offensively. And his frustration showed, both on the court and his pouting spells sitting alone at the end of the bench. I wish that his defense and rebounding had continued to be his focus. I think we would have been a lot better off in the end.

Man, that's a bummer. It seems like we can never quite get a break to get over the hump to that next level as a program. A home game with chance to play in the Final 4 in MSG.....slips right out of our hands.

I know we've all seen this many times over the years, but I don't recall witnessing anything like we saw last night. They are very aggressive offensively. AND SO ARE WE. But they have guys who are doing it with some raw athletic ability that we don't have to score in those one-on-one situations. I think if we would have recognized early that our only chance was to play them in a half court basketball game, and back off and get set on defense on every possession, this game would have been different. It may have been a miscalculation that we could beat them at a more wide open pace.

Are those Suites at the mid-level on the sides? If so, it seems perfect. And folks...this is a SUN BELT arena. And I've personally been in another Sun Belt arena, and it's much larger and nicer than ours as well.

I thought everything was bigger in Texas?

And back then, they played the 1st round campus-site games on SUNDAY. With those "play-in" games occurring 4 days before the Quarterfinals, do you think that really gave any advantage at all to the higher seeds?

That's because we're also the most successful MAC team ever in tournament play as well, thanks to the enormous success in the Dambrot era. It's only the few championship games that we didn't play well and didn't win, and could have easily gone the other way, that's even prompted any of these discussions. Dominant regular season play. League-best tournament play, but a few falters in tournament finals. It just seems like only 3 NCAA tournament bids for all of that success is a pretty small reward.

Well tps, I guess I needed to rely on a more current student to fill us in. I thought they stopped using it for classes years ago after the put in all of the weightlifting rooms, and more recently put in the player lounges.

The JAR was designed, unfortunately, as a multi-purpose facility. All the way down to the Classroom Wing that was added to the back in order to qualify for more state grant money. Our limited use of the old Memorial Hall, and an occasional open gym time at the JAR were our only recreational facilities. This was even before the pool was built. No, not the entire Student Rec. Facility.....it was just the long lap pool at first. This has all changed. The JAR doesn't need everything that is was used for year ago. So, the track can go, along with a number of other things. The classroom wing in the back hasn't been use for classes in years. It's interesting that GW's arena shows those boxed-in seating areas behind the basket. One early-stage idea that was looked at about 5 years ago involved removing the concessions and putting the Lounge in that area, with a view of the court. Then moving the upper seats forward and placing the concessions behind it. Unfortunately, building that concourse to wind behind the upper seats would reduce seating capacity.

I had to watch their game in order to find that out. If that was a final Jeopardy question, I'd say Florida, and I'd be 99% certain I was right. I comprehend. I'm probably older than you, and my wife already thinks I can't hear anymore. '86 was my senior year at Akron.