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Vince, Let me at least recap the 4 D-I years during which we won titles, and made the Big Dance, and see if anyone wants to elaborate on any of them. 1) 1986 (Ohio Valley) - Came out of nowhere to capture the regular season title, and hosted the OVC Tournament the following weekend in our fairly new arena, and won the title. 2) 2009 (MAC) - Made our 3rd straight appearance in the title game in Cleveland, and won as the #5 seed, after surviving an overtime at home in the first round, including two last second baskets in regulation and overtime. 3) 2011 (MAC) - Made our 5th straight appearance in the title game in Cleveland, and won as the #6 seed, defeating nemesis and #1 seed Kent State in overtime. This tournament included a double overtime win in the quarterfinals over Miami (OH). 4) 2013 (MAC) - Made our 7th straight appearance in the title game in Cleveland, and blew out Ohio University in the title game. That season was highlighted by a 19-game winning streak to make us the #1 seed in the tournament.

Who have also not yet put on an Akron uniform and stepped on the field. I treat them all the same. See any of my past posts on this topic. If they make immediate impact, it's always a bonus. An absolute bonus. You can hope. But, my rebuttal is always to those who see a need to say, "who cares if we lose (enter veteran player here), we have (enter new recruit here) coming to save the day next year". Yes, it probably will be the best WR recruiting influx we've ever had, if they end up panning out.

Many times in the past, when Noah was out, Antino has almost taken over games. We need that Antino tomorrow. Fortunately, what's different this year is that we have a very capable Freshman PG who can play plenty of minutes, and hopefully keep the ship afloat.

Perfect. I just beat my head against the wall when people assume that the next 17 year old kid we just recruited will instantly fill the void. That's rare. The early loss of Lane is a big loss for this offense.

Kreed, I harp about this all the time. I can't believe how many people on here look at the losses of a good, experienced, veteran stars, and tell us it's going to be nothing to worry about as they reference the list of high school kids who are on the way here. It happens in both football and basketball discussions all the time.

But your chances, and the time you are going to get to prove yourself, are dramatically reduced if you're simply just picked up after the draft to catch a few passes during a spring trial camp. Plus, that scenario makes it pretty unlikely that another team has/will ever hear of you after you get cut. So....where you get drafted DOES matter. In evaluating our own players, I think that we sometimes look for those longshot/undrafted success stories as a comparison. Those are the rare instances. I wouldn't think it's wise to rest your hopes on those uncommon occurrences.

I wonder how much this had to do with the way the season tanked at the end. This certainly puts a little damper on the anticipation of 10 returning offensive players, especially when the two players leaving are your best 2 receivers. I'm sorry to see him go, and I don't think this will turn out the way he might expect.

That might be true of the Creighton game. But 5 of 15 (33%) is certainly not an atrocious 3-point shooting stretch. What made it look so bad last night was that many of them were really open shots since we were playing a team who couldn't chase us around the floor as well as probably everyone else we'll face this year. I worry about surviving games this year when we come out of the gate shooting 2 of 15 from 3-point range. Because it's going to happen at some point.

Has anyone else noticed that Aaron, Emmanuel, and Daniel are all actually rotating in and out of the game only at the 2 post positions occupied primarily with Big Dog/Kwan/Michael. I'm seeing 3 Guards on the floor all the time now, and only 5 guys (Ivey and Martin as the reserves) rotating in and out with each other in various combinations. At least at this point, I'm never seeing a 3rd Forward on floor at any time. For instance, I'm never seeing Dog/Kwan/Utomi. My guess would be that this is telling us that the trust from the coaches remains with the guards, and not an expanded front court.

If the Mastadons of Fort Wayne can score a major upset, maybe it's finally our turn? http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/ncaab/bigten/2016/11/22/fort-wayne-upsets-indiana-hoosiers/94320458/ And I just noticed that this game was played in Fort Wayne?? WTF??

I understand the student fees. But our athletic programs would not exist without the people who buy tickets, and the donors and corporate sponsors. Can you imagine how much those student fees might be if we didn't have this huge outside influx of money? Or, what our teams might look like, and what they'd be able to do, without the outside money?

Good discussion here. I think what some people forget when we hear "The Browns suck but keep selling out games" is that there's so many season ticket holders. But those people start to no-show as the season progresses, or leave early. So, there's a real asterisk to that fact that "Browns fans always support their team....win or lose". Yes Kreed, they will be back in September. But they might not stay long.

No, just throwing it out there for discussion. It's clear that our fans don't connect with our past or present players. Maybe that can be improved in some way? That might be what it takes. There might not be much else we can do.

Sorry Balsy. Maybe someone should do a documentary on that 1986 OVC title season, and you young guys can watch it. I'd love to have something like that to watch myself. Maybe I'd even see what a mid-20s idiot I acted like at some of those games that year. But let me ask you this, as an example. An Auburn football fan knows all about Bo Jackson, and Oklahoma football fans know all about the BOZ. Even if they are only college students today. They worship those guys who are the previous legends. They never even needed to be alive when they played. So, how come we can't form that connection between fans and players? And I don't think it's because they went on to NFL mega-stardom. Archie Griffin tanked as a football player after he left college. But the folks down in Cowlumbus still worship the ground he walks on. Ahh. I wonder if there's any legal hurdles to using him on a Bobblehead? But that's a great idea.

That title game against MTSU is still one of my best JAR memories. That title was so unexpected. Watching the game against Michigan a few days later might have been just as exciting. Great memories.

I was there.

Jakubick? No, I get it. It seems like some people who responded would rather have LeBron's name on their jersey. I was just wondering what everyone thought. I personally would rather have something added to my collection that said Zips, or a Zips player. I love LeBron, but I don't collect LeBron artifacts

Hmmm. Getting some solid minutes from Hughes, and some fill-in minutes in the post from Poke might be needed on Saturday.

Perfect. Because neither are we

Thanks. Yes, I knew it was a real channel. I don't have the cable package that includes that channel, so I was assuming that the internet won't allow me to log into the Fox Sports internet site to watch in on line. I bet it's similar to the ESPNU games. If you don't pay for those extra packages, the Watch ESPN website won't let you log into those games.

That's what I'm thinking too. I would have liked to see an undefeated MAC team get to the Top 10, especially with a couple of P5 OOC wins in the Big 10. Having NO losses after 12 games should mean more than #17.

And you know this based on ?? I stated that we "may not have" because I don't know. I'm not willing to go any further just based on teams like this being on our schedule in the past, especially when then were at the beginning of the season. But it does "appear" to me that we were looking to fill an open spot, and may not have wanted a huge challenge between a weekend tournament and a road trip to Omaha. In these cases, you are often stuck with whoever is available.

We may not have even targeted a low division school. I'd wager that we simply had a spot we wanted to fill after we scheduled everything else, and that's who was available.

Right. But if you recall, it does NOT let you log in if you do not already pay for that particular channel in your package. And this shows FoxSports2, according to Creighton's website. I run into this problem all the time with ESPNU games, since I don't have the package that includes ESPNU.

I'm looking around a little more now. It's showing FS2 on Creighton's website.