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Of course, it's obviously to our advantage now if they do well. We don't want this to be a "bad loss". As mentioned previously, it would potentially kill any NCAA tournament selection, or decent seeding chances. It probably would be a red flag to any other postseason committee looking to seed us or determine our matchup, for that matter. Lets hope it doesn't end up looking as bad as it seemed at the time.

Well, CMU beats OU last night. So, what does that mean for us? 1) The long road trip for OU vs. our bye week is obviously going to help us. But, would we rather have them coming off of a win or a loss? 2) It sucks that If we had won only ONE more game, we would be celebrating this CMU win, since we know now that it would have put us right into a one-on-one matchup next week for the potential (based on what Miami does) MAC East title.

I'd guess that these last two performances probably blows away the idea that preseason predictions has YSU in the Horizon basement this year. Makes me feel a little better.

I don't have any expectation. That's why I was asking if anyone had any knowledge of our stable of QBs being low or high compared to other D-1A teams. To your other point, I'm sure the staff may have felt like they were in good shape last year, with Pohl and Chapman, and Woodson (with 3 years left) on the bench, and a future starter coming in as a freshman the following year. Obviously, that's all changed with Chapman's virtual ineffectiveness, and Woodson's injuries.

He WAS recruited as a QB, and was moved to another position.

I don't disagree with you at all. I just think the concern here is that we may have never built any depth for an instance like this. With scholarships and walk-ons, does anyone know if it's unusual for a D-1A program to have only.... 1 Starter 1 Backup 1 Freshman who you are 100% committed to Redshirt. 1 Walk On who is on the roster as a "favor", and was never going to take the field.

No doubt. Yes, I can see some difficulty with people leaving work early. But this is the first home basketball game (cupcake or not) of the season, and a few thousand fans already have paid tickets. bigzipguy....I think you actually spell out the problem. It's post season, and the soccer season ticket holders need to buy additional tickets for this one. And there was only 1,400 and 1,500 for the MAC semi and title game, with no competition from basketball. Lets face it. This is still a team right now that nobody expect to go anywhere. It might take a couple more wins to get people back on the bandwagon. I just don't expect many people to throw away their basketball tickets to go pay to sit outside for this one. Heck, put it at 5pm. I think anything will help vs. competing with the basketball home opener.

There might not be much to hang our hats on right now, after what's happened the last few weeks. But, it's certainly worth mentioning that OU has to travel to Mt. Pleasant this week, while we'll be at home resting, getting healthier, and focusing on one game for a 2 week period. I hope that gives us enough of an advantage to have enough tools ready, and enough gas in the tank to make a run at these guys. Salvaging what's left of this season with an inspired win, and a likely bowl bid, would certainly mean far more to me than tanking and going home, and starting next September playing in front of some very disappointed and unexcited fans.

I don't see that the weak opponent affects anything in terms of the publicity that WMU will get out of this. But the hype for the conference, and showing the quality of our individual pieces, would surely be greater if they actually were able to talk about two top-level MAC teams on the same show.

Just consider that there's plenty of crossover fans, and they've already paid for their basketball tickets for Thursday. I'd take my chances that people might go to both if we can alter the time, rather than ditch their paid basketball ticket to buy a soccer ticket for a first round game. I'm not sure why anyone would consider a 7pm soccer start to be more important than trying to accommodate fans to get maximum soccer attendance.

It might not be getting attention right now. The real value will come when Millions of people turn on their TV's on Saturday morning and see a pregame show on a college campus in Kalamazoo Michigan, with tons of signs touting WMU. I'd probably want to go camp outside and have a 5-day Tailgate if something like that was going to happen on Saturday on Akron's campus.

Tenn Zip....I do understand your passion, and where you're coming from. And I was at the Grand Canyon game, and the attendance was a disaster. But the reality is that it's basketball vs. soccer. And the majority of loyal Akron basketball fans already had purchased tickets in their hands before this soccer game ever materialized. Soccer attendance for a first round tournament game would suffer badly if it runs parallel to the basketball game. I don't see any other solution than to try to play this before the basketball game.

I can't believe nobody has commented on this. Yes, I think it could be some sort of breakthrough with the national media paying attention to our conference, and maybe the best form of publicity that the league is ever going to get on a Saturday. Like I said in another thread, it's comforting to know that a couple of decent OOC wins and an undefeated conference record can get you to this point, both in ranking and publicity. I hope we can match this feat sometime.

Congratulations. Nice job saving the season over the last week or so. Now, make a run in the tournament and show us that you are still one of the top teams in the nation, like we all expected.

It looks like there is a few people who are ready to pack it in for the season, but I'm sure most of us agree with you that it's certainly too early to make any grand assumptions about the season. Way too early. But in particular, there has to be some major concern after last night about how we're going to find ways to defend people with the personnel we have this year. The way YSU was able to move and get open shots was one thing. But their ability to get to the basket repeatedly was beyond alarming. I can see it now. Those on this board who have been pleading for us to use a Zone more often are really going to be screaming for that change this year.

I thought that those 3 guards would probably start, based on Keith's past reliance on his most experienced players. The problem is that these 3 guys and Martin are going to have some tough matchup problems. Ivey is really the only formidable force who can come in and help that group in that area.

I'm just wondering if this means that a Top 16 Ranking is out of the question? Seriously though, giving up 90 points to YSU tells me that Keith and the staff have a lot of work ahead of them with this group. Maybe Reggie, Jake, and Pat meant a lot more to this team last year than we're willing to admit. And please, I don't want to see any "That's OK...March in Cleveland is the only thing that matters" replies.

This is hard to watch. Especially with announcers continually saying Anteeno Jackson and Noah Robot-um

So, if you look at Akron and Alabama next Spring after signing day, it's a total guess as to who really has the better group of recruits? Saying that the star ratings are wrong in many cases is a fair statement. It would be utterly ridiculous to say that the rating system means nothing.

It's funny that Chapman throwing the long ball is the reason why we won the Kent game. But since that time, it seems like his accuracy and decision making on those throws has just deteriorated down to the point where I don't want to even see him attempt them anymore. You're right. Altering the play calling to fit his ability seems like the only common-sense move.

Regardless of your frustration over how the Zips are playing, which is shared by everyone, I'd still rather be playing in a bowl game vs. not playing in a bowl game. Although I wouldn't jump through the ceiling with joy about taking 6-6 team to a bowl game, I think it's more embarrassing to be in this current system where 80 teams make it to a bowl, and you are NOT one of them.

Maybe we wouldn't have a shot at them next week, so it's a good thing we don't play them until the week after Well, instead of the OU game being for a MAC East title, it's for a .500 record. What a downer. We almost had a Receiver engineer an amazing comeback at QB tonight, and create a great storyline. Instead, the storyline is that we lose at home to a really bad team, and put Bowl chances seriously in jeopardy.

There's been pretty significant growth. One year of a little bit of a setback isn't going to alarm me. If it's not just a setback year, and we were to continue to erode next year, I will be alarmed.

I actually felt like we showed a lot of effort and laid it on the line against Toledo, for at least the first half. We're just a little short on talent right now. I hope I see more of that desire tonight.

I wish WMU had "overlooked" us for 3 quarters also. I'd agree with C. Kangaroo and say that I'd much rather judge Akron vs. Kent based on how we played against each other, rather than how each of us performed against someone else. But, it does concern me a bit that everyone else seems to be playing WMU better than us. I hope we can look back when this is all over and just chalk that up to a really bad game, much like the BGSU game last year.