ZZZips

You can knock WMU down another 50 to 75 spots in the rankings. Connar Tava (best player on the squad imho) had surgery on Friday for a broken foot. Could possibly miss the entire season.

Did they remove the attractive carpet from the walls of the stairwells? Did they update the Hall of Fame pictures? How about those fine looking globe lights around the upper exterior? All three give the JAR that great Polytechnical look!

I don't understand the question highlighted above. We have committed to playing both programs on a rotating basis. This year we play CSU, next season YSU. The sight will rotate between the four schools involved in the Northeast Ohio Coaches vs Cancer project sponsored by the Cancer Society. Are you implying that Dambrot should not participate in this endeavor between the four schools?

Ada Zip: KD released the Zip's Non-conference schedule today. I await your analysis!

Any chance Moss will enroll at ASU and be eligible a year from now?

http://bit.ly/1MBKcxv

Per UC Santa Barbara website: "The Gauchos' final pre-Christmas games will be played at the South Point Holiday Hoops Classic in Las Vegas on Dec. 22-23. In addition to UCSB, Tulane, Akron and Iona will be in the tournament." On the UCSB schedule: 12/21 noon vs Akron, 12/22 noon vs Iona. Dates on the schedule don't seem to match their press release. Another oddity is that Tulane's site shows them playing at home in New Orleans on 12/22.

From this mornings Beacon Journal " The former volleyball coach,...was reassigned to student Recreation & Wellness Services last year when a new volleyball coach was hired. His $106,451 job is vacant. He resigned effective June 26."

" After their head coach was fired, at least 6 of the remaining players and 1 recruit reportedly requested transfers." DIG: Not sure how accurate this statement turns out to be when you look at the current BG roster. Only two of those six actually requested a release from their scholarship. Both were granted by BG. Jovan Austin has enrolled at DII Texas A&M Commerce. Delvin Dickerson has not enrolled at a new school. The other players all are participating in the team's summer program. There was a lot of immature tweeting by the BG players at the time of the Jans debacle. ADA Zip: Glad to see your still active on this board. Hope to see you and your wife at a Zips game this year. Can you arrange a Home-and-Home with Valpo?

I wish Tree and Nick well but I am more interested in what our current players are doing this summer. Attached are the only pictures I can find that show any current Akron players participating the the local summer league. Are other players involved?

I disagree. Real leaders don't need to eat in the employee cafeteria every day to know their competition, their organization fiscal strengths and weaknesses and their customer's needs. How many employees are going to stand up in a meeting and say their part of the organization sucks and should be a prime target for elimination? Finding the poor performing parts of an organization can be accomplished without the "feel good" or "listening tour" meetings. The strengths of UA that need to be further enhanced are evident to most of us.

Thanks for the memories Captain! Dennis Helsel Director of Athletics Emeritus Chowan University "Dennis Helsel served as Vice President/Director of Athletics for Chowan University for eight years. He retired from the position in December 2013 and currently serves as an assistant professer in the SSPE department. Helsel has over 30 years of intercollegiate athletic experience that includes associations with several NCAA Division I universities as well as an NCAA Division I athletic conference. As a result of his dedication and commitment to Chowan, President White named him Director of Athletics Emeritus. Helsel is the first in school history to receive the honor. Helsel graduated from West Point in 1969 and earned a Bachelor of Science degree with a concentration in engineering sciences. He then served in a variety of military assignments to include Viet Nam before going to the Pennsylvania State University for graduate study. After completing his Master of Arts degree in Mathematics at Penn State in 1976, he was assigned to instruct mathematics courses at West Point and serve as assistant coach for West Point’s lightweight football team. One year later in 1977, he was named the school’s first varsity head softball coach and was promoted to Assistant Professor in the Math Department. Helsel resigned from active military service in 1980 and returned to Penn State to pursue a second Masters degree. While he was working to earn his second graduate degree, he was hired as the Pennsylvania State University Head Softball Coach. He was the head coach for one year (1980-1981) before being asked to step aside as coach and accept the position of Athletics Events Manager. As the Athletics Event Manager, he coordinated all home athletic events at Penn State in addition to coordinating all football travel. He served in that capacity for two years before being hired by Old Dominion University. Helsel continued his athletics administration career at ODU as the Assistant Athletic Director for Business. After five years with ODU, Helsel moved north to Syracuse University. From 1988 to 1995, Helsel served as the Assistant Director of Athletics for Finance and Team Services. During his tenure he directed Syracuse’s football and men’s basketball game management operations, improved budgeting processes and reporting, and developed a formal Summer Camp Policy Manual that was offered to the NCAA as a resource for other colleges and universities. In 1995 Helsel was promoted to Associate Director of Athletics, assuming the responsibility of Chief Financial Officer for the Syracuse Athletics Department. In all, he worked at Syracuse University for 10 years and in those years under his direction as CFO and Assistant AD for Finance and Associate AD the athletic department never experienced a deficit financial statement. During those ten years, Helsel was responsible for successfully negotiating high dollar contracts with visiting football and men’s basketball teams and various college football bowl organizations. In 1998, Helsel was hired as the Director of Athletics at the University of Akron (OH). During his two years at Akron (1998-2000) Helsel directed 17 intercollegiate athletic teams, 65 staff members and 350 student-athletes. Under his direction, the University of Akron saw dozens of student-athletes garner both national and conference awards. In addition, his leadership facilitated significant upgrades to existing athletic facilities and the creation of new athletic facilities. In 2000, Helsel was asked to reorganize the external arm of the University of Maryland athletics department. That assignment was completed in one year and in 2001 Helsel accepted a position with Conference USA, a growing NCAA D-I athletic conference. From 2001-2003 he served as the league’s Associate Commissioner in charge of Finance, the Director of Football Operations, and Men’s Basketball Tournament Director. In 2003 his responsibilities changed somewhat when he was put in charge of Sports Services, Championships and Football Operations. During his three years with Conference USA, he conducted 14 conference championships and negotiated football scheduling contracts with television partners for the conference. In 2004 Helsel stepped away from the athletics world and went to work for a non-profit organization called “Team Focus,” located in Mobile, AL. As the President, he was responsible for coordinating all aspects of the program that mentors young men who have lost fathers for whatever reason. Throughout that period he was also a key motivational speaker for the 5 day leadership camps – a staple of “Team Focus.” But the lure of returning to intercollegiate athletics grew strong in his heart and in February of 2006, Helsel accepted the position of Director of Athletics at Chowan University. His return to intercollegiate athletics has produced immediate results. There are new organizational charts, newly created policies and procedures manuals, new coaching hires, upgraded athletic facilities, new athletic facilities, balanced budgets and increased athletic scholarship dollars. But probably his most significant accomplishment to date has been overseeing the administrative process that culminated in the granting of full active NCAA Division II membership, effective September 1, 2007. In August of 2012 Helsel began his position as Chair of the NCAA DII National Men's Soccer Committee. The central Pennsylvania native is married to wife, Sue. Together they have three children Mike, Chris, and Jenny and five grandchildren, Mia, Maci, Ava, Jack, and Avery. They are all Chowan Hawks proud." Source: Chowan University Athletics, emphasis added.

There is a long list of "does and don'ts" when you are hosting a league or NCAA tournament event. You noticed a few of them. You may have missed it but there was no Zips Sponsor advertising on the media boards, no contests on the floor during media timeouts, etc. It has been this way for many years but we haven't noticed the rules since we have gone straight to CLE in past seasons.

Short video filmed at practice on Tuesday by the Lima NBC affiliate. http://bit.ly/1G9Kaqc

Informative article in today's PD by Elton Alexander that DiG should love. http://bit.ly/1zxy6gn A quote on Free throw shooting stats: " Where 68 percent team free throw shooting used to be considered marginal, the best conference in the country, the ACC, had eight teams shoot less than 68 percent from the line in their last game. The culprits might surprise you. Florida State (66.7), Louisville (61.4), Wake Forest (59.3), North Carolina State (57.9), Boston College (55.6), North Carolina (55.0), Miami (54.5) and Duke (53.8). Four of those teams were in the last AP Top 25 poll. Two of them (Duke and Louisville) were in the Top 10." Elton only uses stats from the last game played by each team but I found it interesting. Also in the article Elton provides a link to a Cincinnati radio reporters blog article. The article has links to numerous writers around the country talking about suggested rule changes to increase NCAA MBB scoring.

In case the teams meet again in Cleveland, David Brown wanted the Zips to know how he respected them after losing to them twice this season. Quote from today's Kalamazoo Gazette: "It's tough because they didn't beat us," an emotional Brown said in a soft tone and with red eyes. "We beat ourselves. We should've hit our free throws and there were some things we should have done defensively. Our ball club is a lot better than their ball club. We just beat ourselves pretty much."

Got to give credit to this Buckeye fan. He at least joins the discussion with his real name, year of graduation, picture and twitter handle. http://bit.ly/1G0SRHd

I saw this post on the EMU board by EMUSuperFan: "With this loss attendance will drop off big time just like last year." Last year EMU average attendance was 940 per home game. Last night their attendance was 1,036. I guess a "big time" drop off is going from 1,036 down to 940.

Dear Alone in Ashland; 1. File for divorce from your original family. 2. Move out of Ashland Live happily ever after.... Abby

Without checking the height charts from prior season It seems to me that we have less size than recent (last 5 years) history. Subtracting Zeke and Tree and adding Robotham and Jackson Jr. makes for less size not more. Fortunately for the Zips there is no MAC team with size this year.

Per her tweet yesterday, Rachel should have arrived back home today. Unfortunately her pro career in Iceland is over. Good luck to her on her future endeavors. http://instagram.com/p/wwZoN0BSpD/

I flew into FAR from CLE today Very windy and icy. Temp won't get below zero tonight but the wind chill definitely will.

It will be fun watching Noah and Sean Sellers, freshman forward at Ball State, battle it out for FOY as the season goes on. Sellers is averaging 19.5 ppg for their first four games. Noah is looking great but Sellers is also making a strong freshman run.

I want to add one more compliment to this string. Our new University president, Dr. Scarborough and his wife attended Sunday's game. They also attended the fan/team dinner on Saturday night. Dr. Scarborough made a few short comments from the podium and then took questions. (DIG had a great question and got a well thought out response. I'll let him post the info if he cares to do so.) He was visible in the lobby and had fun mingling with the fans. He sat with the rest of the fans and team family members at the game and rode on the fan bus to/from the game. He and his wife were were on their feet cheering as loud as any of us. I asked him after the game if he enjoyed his first view of the Zip's MBB team. Both he and his wife said they loved us beating a SEC team on their home turf. Thank you Scott and Tammy for joining the fans at the game. Both are already vocal and avid ZIps!

Simply, KD added new plays and options to existing plays. This is not unique to this year. When we have used a play that I have not seen, I ask about it and get a brief explanation that KD thinks I can understand. Some of the play options are too complicated for my level of understanding. It would be hard to explain some of the variances in sets on a white board. Video of the plays showing the actual timing is more relevant but I doubt if KD wants to prep our opponents.