UAZippers

I agree that Ivey and Antino are very good players. I think the best player on the team last season was far and away Big Dog, but I am excited to see what Ivey can do next year with a team that I would guess will be more structured towards his skill set. I am at the point where I am assuming Antino is gone. I will be happily surprised if he returns. Utomi showed promise, but that is it. There is not enough sample size to know how he will turn out. His problem is that it looks like he might have to play out of his natural position his whole career. I by no means am saying that there is not talented Zips, but I do not understand how anyone could think that we are far more talented than the other upper-level members of the MAC. EMU is pure talent, they just have a coach that I wouldn't trust with a junior high women's squad and you can tell just by watching that they have no chemistry. Buffalo and Kent both showed what can be done when you just let athletic freaks do what they want on the court. As far as the quotes, I agree that I was disappointed in the play of the some of the Zips last season, but there is a reason that certain player played over others. To say that we won't miss every guard we had on the team (If we call Ivey a 3 since that is what he played last season) is laughable and I have 0 faith that Aaron Jackson will be a productive player next year. I hope I am wrong.

You completely contradict this point with everything else that you said. I don't know how we have so much talent when you claim that 4/5 starters and our top 2 bench players were below par. I would argue that Akron has been below the top teams in the MAC in terms of talent recently. I believe that Buffalo, Kent, EMU, and maybe OU all had more talent than the Zips last season. We won because we have a system that our players bought into and they all knew their role to help the team succeed. With 6 of our top 8 leaving, I'm not sure how the team is going to be able to react. I hope that JG can give us a winner next season, but won't be because the current team is just loaded with talent.

How many games is there in the non-conference schedule? Between the Hawaii games, the Coaches v Cancer season opener, and our ongoing home-and-home with Marshall (which I am pretty sure is not over yet), did KD schedule a single game for next season?

The idea that JG can pull in Bragg is not looking too great.

Before it was closed down in 2015(?). The Pie Factory in Quaker Square made all of the Zippy cookies. I guess I have never thought about where they come from now. I would assume just general Catering Services through the university.

Its fun to hear that Big Dog had a good game, but lets not act like one day tells a whole story. His first game on Wednesday, he went 0-4 and didn't score. Single games very rarely tell you anything. As Kreed said above me, Big Dog has been shooting and hitting 3's during warm-ups all season. However, I feel like the last thing that the Zips needed last season was another guy who wants to stand at the 3-point line.

Don't get your hopes up on Jeter. He wants to stay with a pretty major school and he is looking out west.

I wouldn't say that I am ok with assault, but I am not willing to blame Groce for what other men did. He took a couple bad risks, and as far as I can tell, dealt with the issues as well as I would expect from a coach. You never know how a player will respond to an opportunity. Think of all the "high risk" people on our football team right now. The vast majority have been model citizens.

I was also quite surprised to see Thompson on the list. It certainly opened my eyes a little. Big props to him.

Josh represented UA well one last time. He was just named to the All-MAC Academic team. The only Zip to receive the honor.

I thought about the assistants, the problem would be that UA would have to continue to pay the higher salary once they start paying Groce as well, or the assistants would all get a pay cut heading into year 3. I would gladly take a couple new bathrooms at the JAR.

I know this is a dream and not happening. Wanted to put that first, but can you imagine if Groce agreed to work for free or insanely low money for the first two years as long as UA agreed to put the salary he would have been payed towards an arena renovation. He still would get the same pay from Illinois and that would be a nice chunk of change to get the university started. Even if it was just a higher scouting budget or an upgraded player locker/hang out room to make UA more desireable, at face value this could be a big opportunity to improve the program.

6 year deal.

Big save for Dambrot. Lewis was there best player last year and announced he would transfer before Dambrot was hired. His transfer was the major reason that I didn't believe that Dambrot would take the job.

From Jamion Christian's website: "The process is helped by highlighting versatile players in Christian's "mayhem" system, a pressure defense coupled with a 3-point-centric offense" "The Mountaineers’ pressing defense combined with their quick, small guards and reliance on the three-point shot, could provide a bad match-up" We certainly have the shooters to fulfill his offense, but as much as I would like to see a high pressure defense, can our current players handle it? It is asking a lot to go from defense in which the guards could not stay in front of their men to a defense about full court pressure.

Dambrot was routinely criticized for his on court demeanor by pretty much every other MAC team's fans. He threw plenty of fits over officials while he was here. I don't think having a red face makes a person a bad coach.

http://www.ubbullrun.com/2017/4/3/15159704/buffalo-bulls-to-drop-four-sports The University at Buffalo just announced that they are dropping 4 sports. They are describing it as the only way to stay competitive in everything else. It will be interesting to see how the fans react. This is a much bigger cut than the UA baseball fiasco from a few years ago. Arguing for less spending in Football/Basketball is just yelling at air. The negative perception that would be caused by the move makes it almost impossible for me to see any school willingly subject themselves to it. Look at UAB. When they dropped football, it was in national headlines for weeks. It is the cuts to the smaller programs that teams are somewhat able to get away with.

Everybody flew right past this suggestion, but there is some intrigue with Jent. If the LBJ connection is really important to the university, he was formerly Lebron's personal shooting coach during his first stint with the Cavs. Apparently they are still pretty close. He was also an NBA interim head coach with the Magic for a season.

Sorry for spreading fake news earlier.

Dambrot only ever had two. Eubanks who has not yet played for the Zips and Nyles Evans.

Wisconsin beat writer thinks Paris makes sense.

TDM says that he is following Dambrot. I'm sure he was offered a scholarship. My assumption is that Hughes and Dalton are going to Duquesne as well, since it was stated that they are leaving together.

Yeah, looks like it was deleted. He said something along the lines of: To those wondering, TDM, Hughes, and me are leaving.

Ty Dalton named Hughes as someone that he was leaving with. Nothing straight from Hughes as of now.