jupitertoo

Well, at least he didn't repeatedly steal from his teammates to raise money for his drug habit, as did a certain starting QB last year. But seriously, he's a kid and kids often make stupid decisions. That said, he might come to his senses and return to the team. If not, the Bobcats are fairly strong at guard now, and they certainly played well without him virtually all of 2009/10.

It's hard to argue with the category in which coacheshotseat.com includes Ianello: Mediocre or Unknown hire. We either think this hire is mediocre or we don't know enough about this coach to have a strong opinion either way. Fact is, none of us knows anything about Ianello as a head coach because he's never been one before. So it's all down to pure guessing about how his non-head coaching experience will translate, though some are obviously more strongly opinionated about their guesses than others. Jim Grobe had never been a head coach before he came to Ohio. He completely revitalized the program in 3 years.

I've never heard of Dan Hipsher referred to as a stabilizing force. Interesting.

Larry Hunter is a very good basketball coach. He would turn around the rockets. Frankly, Toledo should be a league power every year.

Whether or not Bassett leaves might not be an issue in Athens. Their best shooting guard, Steven Coleman, was out much of the year with a broken hand. True, Bassett got hot in the MAC tourney and against Georgetown, but Coleman is a much more complete player, according to many reports.

Peter King.

I suspect part of KD's reluctance has to do with some incidents with JUCO's/troubled players at CMU when he was there.

Terry Pluto is one of the most overrated writers in "journalism." His "13 things I said to myself" articles are the laziest form of sportswriting -- he doesn't even do research anymore. He has about 4 different writing formulas he applies to his work, and it is beyond old. If quality were judged on sheer volume of work, he'd be great, but he badly needs an editor with the balls to say, "Terry, this isn't interesting."Did you know, by the way, that in order to afford Pluto, the PD let three high school sports reporters go? And high school sports coverage is a leading reason why people still subscribe to newspapers. Just a stupid, stupid decision by the brass in Cleveland.

Yep and it looks like I will be proved wrong. I did not expect Akron to be as successful as it has been on the road. Dambrot has them playing well.

Ball State 15 seed in 1993...

EMU in 1987 -- 15 seed. I only checked three years, so there are probably others.

No MAC program has ever been a 15 or 16 seed. Only if OU, or one of the MAC West teams stole the MAC tourney, would a 15 or 16 seed happen. If Miami won the MAC tourney, they would be damn close to 20-wins, with a very respectable RPI. A #14 seed is the absolute worst-case.And - CSU, as a 13 seed, won in the 1st round last season. I would hardly count them out in round 1. Waters can coach.You certain of that?

Well, yes, we did discuss this and apparently still see it a bit differently, or maybe we just describe it a little differently. How about we take a look at the stats this time:Overall, Zeke is currently shooting field goals at a fair .462 percentage for the season, including conference and non-conference games.If we look only at conference games, which represent the 11 most recent games the Zips have played this season, Zeke's field goal shooting average is a much better .541. That means that Zeke has the Zips second highest field goal shooting percentage in conference play behind only Bardo's .571. But Bardo has only taken 7 field goal attempts in conference play. So, in reality, Zeke is leading all Zips in field goal shooting percentage in MAC play.Yes, I see every player occasionally rushing shots and showing shaky shot selection, including Zeke.Yes, I see that Zeke rushed more shots and showed more shaky shot selection than many of his teammates earlier in the season (non-conference games).No, I no longer see Zeke's rushed shots and shaky shot selection as glaringly greater than many of his teammates, as demonstrated by his .541 shooting percentage over the last 11 games. The most important thing right now is that he is shooting at a consistently high percentage.I think that Zeke will continue to improve in this area as he will in all other areas. But I no longer see it as a special area of concern.Shot selection is an issue for virtually all freshman, regardless of team or level of talent. I would assume that the leader in the FOY derby is DJ Cooper at Ohio, who has logged several double-doubles and come close to triple-doubles on a few occasions, but he too takes some ill-advised shots, including one that arguably cost Ohio a win against Ball State last week.Cooper's stats: 12th in the league in scoring (13.3ppg), #1 in assists and #1 in steals. A very talented kid, but he does take some bad shots from time to time.

Are Zips fans satisfied with Zeke's performance/progress this year? I would assume most thought he would be MAC freshman of the year this year but that appears not to be in the cards. Has he been a little more of a project than expected?

John Groce has proven he can recruit, but the jury is still out on his ability to coach from the bench. He handed yesterday's game to BSU by failing to call two key timeouts in the closing moments of regulation and OT. And he had TOs available.1. With 30 seconds to go in regulation, Ohio's freshman point guard indicated he didn't know which play to run. Ended up dribbling the ball for 30 seconds and then throwing up a desperation 28 footer.2. In the OT session, OU was up 1 with the ball and 20 seconds to play. Had problems inbounding...and neither Groce nor the player called for a TO. 5-second call gives the ball to BSU, which promptly scores the winning basket.OU fans very, very angry. OU lost the Can't game at home in the same manner. It's like Groce freezes in crucial situations.

There's some speculation that Thad Matta and OSU would like to put on a holiday tourney. It would be great to get a deal that would ensure at least one MAC team but ideally two each year.[moderator note: merged topics for ease of following the conversation]

True, it's not going to be my Bobcats -- probably Akron or Can't. But predictions of 13-3 don't look very realistic. Too many chances for teams to trip up on the road. Can't losing to BG at home is a shocker, though.

ohiobobcats.com, then click on the game link in the calendar window, click "watch" and you're golden. Pretty good production quality, decent play by play, or listen to French while watching

Bobcats lost their "glue" in soph. Stephen Coleman (broken hand) two weeks ago and haven't figured out how to replace his points and/or court sense. They don't match up well with Akron's "bigs" either. OU is a year away from being a very good team, so the obvious advantage to Akron.

Where's Miami?

We only have one downtown hotel today and it has less than 50% occupancy. Not sure how Akron can support another one. Space for visiting teams -- that's 10-12 rooms max. for basketball. Visiting Football teams stay at cheapest decent hotel, often 5-10 miles outside of town. OU always stays at Falls Sheraton.Also important to note that Zips only had 2,400 for possibly the premier non-conference home game of the year. Not a compelling reason to build an arena in today's economic environment.

You predicted 10-2 for the football team, right? I've got $10 says the MAC East champ finishes the league season with 10 wins max.

The MAC's top program needed double OT to beat Troy. Kangaroo -- I see that you totally ignore Lefeaver's numbers. You've been badmouthing him all year -- how about admitting that the kid had a nice game when it counted?

FWIW, I remember a certain OU poster stating that OU has the highest debt ratio among Ohio universities(or something along those lines). If I remember correctly, he was replying to you when you said the exact same thing on bobcat attack. Why are you so worried about what some ignorant zips fans think? No one reads these pages but us, so it's not like we're publishing our arrogance in a newspaper. As some others have said, it's fairly obvious from your posts on this site that you are insecure about something. You feel the need to put down Akron and compliment OU at every chance. Who cares if people on zipsnation say ridiculous things. Who cares that people on this forum talk about the Big East when we barely compete in the MAC. Can't you just laugh it off? I know that's what I do every time I go on bobcatattack. I know you don't like to get caught up in facts, but a simple check of the Ohio Board of Regents would show that even before stadium construction, Akron had $422 million in capital debt versus $115 million in net assets. Ohio had $167 million in capital debt and about $136 million in total assets.The state assigns "viability scores" to a university's financial performance, ranked by percentage and a ranking of 1 (lowest) to 5 (highest). Akron's viability percentage is 29 percent, OU's 83 percent. The viability rankings are, Akron 1, OU 3.Add football stadium construction to the equation and this year's numbers are going to be ugly. it's pretty clear why Akron hires so many part-time faculty.

If you would stick to the facts (In know, it's hard), I wrote that Akron's athletics budget is not in the league's top five, nor is its football budget. There's no question Akron is spending out the wazoo on facilities, but those are capital budget items, and they're based on a lot of debt. For the sake of Ohio taxpayers, I hope the university can get its debt load back into slightly better balance. You might recall that the university's bonds were downgraded due to debt load last year.As to comparing Akron's "spend" versus other schools, please remember that other MAC schools were building/enhancing on-campus stadia and arenas for years while Akron was still at the $1 relic over near the municipal airport. So there's some catching up to do, no doubt. Geez, even EMU, with a horrendous program, has spent big-time on football and basketball upgrades over the past 5-6 years. Too bad their teams haven't reaped the benefits.But please, if you want me to be polite (and I'm trying), don't misstate the facts or claim I said something I didn't.