LoyalZIP

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Banes back to Houston

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Tod K is in the mix at Utah State and has interviewed. That would be quite the move. That program has become one of the better mid-majors known for its high-powered offense. Not so different from Toledo after all. Could be a KD-like move in trying to get to a multi-bid league.

I happen to agree. Hindsight is 20/20, of course, but that team was significantly better than every other team in the league. They got blown out by BG in the 2nd to last week of the season, but that was one of those games where the other team has a good night and the Zips had their worst game of the entire season. In Cleveland, Akron's toughest test probably would have been OU in the quarterfinals. I get called out quite a bit more on here than I should for waxing poetic about that team, the usual rebuttal being that they could have been bounced by the Kittens. That is absolutely true. But I can't say it enough--losing the ability to watch that team compete in the postseason is probably the most painful reality in my life as a fan of the Zips. That is worse than the Penno shot, sitting through VCU, the Blake Hamilton shot, any football embarrassment, Kent hoisting the trophy in 2017. LCJ, X-Will, Cheese, Banks, and Riak never got to play in the MAC tournament as the favorite in front of a giant crowd of Zips fans. UGH.

Well, included in the Fearless Forecast is the fact that if they make the Dance, and also make some noise in the Dance, then I would be very surprised to see him return. This isn't necessarily a prediction that I'm making. It's just a hypothetical situation based on where I believe this program will be next year. Anyway, after the 2022 season, schools came calling but ultimately he didn't pursue any of those avenues. That may go differently if they go back to the tournament and once again go 0-fer a second time around.

My official Fearless Forecast for the 2023-2024 season: This is John Groce's 7th and final season at Akron. If this upcoming team can do what it is fully capable of, they will get back into the Big Dance and hopefully make some noise. But that is a long way to go. As XGRoPOY said above, I'm not sure how much rebuilding of Akron this coaching staff is interested in at this point. I could certainly be wrong, but other than the Butler job opening last April, I haven't really felt at any point that Groce was ready to leave. After this coming season, his oldest will be graduating high school and it wouldn't shock me at all if coach wanted to turn the page and give a bigger job another shot. No reason to think or worry about that now, though. There's some business that needs taken care of.

Now that a D1 champion has been crowned, many reporters, bloggers, etc. are throwing together some way-too-early rankings to keep the conversation going a little longer before the long, warm summer offseason for college basketball begins. I like the idea, get people talking. And I like keeping the conversation of Zips basketball alive as long as possible before fully shifting my focus over to football. So, with many many months before any rosters are officially set, here is what I think the MAC will look like in 2023-2024. There's still a lot of movement with rosters, but I still feel that I, along with plenty of other regular posters, can already put together some decent hypotheses as to how this will all shake out. 1. Akron Zips: A homerific start to this post, I know. The MAC is losing a ton of its talent at the top, and considering how things have begun to shape up for next season , I feel this is a no-brainer. I'm normally cautious about giving the Zips too much credit for fear of getting my hopes up, but Akron currently has the most put-together roster in the league and I have no doubt that Groce is the best coach in the league. This could be a special year, I'm hoping the gel together a lot earlier in the season than Team 122 (2022-2023) did. I see the best big in the league, a dangerous stretch 4 that really came on at the end of the season, tremendously experienced and elite defensive guards in Tribble & Thornton, and young, promising PGs in Scott & Tavari. Throw in another offseason of development for Nate Johnson and a healthy Mikal Dawson, and the Zips may have something cookin'... 2. Ohio Bobcats: The Jeff Boals era has been fascinating, to say the least. He did wonderfully with Saul Phillips' players and then looked to have the next great guard in Mark Sears before he allegedly lied to Boals and boalted for Bama. Dwight Wilson departs, leaving a decent sized hole in their overall talent. With that said, I think the top 2 are pretty comfortably set--at least as of April 4. Jaylin Hunter came on as a stud of a guard, absolutely torching the Zips down in Athens. AJ Brown and Elmore James could be some of the great MAC guards of the future if they wind up sticking around for a while. If Boals can work the portal well, I expect the Kittens to be back in the MAC title conversation. 3. Kent State Golden Flashes: This is where things start to get a little muddy. The defending champs lose a tremendous amount of production from Carry, Jacobs, and Thomas. More importantly, they lose the two most important players that run the offense, and probably their two best defenders. They do return Santiago, Payton, and Sullinger along with some nice young guys in Julius Rollins and Delrecco Gillespie--assuming they don't go portaling. Pinky is a great MAC recruiter, though, which is why I'd put them up here instead of some of the other more promising teams. 4. Ball State Cardinals: The Michael Lewis era got off to a strong start, but sputtered out toward the end, as they were banged up and wound up losing to a few great teams to end the year. Payton Sparks is now a Hoosier, and familiar face, albeit not a big contributor, Luke Bumbalough is gone. Jalen Windham had a huge game at Akron, but was fairly average outside of that game. He's gone as well. Lewis has kept around a solid group of guards with Jaylin Sellers, Jarron Coleman, possibly Demarius Jacobs depending on eligibility, and he's added JUCO transfer Davion Bailey so far. A sophomore slump could be in the cards for Lewis, but that program had some energy it had been lacking for decades. They beat Toledo, Akron, and Kent in the regular season--no small feat. 5. Toledo Rockets: Ohhh poor Tod Kowalczyk. I may have them a little too low on this ranking, but losing Millner and Shumate was already a big blow, then you throw the loss of Dennis on top of that, and I think that really knocks them down a few notches on the ladder. Dante Maddox is still around, as well as Tyler Cochran and a few other nice pieces, but they lack a true leader that Dennis and Rollins have provided the last couple of years. Sonny Wilson, an incoming Fr. from the Detroit area, is a very highly touted recruit and could make this a quicker rebound than expected. For me, though, too many question marks going forward for now. 6. Northern Illinois Huskies: To be quite honest, I probably could have stopped after 5, because the rest of the league is shaping up to be a total crap shoot. A couple new coaches, a few teams gutted by the portal. Lots and lots of question marks. With that said, I think Rashon Burno is doing a fine job at NIU, all things considered. That was already a hard enough job before the days of the portal. They lose Thornton and a few other decent contributors, but as of April 4, they bring back enough pieces where I think they could be in okay shape. David Coit, Zarique Nutter, and Keshawn Williams--if they all return--make up a decent core of guards. They did beat Kent last year, and won enough to make it into the tournament. That isn't saying much, but after their first week of MAC play, I would have picked them to finish in the bottom 2 of the league. 7. Miami RedHawks: I see Travis Steele as more of a fit to return Miami to relevance than either of the last two clowns on that bench. How he got that program to Cleveland this year is above my comprehension. Morgan Safford and Ryan Mabrey are solid pieces that return. Outside of that, anyone's best guess. I'm moreso banking on my belief in Steele than anything else putting them here. We'll see what he can do. Man, this league is going to be baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad. 8. Western Michigan Broncos: Stephens made quite the ambitious move to leave a comfy spot at Michigan State to coach men's basketball at a directional Michigan. And I feel they underachieved in his first season. Lamar Norman is far too good a basketball player for them to have the level of success they did. But I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. If B. Artis White is back and healthy, they could be a dark horse once again. JaVaughn Hanna, Seth Hubbard, and Jefferson Monengro made up a decent freshman class. Titus Wright may be hanging around too. They could be a few pieces away from getting somewhere. Maybe. 9. Eastern Michigan Eagles: I expect Acuff and Farrakhan to return. As for Mr. Bates, it's been radio silence on what he's doing. I thought by now he would have declared for something other than returning to be miserable in Ypsi again. Anyway, I don't have high hopes even if that core does remain intact. I would be more bullish on them if Bates left, to be honest. I think that whole situation that follows him around is a disaster for the college level. I should have so much more to say for a roster with this amount of talent, but 2022-2023 was so awful, I really don't know what more to say. This is a program that should make it to Cleveland. If they don't, Heath must be fired. 10. Bowling Green Falcons: I love the hire their new AD made. Simon is a great coach that put Southern Utah on the map, whether other MAC fans are aware of that or not. They were a good program in a good league, and rallied from 23-down to beat Aziz Bandaogo's Utah Valley Wolverines in the conference tournament. With that said, this roster is a barren wasteland. I don't know for sure who is returning as of right now. Samari Curtis, if he's back, is a decent little piece to build around. BG basketball has a substantive endowment that saves if from the rest of the school's financial struggles. Perhaps that propels them a little higher. I am eager to see what Simon does here. 11. Buffalo Bulls: How the mighty have fallen. Groce killed Buffalo in that he ended any hope they had of making a run to save Whitesell's rear end a couple years in a row. They took a shot at getting rid of him after a pretty awful year, and they had a whale of a time finding a replacement. With that said, George Halcovage could be a surprise splash hire. But much like BGSU, the cupboard is bare. If there is even a cupboard there at all. Most of their players from a poorly constructed roster have gone into the portal. I would be surprised if it didn't take UB at least a couple of season to claw their way back into the top half of the league, even as the league is not deep anymore. 12. Central Michigan Chippewas: Barbee did a great job in 2021-2022, getting that group to Cleveland and a bucket away from the semifinals. However, he did it mostly with old grad transfers. Fools gold, if you will. I was not surprised to see them take a step back this past season, but I was surprised to see them take a giant leap backward. An already flawed roster was hit with the injury bug. Yet somehow they were the only one of Ohio, EMU, Toledo, and CMU to come out on top at Michigan. They lose Bass Zarzuela, Miller, Pavrette, and a few names I've never even heard of. Hell, I wouldn't be shocked if Chris Fowler and Braylon Rayson re-enrolled just so they could transfer out. That's how bad things are in Mt. P. It has become a basketball wasteland, and I would be absolutely floored and embarrassed if this program finds its way to Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse in March of 2024. Stranger things have happened, that is for sure, but this is a really bad situation. Barbee came in with a solid resume that included plenty of HC experience. And he came from Calipari's bench. Only to be miserable in northern Michigan. Yikes... What say you, ZN? The ranking is far less important than the general thoughts on how each program is trending as we go into the offseason. I'm sure we'll have plenty of surprises from now until November. Hopefully they're surprises that benefit the Zips.

The absurdity of some posts in this particular thread of have been mind-blowing, but that one may take the cake

This is the way^^^ @zippy-claws As someone whose full-time job is not running the University of Akron's Division 1 athletic department, I place a lot of value on previous HC experience when my favorite teams are hiring for a few reasons. The biggest one, is they generally know what it is like to be successful and to be unsuccessful as a head coach, and how to respond when they are in the big chair, as opposed to being next to the big chair. They are familiar with actually having the pressure and responsibility that comes with being the CEO of the program, as opposed to being next or third in line. To me, that is something that has a lot of value. I don't know how many there have been or what the numbers are--but I can think of plenty of coaches (even just at Akron alone) who are successful assistants and get their first crack at an HC job, only to fail (sometimes miserably) and then go many years before ever taking a HC job again, if they ever do. So, like our Fearless Leader @Captain Kangaroo said, as long as the candidate is vetted properly like we all hope Guthrie has done with all programs, this hire is fine by me. I suppose it is a good thing that we didn't just get a "name" and we've gotten someone who has been around different parts of the country in a few different programs.

Larry Williams fired Terry Bowden (which was the correct move) and replaced him with Tom Arth (the wrong move). If he had kept Bowden and they had gone 4-8/5-7 for 5 more years, you could argue that Williams would still be here, or even ridden the Groce wave to a better job. Had he hired a great coach after Bowden, he would have ridden that wave to a better AD job. What actually happened, is he was not renewed (fired) and spun it as not being comfortable with the current state of college athletics. In reality, he just showed that he is not capable of being a D1 football AD. He’s now the AD at San Francisco. Charles could’ve kept Jackson and gone anywhere between 7-11 and 11-7 in the MAC every year for a decade. The easiest and safest thing would have been to extend her after the 21-22 season and ride out that contract and wash your hands of any nefariousness that he’s being accused of. We’ve now seen a significant turnover in the roster of coaches at Akron, the next step is to see how well they do and what standard they are held to.

I certainly understand the people who think a woman or minority should have gotten this job, or been considered or targeted or whatever. Hell, I may even agree with that. But the number of “fans” who are not even going to support this new head coach is just staggering to me. People are acting like we dumped Pat Summitt out on the side of the road and kicked dirt in her face only to replace her with Tom Ianartho. Jackson was hired by Larry Williams, who played with her father in law with the Browns. Larry didn’t put much into hiring that position and just let it be what it be. Now we have an AD who takes initiative to make a change to a program that is very obviously not going anywhere. Again, replacing female coaches with male coaches will always raise questions and look bad, but at the end of the day, this is a meritocracy. I could sit here and complain that the softball coach he hired is a man, but for the first time in recent memory, softball is over .500 at the end of March! Over the past decade with ADs who didn’t care, they were dozens of games under .500 to this point. Volleyball, he replaced a male coach who lost a lot and he’s trying to get better. Track, unfortunately we lost Mitchell and he hired a woman to head that program. It really grinds my gears to read some of the stuff I’m reading. I even saw one post talking about how Guthrie is like all other ADs—doesn’t care about women’s sports. Then why the hell would he put himself through the process of hiring new coaches instead of hanging onto mediocrity? That makes no sense. If the best chance to win is with a new voice, let’s hear it! This move is a far bigger risk for Guthrie as an AD trying to build up his resume than just extending Jackson and riding with the status quo. This is the initiative many people would kill for from their AD.

Lots of folks b-wording online about diversity and replacing a woman with a man and Jackson got screwed and BLAH BLAH BLAH Today was the first real action toward turning the page and getting back to the winning culture that Kest was able to build for a handful of years. I don’t want any more “atta boy” and “atta girl.” I want to go back to beating Kent once or twice a year—at least. I want to regularly advance in the tournament. I want to play for championships. So little of the discourse is about that. It’s all about feelings and politics and all that nonsense. The nonsense that losers and complainers like to get caught up in. I much prefer discourse about winning, recruiting, play style, etc. For those fans “leaving” that are telling the program to “enjoy not having fans,” well, we have the worst attendance in the league so nothing is changing. Instead of being divisive and whiny, let’s show some TEAMISM and be #1Akron. Go Zips!!!!

Guthrie loves him some Syracuse. Gensler has that going for him as well, which almost certainly played a role.

Interesting hire. Again, no previous HC experience which is a concern to me. But he's been around a few different places, which is a good sign. Welcome, coach!

Yeah, the "report" (if you can even call it that) left me scratching my head. As did the lack of other info. WBB doesn't have nearly the reporting that MBB has, so I think we should just take a deep breath until we see it on @ZipsWBB.

NOT MAC RELATED: Did anyone watch the NIT semifinals last night? It was a pair of awesome games. It's a shame they were in Vegas instead of MSG. They definitely lacked the luster the NIT semis usually have. Anyway, North Texas of the C-USA took down Wisconsin in a slow-paced grind-it-out classic. Wisconsin led 54-46 with 9 minutes to go, and didn't score again. UNT won 56-54. They play a bit like Akron, I enjoy watching them quite a bit. The next game featured our old friend Aziz Bandaogo and Utah Valley against yet another C-USA team in UAB. UAB had the upper hand most of the evening, but Aziz helped keep it close. UVU got it to OT, but couldn't get the stops they needed. UAB onto the NIT final to make it a C-USA party. The C-USA now represents both teams playing in the NIT championship and a national semifinalist in FAU. This is some wild stuff. The NIT title game is on Thursday night, and of course the Final Four games on Saturday. I love seeing mid-majors do what they're doing right now. The only thing that could make it better is if we were in on the party.

If this is the case, I really don’t love it on the surface. I think it’s extremely risky to hire someone who’s never been a head coach before. And while it’s good that she’s had continuity, I think it also hurts that she hasn’t worked for a few different head coaches in her time. With that said, I do like going the P5 route. I hope whoever winds up being the next head coach can bring this program to some relevance and bring some life into the JAR. Akron women’s basketball has been a “friends and family” program for its entire existence. Let’s build a real fan base and have some fun! Go Zips!

The Greg Tribble criticism bat signal is still working like a charm!

I figured someone would leave. That room is full to the gills.

Way back when, the MAC used to broadcast quite a few games on Fox Sports Ohio/SportsTime Ohio. The MAC tournament used to be played there, Akron/Kent games, MAC football games, etc. Off the top of my head, I can't remember when that ended. Probably around the time that ESPN gave all MAC schools the ability to broadcast their own games. I watch the Zips basketball and football TV shows when they're uploaded to YouTube, but I'm pretty sure those are still broadcasted on Bally.

Keep an eye on what's happening at Buffalo. After the Zips took down the Bulls in the 2022 QF, many here called it "the game Groce Killed Buffalo." Then he blew them out in Whitesell's final game in the 2023 QF. They have now reportedly been turned down by every one of the top 3 candidates on their list of prospective head coaches. 6 Bulls are in the portal as of right now. It's been reported that Buffalo has no opportunities for NIL, either. Jerrod Calhoun of Youngstown State turned them down today. YSU is one of the hardest jobs in the Horizon League, and he would get a decent raise if he went to Buffalo. From a 6-seed in the tournament 4 years ago to scraping the bottom of the barrel to get a head coach.

Great passer and defender. I like it.