LoyalZIP

KJ Walton should be a commanding force on offense, but he remains invisible. Not good. If the Zips can't even get easy looks, they're in trouble again. He needs to be this group's Tyler Cheese.

With Saturday being the conclusion to one of the biggest flops to a season ever in this program's history, I would expect the name to be announced within the next week or so. If you're going to fire a coach with nearly a month left in the season, you'd think it would be coming soon. This has been such an oddly quiet search. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not, just very interesting to me.

Agreed on the $30. That definitely hurt. But don't agree on the last two games. Akron didn't do what it did last night because of those games. Kent lost at Xavier then played Oberlin in preparation for James Madison and ended up beating a pretty good team. If Akron won by 15 last night, that would also not have been because of the last two games either. If these pee poor shooting trends continue, there are far bigger issues than games against Point Park and Wheeling, which came following scrimmages with Purdue Fort Wayne, WVU, a regular season game at Ohio State, and an entire training camp worth of practices.

Well said. I like the core of shooters—Trimble, Castaneda, Ali, throw in Clarke. I feel that’s a decent group there that can be successful. The big one is Trimble obviously as when he’s on, Akron won’t lose any game on the schedule. But he’s still very inconsistent. Though I will say I think he’s playing better defense and he’s been more willing to handle the ball a little bit so he isn’t a one-trick pony. Walton was invisible tonight. After he missed a wide open alley oop layup while they Zips were leading early, he disappeared. We absolutely can’t have that from a guy like him. Team effort. Teamism.

Man oh man, I don’t think the threads during the late season collapse last year were even this bad. I think we all know that this group has a very, very high ceiling. It’s game 5 of a 30+ game season. I am also bummed and disappointed in the performance, and no it didn’t happen because of the last two opponents. It happened because Akron shot the ball like s***. I’d prefer what happened rather than something like a 80-55 where you don’t make any stops. This is still a top 4 talent team in the MAC. The Zips didn’t have it tonight. Maybe they won’t have it tomorrow or in a couple weeks. But sometimes it takes time to build chemistry and that teamism that has thrived in this program. 2019-2020 teams don’t just walk through the door every year unfortunately. It will take time to build up to that level, they haven’t even figured out the go-to guy yet. That core practiced together for 2+ seasons. The pieces are there, they just need to fall into place. Tonight absolutely sucked and was disgraceful by this program’s standards, but fortunately we have one of the best coaches in all of mid-major basketball that can make some great things happen. The ceiling is so high for this group, I’m pumped to see what they can do.

I meant game. Ouch x100000

They just don’t have it today. This group has a long way to go, but the ceiling is very high.

What a miserable half

Toledo beats Charlotte, who was 3-0 Kent beats James Madison, who was 4-0 NIU loses by 7 to Little Rock

Kent and JMU are in a good one in a rec center in Naples. Also on Flo. The Gulf Coast Showcase game just ended. 109-104 Rice. Game was just as long as the football game against Kent on Saturday.

Now 2OT

Superb post @RowdyZip It's such an interesting and important topic to discuss, but it's so simple. I'd say that as a bottom line, competing for/becoming bowl eligible by the end of year two/three is absolutely reasonable and there's no reason that it can't be done here. Given how absolutely horrendous Akron has been for a decade plus, seeing the numbers that you guys have put in this thread is even shocking for someone who has been to just about every game. I can't believe the place isn't more empty. For all of the talk of financial incompetence at the U, I would argue that the athletics donor base is pretty strong. If it weren't, there would be zero means to justify firing the last three coaches with time left on their contracts. I don't pay much attention once people start calling those firings bad decisions when it comes to coming up with the money. If they couldn't afford to do it, they wouldn't considering the guidelines these ADs get from their bosses. Bowden had the formula to success right there, he just didn't follow through with it. He put together a really good roster in just over a year that had a ton of transfers that could buoy a locker room full of guys that didn't belong. Unfortunately, "the rest" of the guys on the roster ended up becoming his HS recruits, which were absolutely dreadful in most cases. If he could have supplemented his transfer game with legit HS recruiting later on in his career at Akron, he would've done so much better here. Oh, and if he had fired Milwee. He left the program a lot better than he found it, but as many other posters say, there was too great a talent gap by the end of it. You can't win at this level with a handful of transfers forever, just like you can't win quickly, or play teams close quickly, by recruiting high-character academic all-stars that belong at John Carroll. There's a happy medium. See: Portage County. And they play in a dump! I don't know if I really answered the question. But when people call Akron such a "hard job" or "it's impossible to win at Akron," I get where they're coming from, but I don't think it's in any way true. Ianello and Arth can be chalked up as disastrous hires, and Bowden did a nice job here until his philosophy became myopic and didn't work anymore. Brookhart had a bunch of issues at the end and that might be why he's disappeared since then. As time passes in this environment, the best coaches are the ones who can adapt to a situation whether it's how they normally do things or not. Look at John Groce. I get it's a different sport and that does matter, but I still think there's something to learn. He won big at Ohio recruiting his own guys. He goes to Illinois and is pretty average doing things the way he always did. He goes to Akron and is winning a lot. But he's doing it totally differently than he's done before. It's all about transfers and culture. And as he's progressed, he's relying more and more on his own HS recruiting. That's reality of the coaching game now, and it's not how he was raised in it or how he learned it, but he adapted to make it work. Akron can be successful. All eyes on Guthrie.

I would love them if they didn't have that weird wife-beater tank top thing going on with the shoulders. I don't understand that at all, at least make it navy!

https://www.flohoops.com/signup?redirect=%2Flive%2F30913&utm_campaign=97083mensgulfcoastsh&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=gulfcoastshowcase.com&utm_content=website&rtid=97083&coverage_id=7131529 $30 for a month of access. 640 WHLO sounds a bit more intriguing.

Definitely on the fence about subscribing, but I am excited. I’d say the Zips are the first, maybe second best team in the field since we don’t know much about anyone else. This is a nice early taste for the squad to feel out tournament play together and build their teamism. I’ll be a little bummed if the Zips don’t come back home undefeated from the trip, but it’s still early and there’s a lot of magic for Groce to work. With that said, the Zips are two weeks into the season and haven’t played a bad half of basketball yet. I know strength of schedule blah blah blah. We will probably see a couple this week, hopefully they handle adversity well. Go Zips!

If you could start some sort of donation things, I would happily contribute. You run one hell of a site and we all greatly appreciate it!

Even better, a high school coach that coached 1-AA tight ends 3 decades ago! JACKPOT BABY!!!! After he leads Akron to the Rose Bowl, he and Guthrie will take their talents to Nashville on the promise to make Vanderbilt into the next Alabama.

I don’t think anyone has contradicted themselves so badly within such a short period of time in the long history of Zipsnation. A few minutes ago, this was a dead message board that you were blessing with your Gospel. Now, it’s the driving force behind the incompetence of Akron football. Truly impressive, my friend 👏 👏 But hey, let’s hire the high school coach to save us all! Hopefully he brings in the Kimpton Middle School 6th grade B-team defensive coordinator as an assistant. That couldn’t possibly be worse than the D3 guy with no D1 experience!

Who is calling anything about today positive? I don’t know what fantasyland you live in, but members of this message board are overwhelmingly in favor of the leadership change and acknowledge the fact that Arth was a disaster of a hire. Also nice dig at ZN.o. It’s far and away the best message board in the MAC with enthusiastic posters who give great insight with regularity. It’s easy to use, and looks tremendous. You’re not doing anyone a favor by being a member here. Your posts are void of any kind of actual thoughtful substance or nuance and are nearly impossible to comprehend at times. You’re just a nobody on a message board too. Get over yourself. You’re embarrassing yourself.

What an embarrassing day to be affiliated with Akron football. The single highlight of the game was the 6th year kickoff specialist kicking a successful onside kick to open the second half. That tells you all you need to know. Akron has lost 3 of the last 4 Senior day games by a combined score of 111-9 with ZERO touchdowns. How the hell is that even possible? This was one of the very few times of the last few years that I woke up on a gameday truly excited at the opportunity to win a big game or at least rise to the occasion. How silly of me. Gibson must’ve been so beat up from last week still, he looked off since the first play of the game. 3&out and then almost immediately Crum has a 60+ yard rush. We all knew it then. The game was short, but it felt like a long, drawn out torture. And as big of a Kato critic as I am, it was wrong that he didn’t play a single down. And then as Akron does start to drive in the last couple of minutes, they run out the clock in opponent territory. Just unbelievable. And not long ago, some local media was mocking Akron for the firing due to two straight close games. For every one of those, there are twice as many like today. I (and we) have watched a lot of really horrible performances by Akron football. But that one might take the cake for me. Whatever poor soul has to take over this mess will have to wipe the slate absolutely clean and get all Arth/John Carroll stench off of this campus. A .500 rival team just came in and beat us just as bad as Auburn/Ohio State did. They just took their foot off the gas. And it was still embarrassing. There’s zero reason to play that game at Toledo next week. That could be straight dangerous for these kids if that’s the kind of effort that will be put forth. Beat Fordham.

The John Carroll Zips.

Guthrie loves Oscar and it would make him look even better in naming O-Rod the interim if Akron can pull this off. It will also prove him right about Arth. Let’s be honest, if Arth were still the man in charge, nobody would have any hope about this one. He (Arth) rubbed a lot of people at the U the wrong way when in his first year he made it very clear that Kent was just another game to him and he wasn’t really into rivalries. Alums that work at the U were absolutely baffled and furious. Then on a beautiful homecoming afternoon, they put up a 26-3 stinker that was 1000x worse than the 69-35 beat down last year. Arth didn’t have the right mentality. Oscar does. Does that mean he deserves a run at this thing for the long haul? Probably not. But it further solidifies the decision. BG fired Mike Jinks mid way through 2018. Nobody thought that was a bad decision when they came to Infocision on senior day and embarrassed us by keeping us out of the end zone for the entire game. It only further validated what the AD decided on. Ditto Buffalo in 2014. Kicked our tail with the interim. I should get to sleep. Roll Zippy.

He was not. A member of the committee told me it was Arth, Drayton, and Ivin Jasper.

I've got so much emotion going into this game. For over two years now, all of the commentary about the MAC is "Kent State's the greatest! They score so many points! Sean Lewis is the best coach in the MAC!" Meanwhile, Akron has been an utter disgrace. Well, there's a new Sheriff in town. He goes by O-Rod. The energy he has pumped into this team and locker room is staggering, and I am fully expecting him to have the Zips fired up and ready for this game. To look at the football, there will likely be many points scored. At least there should be. I'm always concerned about Akron's abilities as we never really know what we're going to get, but offensively the potential is there. Defensively, I still have big time worries, and this is where Akron lost this game last year, and would likely lose it this year. It could be a shoot out. I really don't have a ton more to say. I want this one more than usual. With a loss, Kent is still in the title race, but I want to break them. Lewis loves rivalries and will have them ready to fight like no other, but I have all my hopes in the Zips to come out and play just as hard, looking to prove themselves in the college football world on Saturday. I want the wheel. The Zips want the wheel. I can't wait!!! GO ZIPS!!!!

If you have half a brain cell, you would have tuned out Kato's dad once you discovered he was very, very serious about "Kato for Heisman" deep into Kato's career.