GP1

I never do.

There is a school near my place called Winthrop University and they had a ton of success with Gregg Marshall at the helm. Zero since him. Could happen to Akron.

Columbia is one of those towns that people drive through on their way to somewhere else and don't know much about. For good reason, because it isn't set up to be a destination. I'm going to assume a 4:00 start means most people might want to go to a bar and then out to eat after the game, or not. This post is going to be a Terry Pluto type rambling in most ways. Things To Do Before the Game Wild Wing Cafe is a chain around the Carolinas. Similar to BW3. Lots of TVs and beers to pass a couple of hours before the game. This one is at The Vista, which is an entertainment area very close to downtown Columbia and USC, which is in the city. In fact, USC is very much like UofA in terms of where it is in relation to a city. I'll probably go here before the game. Carolina Ale House is nice with a good upstairs that on a nice day they open the doors and has a rooftop bar. Not as good as Wild Wing Cafe, but not bad either. Personally, I like WWC better. Could Be Done Before or After The Game Mellow Mushroom is a pizza place scattered throughout the Carolinas. Personally, I really like their pizza, but I have not been to this one so I don't know if they have a lot of TVs or not. Most have a good beer selection. Mrs. GP1, the luckiest woman in the world, and I go to the one in Winston-Salem after Wake games sometimes. If you aren't into the bar scene and just want a good salad for lunch or a nice place, but not too nice, for dinner, California Dreaming is a good place. You might recognize it from North Myrtle Beach or at the south end of Myrtle Beach. Personally, I only get the salads because I'm not a fan of the rest of their food. The salads are great if you want one. They make their own dressings and salad does not mean health food at this place. Things To Do After The Game (In addition to the above.) I absolutely love Blue Marlin. If you like fish, you will here as well. If a sauce is offered, get the Charleston Sauce. The Firecracker Shrimp appetizer is great. The shrimp are breaded and fried then served with very thin slices of a type of pepper. There is a Greek place at the Vista and I can't find it on the internet. Great food. For the college age fans.... Five Points Personally, I'm going to dinner at Terra in West Columbia after the game. It may sound far from the game, but it is only across the river a couple of miles from the arena. My wife and I met the owner/chef at Cypress one night in Charleston and promised him the next time we stayed in Columbia we would go to his place. I'm a man of my word. He was really in to the Charcuterie at Cypress and does his own at his place. Doing your own Charcuterie is very popular in the Carolinas. Let's just say Cypress has an appetizer called "Spreadable Salami".... Outside of the Box Maurice's BBQ is a great BBQ. Go with the mustard based BBQ sauce and some hash and rice. If your goal is to have a heart attack by the New Year, Lizards Thicket is your place. Places To Stay Marriott uptown is close to campus and Vista. I think it is the hotel for the Gamecocks, but it is big enough for two teams. This Courtyard is an easy 200-300 yard walk to the arena. You can also walk to the Vista from here but I'd recommend a cheap cab ride. I'm staying at Springhill Suites. Enjoy if you are going. If you stick with places around The Vista, you will be able to find something you like.

If anyone is going to Akron vs. USC V2.0 and would like some food and drink recommendations, just say so and I'll make it happen.

Don't tease us like a stripper with tassel accentuated pasties over her nipples. Who was it?

You could set this post to "The 12 Days of Christmas".

I saw this for the first time last night. I didn't walk away from the film with the notion that there was some sort of great connection between Tressel and mc other than both being from the Youngstown area, even though Tressel grew up in a Cleveland suburb. Seems that connection is blown out of proportion and has always been blown out of proportion. For whatever reason, they try to paint mc as a sympathetic character during his time in Columbus. In my opinion, osu running away from him was the best thing they could have done and it had nothing to do with his wanting to be one and done. Bringing in Jim Brown only makes matters worse and I think the film overstates Browns importance in the minds of Ohioans. mc was hated by the assistants on the osu coaching staff because he was the ahole in Columbus he was with the Broncos. Not everyone can be helped and he was one of those cases at the time. His presence would have been more harm than good for tosu. mc did his time and is trying to make the best of his life. The NFL didn't work out and maybe it might never have worked out for a long time given his lack of speed. He was fast against Big Ten players, but that doesn't compare to what goes on each Sunday. Prison is theoretically designed to do many things. Mostly is punishes people and since most people are going to get out at some point, that is terrible for society. On some level for mc, it functioned as it is ideally supposed to function, rehabilitation. By "on some level" I mean, he was thrown in a cell and rehabilitated himself with little help from anyone. Long term, he will be fine and may be a better person. It is what we should hope for for everyone.

Respectfully disagree. College basketball is much different than college football. The bottom feeders in "BCS" conferences are not in the same league as high level mid major teams. SC is a horrible college basketball team. Akron considers itself a high level mid major and we should be disgusted with the performance against SC yesterday. Akron played a completely emotionless and heartless games over the last two. Little difference between the first half and second half. In the first half of both ISU and SC, the Zips scored 31 points. In the second half against ISU and SC, the scored 29 and 28 points respectively. There is no "close" in this team. They operate like robots going trough the motions and it needs to stop. The players need to perform better and the coach needs to coach better. KD isn't setting the team up for success right now by getting guys in the game and running plays that will make them successful. However, when the players have a collective case of Cantplayharditis, it makes the coaching part a lot more difficult. For those of you who are unaware of the medical condition called Cantplayharditis, it initially presents itself with a soreness in the throat causing the gag reflex to be activated. For those of you who think all national exposure is great for a program, you are about to get more on Saturday, ESPNU. It could be our third nationally televised game in seven day. Great exposure, right? I would bet a lot of people were watching yesterday as it was one of only two basketball games televised in North America. If we lay an egg again on Saturday, all of North America will have gotten to see the Zips lose three games in a row and two against a horrible team. Am I supposed to love that exposure? I have tickets for the game Saturday. They sure as Hell had better play better than that disaster we saw yesterday.

I agree. If we had only built them a new arena, this group of players would be playing a lot better.

I'm sick of it as well. Mostly because it is a lazy analysis of the problem. Fatigue isn't our problem.

Great question. Here is the problem as I see it. Too many one trick ponies. Kretzer for example, good 3 shooter, not good at anything else. When too many players are only good at only one thing, the scouting report catches up really quickly and in game adjustments are easy to make against Akron.

This team is in mental LaLa Land.

For those of you hand wringing about playing SC twice in a week, you should worry about something else. I fully expect the Zips to go 2-0 against SC. If the Zips play the way they can and SC plays the way they do, the Zips win easily. I'm looking forward to Saturday.

Sure was. I can take a loss because in a long season, teams lose some games. I don't like lazy play. The one thing players have 100% control over is their effort and there wasn't enough yesterday. KD should have had a speech similar to after the game.

Might be nice to have a bowl thread this year to discuss any game anyone wishes to discuss. USC looked great and ready to play against a team that came to play as well in Fresno State. USC only has around 50 scholarship players and still has a lot of talent on the field. It shouldn't take that program long to get back in the national championship hunt. My favorite win of the day yesterday was watching Colorado State upset WA State for two reasons. First, WSU's qb ran his mouth after their first score and bumped a coach from CSU. People can think whatever they want about what the coach said to him, but the QB was being a complete douche. The coach showed remarkable restraint after the player bumped him. In hockey, the QB would have had to fight someone the next time he stepped on the field. Since there is nothing like that in football, CSU took some late hits on him and settled the issue and the game went on...point made. I always enjoy watching a-holes lose. Second reason...Listening to the game would have caused one to conclude WSU was winning by 100 and there would be no way CSU could possibly win because of the lack of talent. However, if you turned down the sound and just watched the game, CSU had some talent and they were well coached. The coaches were able to maximize their talent and by taking advantage of their opportunities won the game. Bonus reason for favorite win...Mike Leach is a turd and CSU's coach is a good guy. I like watching turds lose. Good things should happen to good people. Games yesterday, as a whole, were entertaining to watch IMO. The games were well played for bowl games, some trick plays, fans having fun, players were playing hard, etc. I hope we get more of the same over the next couple of weeks.

It would be good, but they can do better. College teams have holes to fill every year. It's the nature of the beast. Getting a program to and maintaining a program at a high level is what good coaches do. Bowden is a good coach. He has won everywhere he has been and Akron will be no different. Considering where this program was, fans should be excited about a 5 win season and going 4-1 in their last five while beating a well established program in Toledo. Not expecting more is the old cycle Akron has been in for years. Show some signs of life and throw in the towel because some players move on and the new players are not experienced. Poor us. Since they aren't experienced, the coach will need a couple of years to "build" the program further before they can be good again. That line of thinking is absolute rubbish and is not how winning programs respond to player turnover. That moronic thinking ranks right up there with after a few loses, benching everyone for freshmen and guaranteeing a 1-11 season...but we are "building for the future". We would have gone 1-11 this year if we followed that stupid line of thinking that was promoted by more than a couple on this board. At that point, we could have changed our name to The University of Akron Browns. Just because there is a hole to fill doesn't mean the next guy will be not as good as the previous guy. We should expect from this moment forward to have better players replace the departing players every time there is turnover unless the previous player is someone like a Vic Green. If we don't believe we can replace departing players from a 5-7 team with better players, we have bigger problems than player turnover.

Well done....It's never to early to start contributing to the Foundation.

Why couldn't we be that good? BG went 5-7 in 2011 and 7-5 with a bowl in 2012. We should expect a minimum of 7 wins next year and a trip to a bowl. Who would be looking for a 59 year old coach at that point?

@Dave, He saves some bitterness for Josh Mcdaniels as well. A part that made me smile was he said Mcdaniels went to a DIII just like he did.

NY Time Review If you are looking for something to read over the holidays, this is a good book. Downloaded it Friday around 4:00 and was finished within 24 hours. It isn't a great scholarly book, but holds attention very well with a lot of twists and turns. The review above sums it up really well. Worth the money.

While I didn't see the game, I'd like to remind sports fans about some things that sometimes happen when a much better team plays a lesser team. 1. The lesser team is allowed to play well too. 2. The lesser team will have a run of good play in a game and in this game it looks like it happened early. 3. The better team may look like they are coasting early, but the coach may want to be trying put as little as possible on film. This happens all the time in early season football games when a BCS team plays a close game against a non BCS team or IAA team. My guess is the Zips were working on "blocking & tackling" Saturday. It was more of a "team building" exercise for the Zips than a basketball game.

I certainly do not. While I haven't seen the Zips much this year, I find it hard to believe they would lose to SC in a couple of weeks. SC is a traditionally terrible program that somehow has gotten worse. The Gamecocks will be lucky of more than 10,000 attend the game. The Zips stand a good chance of winning this one on TV similar to Miss State....although MSU was a bigger win than beating usc.

If only paying coaches was the problem, it could have been easily fixed by now. There are a mountain of reasons the MAC is not a bigger conference. Coaches salaries can be one of those reasons.

Shame.

Would it be a good thing to wait until 2020 to open a new arena in order to do two things? 1. Get it right. 2. Have it be part of the Sesquicentennial.