GP1

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.

Turn the other cheek....

Behave.

Is there any mention in it of my idea to build a "Transformer Arena"? I'm sure everyone remembers my idea about building a dorm that transforms into a basketball arena that can walk around campus and pick up student to increase attendance in the cold winter months and relieve fans from long walks from various parking lots.

No surprise. Exactly the kind of coach Wake would hire. Probably a good hire, but Wake is a tough place to win. Following Jim Grobe might not be as difficult as conventional wisdom might have us believe. Or Peahead Walker for that matter.

Only, it doesn't provide any measurables.

Link I thought this might be a good link for this topic.

Don't you mean "front porch"? At this point, I would ask everyone to Google "athletics as front porch" and see how often that phrase has been used at numerous universities. It isn't creative. It's more of the same wording used to dupe taxpayers across the country.

The good news is, if the BCS teams ever go on their merry way, UofA will be in a great position to compete at the level they are not excluded. As much as I make fun of the "building process", it will have left us in a great position if this happens.