GP1

Seat? Hell, you could sit in the entire row you probably had by yourself at that dump. The thought of this league trying to fix up the Rubber Bowl just makes me laugh to no end.

Where is Crash Davis when you need him? The left out the last two sentences of the scene, but you guys get the picture. Nuke says, "Can't you let me enjoy the moment." Crash responds with, "The moments over." I hope KD had a talk with the players ten seconds after the win against Miami along these lines. Playing like crap and winning isn't always a good thing.

I don't see it. Those spots are for teams much lower down the pecking order than we are. I would actually be upset if we got one as it would be a complete lack of respect from the Committee. I think Akron is as good as any 12 seed they could come up with. No reason to look for a 16 seed in a rinky-dink play-in.

With as little money as that league is going to make, they won't be able to afford stall doors for the shitters....sort of like Akron playing in the MAC.

Thanks. While on the surface this may seem like a good idea, it is actually a method whereby the NCAA Tournament Committee can screw a mid major such as Akron and not look so bad by doing so...."Sorry best team in the MAC. We are going to screw you, but don't worry because you can go play in the NIT. We don't really want you anyhow regardless of how good you are. We have $771 million to make and we don't think your presence helps us increase that number now or in the future." With that said, Akron needs to win the MAC Tournament to get into the big dance. If not, NIT bound. This is a "be careful what you sign" lesson. The guarantee NIT bid is a type of limited warranty we and schools like us have. If we don't win the MAC Tournament, we are guaranteed post season play by having this limited warranty. Never buy a limited warranty because it is written by the manufacturer's lawyers. In many ways, the automatic NIT bid limits our options just like a warranty limits your options if you buy one. The automatic NIT bid sounds too good to be true because it is.

Before I post, one question. Does the runner up MAC school get automatic NIT?

In all seriousness about Rico, he is still within a year of hurting his knee. It isn't uncommon for a player to take over 365 days to fully recover from knee injuries. If I remember right, he had a flare up earlier this season so I'm sure there is at least discomfort there. It's just something he is going to have to deal with and the coaches will have to adapt to. To me, he looks in much better shape than he did at CCU. His body can now do what his mind wants to do with the ball. It's a good step forward from the beginning of the year. I don't know that he has ever been in tip top shape, but he is in shape for himself and that makes him a pretty good player. Speaking of good guard play, I went to the VCU vs. UNCC game last night (No Z.I.P., Cornbread Maxwell was not there, but they do like to show video of him during their 1977 run). I only bring this up because a coach near and dear to many Zips fans is the coach of VCU and we are talking about guard play. Shaka Smart has a very good team with guard play at the forefront. They really took advantage of UNCC's lack of a quality point guard. VCU makes it extremely difficult for teams to get the ball inside of the three point arch. UNCC had one turnover after another. If UofA played basketball in the A-10, you guys would love going to the games and watching the Zips compete against much better teams than the MAC has. I believe we could do well in this league.

A guy indulges in a little bit too much paella this year and everyone is all over him....

Committed or stuck? I say force umass to leave. The MAC would be better as a smaller league.

If today's game is any indication of the results of a pre-game speech, KD might want to quit trying to inspire his team by telling them stories of his high school coaching days when Lebron was 14 years old. Anyhow, Miami is an absolutely horrible, horrible, horrible team. We should have beaten them by 20. Other than getting a win, there wasn't much positive about the game today.

Actually, it's only 498.6 miles from the JAR. Link Paragraph 2. All I want to know is, since he was brought in to raise money for an arena, how much money can he be directly credited for raising for the new arena? It's been a year, so surely those numbers should be measurable by now. If his presence gives us good exposure, how come they aren't lining up a brief interview with him coming out of a TV timeout during an ESPN game?

Link Former Zips OL coach to Colts. While the lifestyle change from San Diego to Indy will be harsh, it is a great place to go. Indy has good young players and a solid coaching staff that should make them a contender well into the future. Hunter is an example of the excellent coaches Faust brought in early in his tenure at UofA.

Thanks Coach Tressel, but you are being paid $200K a year to do this so I don't see your efforts as voluntary.

Do you think you may be overstating your case?

Actually, this isn't a bad thought. What's more important: 1. Keeping a national winning streak alive that keeps you in the news for a few weeks? or 2. Beating a high level mid major that puts you in the news for five minutes? I'd rather go for a win against someone other than the Dollar General crew, but there is a valid argument for keeping the streak alive.

Schedule Since mid December, the lady Zips' game results are odd. They have things like a three game winning streak followed by a three game losing streak. They need to improve upon not letting a loss after a winning streak send them into a slide, because if they slide late in the season, they might just slide right out of the MAC Tournament after one game and let a decent season go for nothing. I believe this would be a good opportunity for improvement.

I don't like people blaming him for everything either. I just blame him for most things that seem to go wrong because he always seems to be at the center of bad decision making. Reminds me of an old saying, "Criticism is the price of leadership." Allow me to add to your post above by rewriting it a little starting from "Yeah". Yeah, absolutely destroyed the football program and Dr. Proenza's vision for making the Big Dialer the centerpiece of activity on campus by hiring a complete incompetent in Ianello. I guess birds of a feather do flock together. But he also signed Caleb Porter in an obvious move and allowed Porter to help him not make a huge mistake again by assisting TW in the hiring of the next soccer coach, signed KD long-term and gave him a raise even though he had not serious offers and is isn't going anywhere because he isn't that attractive of a candidate to any decent school, and hired TB after botching the Winters Affair when TB threw himself at UofA, hired a Tennis coach who has won back to back MAC Championships, and a baseball coach who is supposedly good even though we don't see the results.

This is good news. It shows that TB is willing to make changes based upon what he observes in lieu of being an ideologue. Ideologues are narrow minded fools and we don't need one as coach of our team.

How much money would they have had to spend periodically? The UofA budget for athletics runs between the amount of money it takes to buy a Kit Kat and a three ring binder. Here is what I know from a lifetime of working in the building industry. The most expensive structures to maintain are concrete. Any repairs always come in over budget...frequently, twice the cost. Then, try to maintain a 70 year old structure on a faulty foundation and see what the costs would be. It isn't they didn't update the RB...It's they didn't build a stadium on campus 20 years ago. The reason Info was built had as much to do with the City of Akron almost closing the dump for safety reasons as it did to draw students.

I agree. I'm hearing too much, "Give us recognition!" on this board. It's hard to argue with the facts Elton presented because they are true. The interpretation of the facts is debatable. We play in the MAC. The term "Dollar General" should be used to describe the horrible MAC basketball season this year. Only three teams other than Akron have a record greater than .500 (Source), so why do we deserve national recognition for winning against a bunch of teams from the Dollar General league and losing to the likes of CCU? I hate to seem like I'm throwing cold water on things, but when I see any team with the longest winning streak in the country, I automatically wonder who that team has beaten. There is no doubt we are by far the best team in the league. That alone doesn't qualify for national recognition. I saw UNCC play in person last weekend. They are a fourth to fifth place A-10 school and they could go toe to toe with Akron at every position. Let's keep things in perspective. Instead of demanding respect, let's take it in March.

Neither can they. That's why they bought it. It's not a bad investment if you look at it as a possible tax write off for the investors. If the league goes belly up without ever playing a game or spending a dime for renovation it can be a tax write off for the investors. Any way I look at it, I don't see this league ever playing a game. I think there is a place for spring football in the US, just not this way.

It didn't worry me for a second. Everything comes back to averages. OU was on fire early and the Zips did a good job of keeping the game close against a team that was on fire. Eventually, OU was going to fall back to their average shooting, etc. and the Zips, with their consistent play, were going to get back in the game. I went to the UMASS vs UNCC game yesterday prior to the Zips game. Very good mid major game. I'd love to see the Zips play in the A-10...much better teams, much better talent on the floor, better talent at every position than the MAC and the Zips have the horses to compete. It would be a Zips fan dream. If umass can play football in the MAC and basketball in the A-10, why can't we? Here is why the fans on this board would love the A-10.... Since there are better players spread throughout the floor, the game is something other than a foul-fest. The floor is more spread out and because of that, it is a more entertaining game. Good shooters from the outside make graceful shots. Big men not getting triple teamed and fouled so a fan can watch a big man make a good move and score. It's very good basketball. I'm going back this Saturday to watch them play VCU.

I knew we had it in the bag when I saw our good luck charm, Gerry Faust, sitting behind the bench.

This is one of the more amazing aspects of not only the ncaa, but what has become of American business. Once someone makes CEO or Athletic Director, they become part of a club. A CEO could run five companies into the ground and his next job interview would sound something like this: Interviewer: "I see you ran five companies into the ground as CEO." Interviewee: "I sure did. It was tough work, but someone had to do it. I still believe we had very good action plans though." Interviewer: "Sounds great. You're hired." Athletic Directors are far worse because they deal in public money and a CEO deal in private money. The biggest decisions being made in the NCAA today are at public institutions. If an AD screws up, the taxpayers have to support it regardless of whether or not they want to support it or believed in the "building process" in the first place. If banks can be a threat to the public because their behavior requires taxpayer bailouts; therefore they require regulation, how come athletic directors and big time athletics aren't held to the same standard. Who is going to pay for the Tennessee problem? Who is going to pay for the bonds Michigan sold for their "building process"? Why aren't these athletic directors a real threat to the public deserving of some sort of regulation? If you want real reform in college athletics, cap the amount of money coaches and athletic directors can make. Cap their budgets. Put an end to the obnoxious "building process" going on and college athletics will be reformed. Let these idiots go try to make a living in the real world and we'll see how they do. If you think athletic directors are a problem now, wait until they run out of things to build and start raising money for themselves. I'm 43. In my lifetime, I will see athletic directors go to jail for corruption and the ncaa will wish the only problem they had were players getting tattoos or having salmon on their bagels. Mark my word.

Why not go $200 million in debt? That's nothing. Michigan just issued $250 million in bonds to renovate their stadium. Figure in the interest payments down the road and what is the real cost of it? The bubble gets bigger. Let's stay away.