GP1

To answer this would require Faustian logic and I'm not ready to go down that road on a Sunday morning.

I go away from this topic for less than 24 hours and I see it has come around to building a new arena taking monster truck shows, indoor soccer and ice shows into consideration. What about dog shows? I hope anyone involved in thinking about how it should be built is a little more focused than that.

My guess is getting enrollment up is a little more complicated than that.

He's getting one.

$1.2 million for a guy who leads his team to an A10 runner up and second round loss seems a bit steep to me. It would be really funny if they paid him all of that money for going to the Final Four and he didn't make it past the round of 32 again at VCU in his career.

Did everyone see that game today? Michigan would have beaten us by 71...

Great point JZ. One of the Zips should have sent one of the Rams into the stands/ended his night, then walk by Shaka and say, "Call off the dogs or it won't be the last." The problem is the Zips never find themselves in that type of position so they don't know how to handle it so the coach needs to remind the players of the obligations to the program.

This is kind of bad new/good new. The bad news was the Zips were humiliated on national TV. The good news is nobody in their right mind would have still been watching so I doubt many saw it. I know I turned in before the last person left the arena while the game was still going on. The real question isn't, why did he take a dump all over UofA? The real question is, why are his players so superior in talent?

That's not what I said. Please read it again.

Good post. I'd like to see it start up front with a solid pass rush from four people staying in their rush lanes and forcing a rushed pass into a heavily covered field. Better yet, get a deflection at the line that results in an INT. Sacks are good, but you still don't have the ball. Ints are better because they frequently result in better field position than a sack that results in a punt. It's harder to return a punt for a TD than an INT because once the int is made, it become 11 vs 6 because the five fat slobs on the offensive line can't move quickly enough against the returner to tackle him. You're right though Lee. We need some big plays that result in quick points from the defense this year. I've seen enough of the pressure being put on us. Let's put the pressure on them for a change.

It's not the starting point. It's the icing on the cake that separates good teams from great teams. There have been great MAC teams in the past. There hasn't been a Zips team yet to distinguish themselves as a great team. Lots of good Zips teams, but the greatness is lacking.

I'm totally positive about our University. I just think the leadership of our Athletic Department is lacking and I don't trust him to be a responsible decision maker of big decisions.

No, they weren't put in that position last night. Dambrot does a lot of things slowly by design. Last night was not a night to make adjustments slowly. By the time they were made, the game was out of control. Recruiting? Let's look at this. Actually, let's look back at the game last night. Remove the score from the screen and what did we see. I saw a team much more athletic with better developed basketball skills. Faster, quicker, better shooters, etc. Put Diggs and AA on the court with a healthy Walsh and does that go away. Maybe with Diggs, but not with AA or Walsh. Heck, Walsh washed out of an A10 program. Dambrot is recruiting top notch MAC players. These players would finish in the middle of the A10. I'm not trying to be a jerk or anything when I say that. If we want to get better, we have to know where we are and why we haven't gotten there yet. Are we not getting the players or are players not being developed? If the answer is yes to either one of those questions, then the first place to criticize is the head coach. My opinion...the team has talent that isn't getting properly developed. It's been going on for years but since the MAC is so bad, we can continue to win 20 games a year. Since we now have an untouchable coach, I can only assume it will continue because there is no incentive to change. The guy who owns my wife's company always says, "Nothing good comes from people being completely comfortable." Dambrot is too comfortable at Akron. He needs to challenge himself to reach outside his comfort zone and make changes to the program that need to be made. He has two assistants who have been with the program for at least 8 years. If you are an assistant at Akron for eight years, you don't have any ambition so you aren't an asset to the program. Start with changing the dynamics of the program by changing an assistant or two. It sounds harsh, but change is necessary. Different ideas would be good for the program and a different location might be good for some of those assistants. Move your cheese Keith.

I have no problem with them spending money. If they have it, spend it wisely. A basketball practice facility beyond stupid and I can't believe taxpayers put up with such nonsense. I don't need to see something every day to sniff out stupidity.

Other than Nora Jones, are any of those other people still alive?

Hard to say with the season being interrupted.

Respectfully, so what? You see youth. I see game experience and talent. Others may see a team that Dambrot is going to do his slow, year-by-year gradual development with players. I see a group that a coach making $500K a year should turn straight into a MAC Champion with a shot at winning a NCAA Tournament game with a huge growth in their ability between this year and next year. After nine years, shouldn't this be expected? Shouldn't it be demanded? Really good programs don't worry about the age of players. They expect young players with experience to contribute in a meaningful way when it is their turn to start and they expect their coaches to get them to that point. Hint: We are a really good program and should demand these things.

That's exactly how I felt when I saw them play UNCC. It is shocking how good their perimeter defense is and even more shocking to see it in person.

Why can't Dambrot be questioned? We are not talking about John Wooden here. How come the word "classy" gets thrown around so much on this board after we lose? I don't feel bad for Dambrot. The guy has a $500K a year job until he retires regardless of whether or not he ever wins a NCAA Tournament game. What is there to feel sorry about?

Transformative. Zeke coming to Akron did a lot for the program. Sometime you don't always see the results of a players time at a school until they leave. The big thing Zeke coming to Akron did was tell other really good players that it is OK to play at Akron. We are getting better players than ever and are winning more than ever. The program has been transformed in to a better program. The next to years are important as the impact of Zeke's years will start to give way to results on the court in coming years. We need to take these transformative years and make the program even better.

It was both a fluke and a call for a change in perspective. With Diggs, AA and no flu, the VCU is a better team than Akron in terms of player talent and coaching. They win last night no matter what. Coach Smart is a better coach than Dambrot not because he beat him last night, but because he is. He gets better players, his game performance is better, he is better at developing players, he is better in big games and he produces results in the post season. That's not opinion, it's fact. I've told you guys before I go to some UNCC games every year and it is a very, very good league. If all you go to are MAC games, you begin to think all of D-1 basketball is like the MAC. Most of it is better. A move to the A10 COULD turn Akron into a UNCC. Good program in a good league that wins more than it loses. Has a good coach that is not the best coach in his league. A team that may only make the NCAA Tournament once every 10 years or so, but will make the NIT a lot. There are a lot of Dambrots in the A10. There are few like Smart and the guy from Butler. That's a perspective fans should look at when thinking about a move to the A10. Allow me to look into my crystal ball to see the future of UNCC football. They joined one of the worse I-AA leagues and will proceed to win five games against I-AA teams over the next 2-3 years. People will scream the only way to improve the program is to join the ACC and upgrade the stadium to 40,000 seats. Year four they will go 3-9 and fans will think the only thing they need is a coaching "upgrade" to really get to 6-6 and move up to the ACC.

Good question. It's about paradigms. Ted Curtis advocates for building a practice facility because his job is building things. If buildings are going up, he doesn't have a job. Dambrot wants a practice facility because he works in college athletics and the answer to everything in college athletics is to build more facilities. A very wise man once told me..."No matter how cold it is outside...no matter how hot it is outside, it's always 72 degrees on a bar stool." Wise words. The same apples for basketball arenas. It's always the same temperature and to have a separate facility to practice when there is a perfectly good basketball floor sitting idle is a complete waste of money. In fact, it's vulgar at this point. Ohio State has a practice floor because their arena is used for hockey, concerts, etc. Akron has club hockey and they really don't have a lot of concerts, if any. Akron isn't a convention city. Building an arena with anything other than a permanent floor (unlike a removable floor like Gund Arena has) would be foolish. The reason the football team has a practice arena is it can rain or snow in NE Ohio so they need a dry place to practice. They needed a place to go sit on the bar stool.

Or, A10 players play against good centers all year long and Zeke was just another good center they were comfortable playing against. The MAC has absolutely terrible big men. Most of them aren't even very big, they are just the tallest guys their team has. VCU's aggressive play permeates every aspect of what they do. In the MAC, teams get the ball around Zeke and try to pump fake 50 times before getting a shot blocked. Or worse, the pump fake three times and try to pass it to a guy two feet away with a defense that has collapsed around the ball. Inside play is horrible in the MAC. VCU took it right to us in the paint and got quick shots up before Zeke could size it up. They attack. If you give Zeke a pump fake or two, he will size it up and send the ball into the stands. If you take it right to him, you have a better shot.

I don't know if it is a basketball or football discussion. It can be both. Why couldn't we do A10 for men's basketball and MAC for everything else? UMASS does it. Why couldn't we do the same thing? The discussion I don't like is, "Butler and VCU may leave, so let's join." We should want to join because Butler and VCU are in the league, not because we want them gone and we think it would be easier to win. We already get enough easy wins in the MAC and shouldn't want to duplicate that in the A10.