GP1

I find it almost impossible to believe we can go winless. We are bad, but not as bad as our record shows. The Zips win this Friday in a blowout. Take it to the bank.

I understand what you are saying and I don't disagree. Let's go back one year. At some point, TW made a decision to fire JD and hire a new guy. Was it his intent to dismantle the program and bring in all new players or did he think they could win at least the same number of games as the year before with 17 returning starters? If his intent was to bring in CoachI to dismantle the team, he had to have an idea of how long it would take to rebuild the team...wouldn't he? Wouldn't he ask CoachI how long the dreaded building process would take? One year? Two years? Three years? JD won the MAC in his second season. A lot of coaches come to the MAC and have immediate success within two or three years. TW has been a terrible AD since the day he walked on campus. I don't know the guy personally so this isn't a personal attack. He is a terrible AD and should be removed sooner rather than later. I'd be willing to bet a lot of money that if he decided to dismantle the program, he had no idea how long it would take to get the team back to winning at least six games. That is what makes him a terrible AD...he has no idea what to do or even how to start doing what needs to be done. There just isn't anything there. He would be a "C" player at General Electric and lose his job. It isn't just bad for UofA to have him in this job, it is bad for him and is immoral to keep a person in a position where he will have no success...that's why Dr. Proenza needs to act sooner rather than later.

In bold is what I really want to know. I'm at the point where I really don't care what they do to correct it as long as it gets fixed. I'm done paying attention enough to think about what they are doing to fix it. I will continue to pay attention from a distance and care about the results in terms of Ws and Ls. I'll get excited again when I actually see more results and less of a building process. 25 years of a building process is all I can take....I really mean this, I don't know how some of you pull youselves up to go to a game at this point.

Rumor has it the headline of tomorrow's ABJ will read, "Japanese Surrender".

Dr. Proenza wants a good team. His problem is he made a bad hire in TW and TW in turn made a bad hire in CoachI. If the problem started at the top, it needs to be fixed at the top. A lot is riding on the outcome Friday.

For me, it is less about what would keep me coming back and more about what would keep me away. If I lived in ne Ohio, I'd love to go to every game under one condition. That is, the team has to be watchable. I can put up with losing, but I can't put up with horrible football. I would go if the team showed signs of life and won at a minimum 4-6 games a year. I would probably hold off on season tickets if I still lived in Akron until I was somewhat comfortable my money wasn't going to be flushed down the toilet on a horrible product. I'd pick and choose which games I went to and if the team showed signs of life I would go to more and more. I don't think that makes a fan fair weather because I could still put up with a losing season, just not in this manner and quantity.

Someone else posted this on another thread, but I believe this guy deserves his own thread. This link will allow you to read an article by a guy named Mike who writes for Akron Sports Now. I don't agree with everything he writes, but I love the writing style. He is informed, interesting and can have a sharp pen. Akron sports needs a sports writer like this. The guys at the ABJ are either not interested in the Zips sports or they are bought by the University. Either way, it doesn't do much for the University. I hope this guy keeps on keeping on. Nice work.

I think that sports fans across America say something similar to this after attending an NBA game. Most teams really aren't very entertaining. I live 15 miles from where the Charlotte Bobcats play. I couldn't name a single player on their team and I've seen them in passing on TV a couple of time this year. Living in SC gives me a different cable company than the folks one mile from my house who live in Charlotte so I don't get the Bobcats games...speaking of poor marketing. Even if I did get their games, I probably wouldn't watch. They only get 5,000 per game at best and I could probably get free tickets from my wife's company. I have no desire to go. Charlotte has an AHL team called the Charlotte Checkers. The AHL is like AAA baseball. There are guys who have played in the NHL on Charlotte's team. AHL hockey is more entertaining than the NBA and they draw just as good as the Bobcats. The games are well played and fast moving....That's good entertainment.

How about if they just make shots without the harmony??? What are the other factors???

iCoach is a loser. Should never ahve wasted that last time out. What an idiotic decision. What in Christ's name does a time out have to do with a player fumbling?

I'll be the first to say I'm not a fan of CoachI. With that said, this one is not on him. The Zips hold a division leader to 19 points. They drive down the field and are in a position to win the game with plenty of time on the clock.....and #82 fumbles. Please tell me this is the kids senior season. I'm absolutely sickened by this outcome. As Zips fans, we have an ability to excuse away our ability to blow games. The BB team loses at Dayton....we are in a building process and the team just needs to gel. The Zips blow a winnable game against Miami in football...the Coach is to blame. If players make baskets and catch/hold on to the football, we win more. "The more things change, the more they stay the same."....ZipsWin! We choked this one away tonight. #82 should is the most unreliable receiver I can ever remember wearing a Zips uniform. Just catch the freaking ball and don't fumble..... Again, please tell me he is a senior.

Team chemistry is important. Shooting better than 36.7% from the field will be a better indicator of outcome. If they shoot at 50% against Dayton, they win. The little orange ball goes through the little orange ring..... It's a simple game. When you shot such a high percentage of your shots from 3 your shooting percentage is rarely going to get close to 50%. What is puzzling to me is that we actually shot better from 3 last night than we did overall. Tells me we need guys to work more on finishing around the rim. Teams like UCONN and Kentucky should be taking a lot of three point shots because they have the type of player that plays at UCONN and Kentucky. I can't ever remember a time when the Zips shot lights out on a regular basis. It just isn't their game. They are a team that has to work hard and outsmart the other team to win. Work the ball around and take (make) better percentage shots. It's a simple game.

Team chemistry is important. Shooting better than 36.7% from the field will be a better indicator of outcome. If they shoot at 50% against Dayton, they win. The little orange ball goes through the little orange ring..... It's a simple game.

I agree. Watching Ball State made me want to vomit. Watching Buffalo made me want to projectile vomit. I can't believe the Zips lost to the balls. They will not go winless this season.

At both Clemson and Wake Forest, you can leave to go to your tailgate at halftime and re-enter for free after half.

I don't blame you. Being a season ticket holder is not rewarded. Especially if you are a reserved ticket holder. They treat season ticket holders like crap when they sell reserved tickets for less than face value on the day of the game. It is a stupid, stupid, stupid idea. Even worse, it is lazy to do so.

I can't blame you. One can only expect so much out of their fans.

If they allow people to go to games for free, they my as well close up the stadium and end the program. Free means there is zero value in watching the Zips play. As bad as they are, there is still a value to watching them. Supply and demand only works if there is a real demand and not just people buying tickets out of the goodness of their hearts. Right now, there is such little demand for the Zips that it my as well be zero. The should keep prices where they are and put a team on the field worthy of those prices.

Do 80% of your sales come from 20% of your doctors?

Who is the consumer? Person at home? Hospital? Nursing home? Doctors office? All of the above?

Losing control of a team that has won six straight games? Hmmm. Read the reports on this incident and you will learn that Courtside is a pizza place that serves beer. Boo was inside when the bouncer started to beat up his brother (not an OU student) outside. Boo went outside to pull the bouncer off his brother and was sucker punched by a bouncer who came from across the street. Hardly a case of an "out of control" team. BTW, take a look at the comparative graduation rates of Solich and Akron's previous regime and you will see that Frankie is doing just fine. He's a great coach. It was a joke. Coaches don't lose control of teams, they lose games.

I think you did just give some free advice. Show appreciation towards your fans by not allowing other to purchase tickets for less than what the die hards purchased theirs for. Second, become a marketing wizard like Waddell at Cincy by winning games. It isn't difficult. Put a winning product on the field and fans come. Put crap on the field and fans stay home. There is a reason marketing is the easiest business major....it isn't that hard. I have a marketing idea for the Zips and if fits the current state of the program. Everyone attending the next two home games will receive a free blue and gold Zips bucket autographed by TW. Fans can use the bucket to throw up in while watching the Zips play. There...I'm done giving out marketing ideas as well.

Does anyone thing Solich is losing control of his team?

I love this topic. Let me be clear. I never said they could never raise their prices when they turn things around. It is hard to raise prices. It is easy to lower prices. The biggest problem the Zips have is they rely greatly on season ticket sales. Those tickets are where the "money" is because they involve sales for the entire season whether or not the tickets are used, and they usually involve some sort of donation to the Z-Fund. How do you expect these people to buy full price season tickets after the following things have happened: 1. The team lost every game. 2. They can wait for prices to drop and then go. The Zips don't sell out games and every seat is a good seat so they can buy a GA seat and have a pretty good seat to watch a game. The Zips are past the point where there is a "demand" for tickets. Most people know when they go to buy season tickets next year they are doing it out of the goodness of their hearts. Since there is no demand for tickets, why lower price. I will use an example I have used in the past. Before working for myself, I worked for a large building products manufacturer (try hard to figure it out). A way to create demand in your product was to decrease price (closing plants was a way to increase price by reducing supply but that was not needed during the boom years). It was called "emptying the plant". During the boom years, the plant was going to make 1.3 million square feet of drywall a day. Drywall must be stored in the factory for 24 hours before shipment. Every square foot of that drywall must move to make room for the next day's production. In order to empty the plant if we were already not sold out, the sales manager (that was me) had to call up the best customers and talk them into taking the drywall. The best customers took it as a favor at the price the Great GP1 wanted. You had to give a break to the lesser customers and risk reducing the overall price for the product in the market-place. During the boom years, it didn't matter if you gave a deal to someone. The factories were running at > 87% capacity, which meant every time you farted you could raise your price because the demand was outpacing the capacity. We received junk drywall from China for this reason. Fast forward to the recession. Multiplication is used to figure capacity and supply and demand. As we all know from grade school math, anything multiplied by zero is zero. Building slows to a halt in the US during the recession. Drywall manufacturers lower prices to try to create demand......nobody buys. They lower prices again....nobody buys. They lower prices again to below cost....nobody buys. Essentially, there was almost zero demand for the product and if they were giving it away, nobody was going to take it into stock. In the middle of the recession, drywall prices went up in order to at least pay for the cost of production. It was unheard of, but everyone should have known that if the demand was zero, then the supply and demand curve would not work because everything becomes zero because that is how math works. Now let's talk about the Zips. The reason they shouldn't lower prices is because there is no demand for the tickets other than a few good hearted people willing to purchase them because the love the school. Nobody has answered my question as to how many $5 tickes were sold. My guess is an extremely small amout. It isn't going to do anything other than set a low expectation for low prices and piss of the good customers. The Zips should keep their prices where they are.