GP1

Akron does not now, nor have we ever had the ability to compete at the BCS level. Same goes for the entire conference. If the goal in the next four seasons is to be a BCS level team/conference, the goal is not going to be met. I'd settle for the league being entertaining. I'd settle for my laugh-o-meter not going off when watching MAC games. JD left enough talent to win in the MAC. I saw the dreaded "build" word in an article not long ago. I hope we are not in for another four-five years of "building". I've had all of the building I can take. I know how much the "building process" excites some of you. If you are one of those people, sorry if you feel insulted. One last thing and I hope this doesn't insult anyone as well. AA gets hurt and misses games. If history is any indication of the future, he will miss a lot of games next year as well. I just don't know how motivated/interested a guy would be going into his sixth year of college. In my sixth year of college, I was in my second year of graduate school and had a Masters Degree at the end of the year. My interests were vastly different than an undergraduates. I just don't know what AA is trying to get out of this. I certainly hope he would have graduated by now.

No it won't. The winner will be the team that went on the best run at the end of the year. MLB, NHL and NBA use best of series to crown champions. These types of playoff systems crown the best teams because they reward sustained excellence against another team before moving on the next round. More often than not, the NCAA tournament is won by the team on the best run at the end of the year and not the best team throughout the season.

Want to make the regular season meaningful? Eliminate conference tournaments and make the regular season champion the champion of the league with an automatic bid. Leagues with two divisions? Divisional champions play best of 3 or 5 (you decide) during the week the tournaments were to be played. One division league? First and second place play best of whatever for the championship. No team with a sub .500 conference record can get into the NCAA. Reduce the field to 48. I don't know why the illusion in our society is that we need to make everything bigger to make it better. NCAA playoffs, NFL playoffs, the NCAA tournament, the governnment, MLB playoffs, the obscene length of movies, etc. It just doesn't make sense to me.

I've never toured Akron's dining facilities, but I haven't heard of a school that doesn't have all-you-can-eat cafeterias. Is UA an exception? no, but at Rob's, al you can eat = all you can sh*t. That's just because the toilets in the dorms are free.

What if the other team played terrible defense and you still couldn't make shots?

At least we're not latching onto "Conventional Wisdom" and have points to back up our assertions. I'll take the informed position any day of the week. It used to be conventional wisdom that the universe revolved around the Earth. It used to be conventional wisdom that the sun revolved around the Earth. It used to be conventional wisdom that the Earth was flat. It used to be conventional wisdom that fighting wars standing shoulder to shoulder in an open field was a good way to fight a war. It used to be conventional wisdom that trench warfare was how a war should be fought. It used to be conventional wisdom that underhanded foul shots were the best way to make the shot. It is conventional wisdom among the religious right that dinosaurs and humans lived on the Earth together 6,000 years ago. It is conventional wisdom that defense wins championships. Kind of makes me want to run the other direction considering what great ideas past conventional wisdom held It's not 1950 anymore.

The team that made clutch shots late in games?

Whenever WVU needed something to happen, they had a left handed guard who drove to the basket and made layup after layup (I forget his number...21?). WVUs center made a three point shot late in the second half. When WVU needed points, they got them from their offense and won the game. BTW, why isn't anyone talking about what a great coach former UofA coach Huggins is? Forget that he dresses like a Sopranos character, the guy can flat out coach. Why isn't anyone talking about KY's star player missing relatively open shots late in the game? KY got some good looks at the basket and missed. WVU's defense didn't cause it, the inability of KY's players caused it throughout the game. You guys can throw whatever stat you want up about WVUs defense Saturday, it paled in comparison to how their offense played.

Of course it is a losing battle. To challenge the assertion of The Great GP1 is to challenge the greatness of The Great GP1. The greatness is already established so the assertion must be correct.

Dear zippy5, Thank you for your response, and like so many on this board, your general obsession with whatever I post. Here is what I saw this weekend. Duke getting and putting back one OFFENSIVE rebound after another late in the game to pressure Baylor into a position where they had to take bad shots. Offense won. WVU made one critical shot after another late in the games Saturday while on OFFENSE and Kentucky had to take low percentage shots late to try to recover. KY also decided to foul with three minutes to go in the game. WVU made lots of foul shots (foul shots are offensive) and kept KY at bay. Offense won. Butler's defense took a crap late in their game and they had to recover with OFFENSE. Offense won. Offense is more important than defense in big games. It puts pressure on teams to score at a high rate and lots of teams can't do that. Sincerely, The Great GP1

On some level I agree. If the coaches treat the kids like crap, they will not get respect.....unless. The one thing that makes being treated like crap OK is winning or making millions playing in the NFL. Since this is not the NFL, let's focus on the winning. If the new staff wins, players will eat a lot of crap for the results. If they don't win, it will be no different than how that fat slob at Notre Dame treated his players in his disaterous career there.....that is where these guys come from, yes. If you are an a-hole and you win, you are considered to be driven and tough motivator. If you an a-hole and you lose, you are just an a-hole. Charlie Weis turned out to be just another run of the mill a-hole. Let's hope Coach I didn't bring that part of the ND program with him. Secondly, telling Wackerly he had no chance to play is showing a kid respect. Sometimes, there is a difference between being honest/respectful and being nice. Faust told a lot of Dennison players the same thing and he was right to do so. I give some props to Coach I for showing a kid this level of honesty early in spring. My guess is as spring moves forward, things will change slightly.

I was sold on PN as well last year. He also needs a little better accuracy. I know we don't know what we have right now, but we do know the MAC stinks. We also know one really good QB in the MAC can make or break a team. I think we have that one really good QB. The Great GP1 remains bullish on this football team.

Was the football season a flop? Flop would be a good word. Disaster would probably be too strong. Was basketball season a flop? I don't think they met expectations, but the also weren't a flop.

Please check your typing. Its Designated Great One, not Ones. Please correct this in all future posts.

In a world of uncertainty, there is too much on the line for schools to throw a game.

This line made me remember something. Do some of you remember when college basketball went to a three point line and in ACC league play, the line was less than 20 feet from the basket. I don't know why moving the line further away from the basket is always a good thing. Why not make it shorter and increase scoring and chances for teams to get back into games late? To me, that is more interesting than watching teams miss one three point shot after another.

Isn't the real question, Tom or Thomas? Here is the roster for the OU dance team. He is only a sophomore so we have two more years to debate this important issue.

Good point! I said the same thing about Norther Iowa. They beat some big conference teams this year and while it was an upset against Kansas, it wasn't that big of an upset. Any team can catch fire for one game and win one first round game. You have to be good to win two NCAA games in a row, which is why the Sweet 16 is a great accomplishment even for teams that don't go all the way.

I think you are right. We won't even know how our MAC season is going to go until we play the first game. Back when JD took over, he felt really good going into the PSU game...right until the game started. They played terrible and were run out of the stadium. They later rebounded, but the first few games were horrible. One year later, the win the MAC. I'm not certain what spring ball will tell us. The defense will look good because defenses mature faster than offenses. The offense will look bad because the defense is more mature. My prediction for this spring season is.......Lots of hand wringing by the fans, little learned about the team.

I respectfully disagree. It starts with Akron making key shots in key games in the MAC Tournament. Scheduling improving results is one of those arguments I find hard to buy because too many things can happen between the OOC portion of the schedule and the MAC Tournament. To me, it is no different than saying if we build a new football stadium we should win....the logic is strange. What if we build a stadium and the players play worse?......Wait a minute, they did. What if we schedule stronger and the players play worse? Players making shots and generally playing better is an argument I find easy to buy. Make shots. Grab rebounds. Make foul shots. Play solid defense. The Zips need to execute better in big games next year. If they execute well in the MAC Tournament, they should win. The success OU experienced is explained that easily. The PLAYERS need to take responsibility and do whatever they need to do this off season to improve their on court performance. Before anyone goes insane, I do think they need to schedule better, but that is for financial reasons and not on court performance.

There was a sentence in the original post I was going to nominate for a 2010 Sentence of the Year Award. I had to do with the Zips dripping in egg from head to toe in front of 877 fans who care the most. Where did it go?

One other thing about NIU. They had wins this year against East Carolina (CUSA), Boston College (ACC/Big East), Iowa State (Big 12) and Iowa (Big Ten). If you don't play them, you can't beat them. Nobody should be surprised about their win yesterday.

Great stats. All of these teams have a tradition of being fast paced teams that score a lot of points. If you force the fast pace with offense, you force other teams into your style of play which may make them uncomfortable and your defense is better. Score a lot of points and other teams fold. Seems simple to me. Another key note, players win games. These schools also turn out one NBA player after another. Talent certainly helps offensive efficiency.

I spent 15 years watching Bill Cowher lose big game after big game with his defensive mentality. It wasn't until he had players who could make key offense plays at key points in games did he finally get over the hump. All defense does is get the ball to the offense. If the offense can't score, it doesn't matter what the defense does. If the offense is struggling, it is up to defense to hold them in the game until they figure their offense. If the offense never figures it out in a 40 minute game, they are not going to win. Northern Iowa won yesterday because they had a good team whose offense made key shots at key points in the game. They got a lead on KS, put pressure on them to score and KS didn't respond to the pressure enough to win. The last time I checked, NIU's offense made a huge three pointer with 35 seconds remaining. NIU's big guy had a huge put back late in the game. None of that had anything to do with defense. NIU is a good team in any conference. They only lost four games all year. They play in a much better conference than the MAC. While the game was an upset, it isn't as much of an upset as it looks on the surface. The truth is, NIU was seeded to low. BTW, did everyone notice the KS player doing his best Adam Morrison post game "look at me crying" imitation. The guy still had his warm-ups on top to bottom so I guess that was the only way he was going to get any air time. I'm so sick of watching these guys cry and even worse yet, the network putting it on TV. His coach should have kicked him when he walked by. BTW, I told you guys how many years ago not Adam Morrison was a crybaby and would never pan out in the NBA. How is career going? Man, some of you really defended that stiff.

This is a darn savvy introspection. Especially coming from a young person. There is hope for the Zips. What does the fact that he is young have to do with anything? Some of the more stupid posts I see on this board are from posters who want to relive the 1950s.