GP1

A lot has to be said about "growing as a team" and "fighting for each and every win". Id put this Akron team up against anyone believing that they had a shot at the victory.This team is all heart, and who knows...sometimes that's what's more important.WOOOOOOOOOO GO ZIPPPPPSS!!!!As a famous man once said, winning is 50% talent, 50% luck.Lol don't make me check your references on that..who is this famous mystery man?"Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity"Winning is what happens when the zips believe and play to their potentialAnother famous guy (so famous I don't know his name) once said, "I'd rather be lucky than good". This famous guy was a fool. GP1 would rather be lucky AND good. Championships are a set of many circumstances that all seem to fall in place at the right time and that happened for the Zips this weekend.

Actually its Cvetinovic.That's why I'm just going to stick with #13.

Enjoy it while it lasts and don't worry about next year. If it happens, great. A few years ago, we won the MAC football championship and we all though we had nothing but championships in front of us. Anything can happen in the MAC. Today is a time to have fun with winning something finally.

First, let me say great job to the MBB team. Please let their next game be in Greensboro.It seems as if Akron is a better team witih #13 in the game then when he is not in the game. The first half was almost unwatchable and the style of play that would lead to blown games. However, from the start of the second half until 15 minutes remaining in the game, Akron played a great offensive game that put the game away. #13 was in the game almost the entire time. Buffalo never recovered from the early second half run the Zips put on. Looking back on the game, KD was a genious for going with offense in lieu of defense. I think he may have learned from past failures.Make no mistake about it, Akron did nothing special on defense during this time period. In fact, their defensive effort was average and Buffalo missed a few pretty good looks at the basket. Buffalo was put under such pressure to score they could not recover and pressed the remainder of the game.IMHO, this five minute period will be looked back upon as one of the most important time periods in UA basketball history.Let's enjoy this one. Championships are not easy and "you never know when you're gonna get it next".

I have a really good feeling about tonight. There was no reason for the Zips NOT to win the past couple of years and we lost. There is no reason for the Zips to win tonight so I think they will pull through. I know that thought has no logic, but that's the MAC.I'll be at Mac's tonight watching the game, eating BBQ and drinking Labatt Blue. Last year I watched the championship game there and girl at the bar kept pulling up her shirt. Let's just say nobody complained to the manager. Go Zips!

I've said this before and I'll say it again. Championships are a lot like gumbo in Jimmy Buffett's song I Will Play for Gumbo" when he writes about gumbo:"It's a little like religionand a lot like sex.You should never knowwhen you're gonna get it next."I have a funny feeling something special is about to happen in the next say 30 hours but I'm scared to actually type it.

Did Nate take a hard foul on anyone later in the game? If not, he has nobody but himself for the lack of respect the rest of the league shows him. Lack of respect gets you punched in the face. Romeo never got punched in the fact.....J. Wood would have kicked the asses of half the Can't team had he gotten punched in the face. Nate is a guy who is a four year letterman and still has not passed 1,000 points (less than 8.5 points per game if you figure 30 games per year). Players don't respect a guy with statistics like that. Some of you can think what you want, but they don't. I think half the good press he gets on this board is more sympathy than respect. He has a chance to regain his manhood this week in Cleveland. Can someone please break the cycle of losing?

To be the best, you have to beat the best.Don't worry about where we are in the brackets! We need to make it to Saturday some how, some way and win the freaking game.

Below is a list of teams the Big Ten would want to get rid of and replace with a MAC school:That concludes the list.Belolw is a list of MAC schools the Big Ten would consider adding for more than 10 seconds:That concludes the list.Why get rid of some garbage only to add even worse smelling garbage?

JT MentionedJason Taylor gets a mention in this article by Ed Bouchette of the Pitt Post Gazette. If you like local coverage from various newspapers about NFL teams, Bouchette is an excellent writer. He is far better than Cook, Collier and that old bitter crank Bob Smizik (all writers for the Post Gazette).There are some good lessons from this article as well. A lot of fans like to talk about "building" teams. This article serves as evidence of how a team should be managed after the "building". The Steelers were built in the 1970s and they have maintained the same philosophy since then. In the MAC, we have been "building" our programs for 60+ years which means there is no real guiding philosophy behind the "building" which would be better described as "floundering". The MAC needs to stop the "building", get to a manageable size, decide wants to be and be the best at whatever it decides to be. To me this is so simple yet simplicity seems to alluded the league.

Rain? It's going to be 80 degrees and sunny today at my house. I think I'll go sit out at the lake...... Have fun at the game everyone. GO ZIPS!!!!!!

Excellent article Big Zip.There was an interesting point made in the article I picked up on and it is the reason the MAC has turned into a Dollar General sports league. Dollar General meaning among other things, there are few people who would want to spend their hard earned money watching low scoring games. The defensive orientation in basketball is killing the league. I know some of you are just crazy enough to believe that there is something entertaining about watching low scoring games or that defense leads to offense (if so, how come we held a team last weekend to a low scoring total and lost) like Mike Fratelllo coaching. Defense gets the offense the ball. If the offense can't score once it has the ball, what is the point of the good defense? Lay ups? Lay ups don't happen that often. MAC schools struggle doing the basic of basketball which is taking the little orange ball and putting it through the little orange ring.Another good point the article makes without saying it is the league has so few good players playing in it that the good players are easy to stop by double teams, etc. Once you stop the one good player, the garbage behind him can't pick up the slack. I worry about this with Zeke coming to Akron. I don't see any scorers on the team and he is an all american. Teams can double team Zeke and wait while rest to miss layups and open jump shots. I hope this doesn't happen, but it is happening at other schools now. Don't think it can't happen to us.Where does the MAC go from here? Nowhere....it is just want it is.Football vs. Basketball. Meaningless point. I actually think the MAC puts it's best foot forward with the MAC Tournament. It is the best event the MAC produces. If the league does not improve, the Tournament will become Dollar General as well. We will find out next weekend.

I think many of us are torn between many fitting names such as the two you proposed. The list could go on forever. I tried to isolate the choices to pot references.

I really thought Bubbling Bongs would have a hefty lead at this point......

You decide the new name of Can't State......

It was nice to see KD throw the McKnight brothers under the bus in his post game comments posted on Rasor's blog.....not really. Praise in public and criticize in private KD. If you don't have anything good to say, don't say anything at all. The funny thing is he went into the press conference aiming to throw them under the bus. He knew exactly what their combined attempts and made shots were. He put some thought into that before he did it. Instead of throwing guys under the bus, he should have said the following. "We only scored 46 points today in a college basketball game. If it was 1950, that total might be ok, but it isn't. I am ashamed and I take personal responsibility for this loss. While there is enough blame to go around, please direct any criticism at me and my style of basketball that can lead to this outcome. I was beaten today at my own game.....a defensive and low scoring affair."

The MAC will never have a team that competes for a national championship.The MAC is considered successful in neither football nor basketball. The league has brought in misfits in the past like Central Florida, Buffalo and Temple. Central leaving was a good thing. Replacing them with Temple was a bad thing. I would argue that even NIU is a misfit for the league at this point.Having a league that has the same teams at the top, the same teams in the middle and the same teams at the bottom evey year is terrible for a league. The Big Ten is as bad as it is right now because they have this structure year in and year out.I'm not certain the MAC doesn't have an identity. Identitiy means that something indentifys what you are. For example, a female kangaroo can be identified by a pouch. The identitiy of the mac is that it is a league full of a bunch of schools that underfund their athletics, reside in states that are obsessed with the BCS schools in those states, have little community/alumni support and are ignored by the NCAA (the list could go on, but I'm going to 5:30 mass). The league has been around since 1946. It is just what it is and 60+ years have not changed it. I could care less if it changes. I only want Akron to be the best team in a highly competitive conference. More teams with the same identitiy will not change the league. Fewer teams will create more rivals, more "dislike" for each other and more interest.Contraction crossed my mind when I was writing the orginal post, but that is not the way to go only because the NCAA will put the entire conference to a lower level(1-AA, or whatever it's called now). The NCAA can not do this. It is up to each conference which level it belongs to and the conference requires each member to be at that level.The Big East is not going to do anything different than what it is doing right now. That league is primarily a basketball league and secondly a football league. As long as Notre Dame stays in for basketball they will be happy. Adding Central Florida, etc. does not improve that league. You don't improve your league by bringing bad teams into the league.I'll give another example. I once worked for a company that manufactured building products and sold them to contractors as a system. We expanded our sales by contracting the number of contractors eligible to issue a warranty with our products. In that industry, we expanded perceived value in our product by elimating rum dums who were not good installers of the systems. It was very successful. More was not better. Adding contractors every year was sucking the value of the company down the drain in many, many ways. The MAC has not improved itself by adding bad teams and reducing the perceived value of the competition. Contraction is the real key. The new MAC president will not allow it because it will not look good on a resume and ADs will not vote for it because they worry about offending anyone that might be able to help them get another job at a bigger school. When those two motivations are the reason for "growing" the league, it is the wrong thing to do.I can't think of a single confernce that has been helped by becoming larger and having a conference championship at the end of the season. The SEC? The Big 12? These conferences would be great conferences without a championship game. The PAC10 has no championship game and it is just as good of a conference as the Big 12 and SEC. The quality of a league is not measured by one championship game at the end of the year. It is measured by the quality of the competition throughout the season. These three conferences have great competition all year long. Championship games don't matter. Larger conferences don't matter.

The MAC will never have a team that competes for a national championship.The MAC is considered successful in neither football nor basketball. The league has brought in misfits in the past like Central Florida, Buffalo and Temple. Central leaving was a good thing. Replacing them with Temple was a bad thing. I would argue that even NIU is a misfit for the league at this point.Having a league that has the same teams at the top, the same teams in the middle and the same teams at the bottom evey year is terrible for a league. The Big Ten is as bad as it is right now because they have this structure year in and year out.I'm not certain the MAC doesn't have an identity. Identitiy means that something indentifys what you are. For example, a female kangaroo can be identified by a pouch. The identitiy of the mac is that it is a league full of a bunch of schools that underfund their athletics, reside in states that are obsessed with the BCS schools in those states, have little community/alumni support and are ignored by the NCAA (the list could go on, but I'm going to 5:30 mass). The league has been around since 1946. It is just what it is and 60+ years have not changed it. I could care less if it changes. I only want Akron to be the best team in a highly competitive conference. More teams with the same identitiy will not change the league. Fewer teams will create more rivals, more "dislike" for each other and more interest.

If the product is competition, improve the product by improving the competition. The MAC should begin to look at contraction and not expansion. "Growth" has not been good for the MAC. The more it grows, the worse it gets. I think the idea of adding more bad teams to an already bad conference would not help in the least. Generating a highly competitive atmosphere within the conference should be the goal of the next MAC president, not resume "building" "growth". Super conferences just generate more games against more teams, but not necessarily more/better competition. I'm talking about the kind of competition where the participants are very familiar with each other and FIERCE competition takes place between the participants each time they play.Keep the conference isolated to the teams in Ohio, Michigan and Indiana. Temple, Buffalo and NIU would be out. No football only. I'd hate to see Buffalo go, but tough business decisions have to be made all the time. I don't know what value Temple and NIU bring to the MAC at this point. This would leave the conference with 10 teams. Every team would have to play nine conference games meaning everyone plays everyone. Alternate home and away games yearly. At the end of the year, the team with the best MAC record is the champion. Tie breakers would have to be established, but that is normal. The Big Ten and PAC10 crown their champions in a similar way. If it is good enough for them, it should be good enough for us.The MAC should require for the remaining three games:1. One BCS school. Everyone needs a pay day.2. One non-BCS, D-1A school.3. Each school gets to select their own team. I would recommend a 1-AA team like the BCS schools do so we can get to 6 wins faster. I used to hate this idea, but it seems to be the thing to do to get to six wins for a lot of teams. In basketball, an 18 game MAC schedule would be played (we play 16 MAC games right now) with every team playing a home and away game against everyone else. At the end of the year they could still have the tournament in Cleveland. The familiarity generated by this type of schedule would make for some great competition in the tournament.Remember, competition is at the core of what the MAC is selling. Improve the competition and improve the product. Improve the product and you generate interest. Improve the product and you have something more people will be willing to pay to go see because there is interest. An improved product will keep them coming back.

Thank God!One more year of the 3-3-5 defense and I was going to be the guy walking around holding his chest.....

Just out of curiosity...what was the new Rutgers AD doing prior to his recent hiring?I'll give you a hint...he's in this photo:Maybe Waddel should go back to sideline reporting......

Yes I have. I know the guy tried his best here, but he did leave a bit of a stink on the way out. I've heard that from more than one person. Some of you may have noticed that my posts about him changed around this time. I know a lot of you think the guy walks on water. I don't. Without the brains of Mike Thomas, MW is still patrolling sidelines waiting to ask a coach, "What are you going to do differently the second half?" I don't believe for a second he could do half the job Thomas did at UofA if he was in the big chair and I'm not willing to take the risk.Again, I give all of you guys some level of respect for your opinions. My opinion could change about this issue, but probably not."Hey missy, make us some sammiches!" Cotton Hill, King of the Hill.

IF the above is true, I would like to respond. I was going to hold back, but he next few minutes of typing will be too much fun.The only way Waddell comes back to Akron is if Mike Thomas comes back to Akron. Waddell has shown no ability to convince even a half ass directional MO school that he is capable of leading an athletic department. If Thomas goes to a better school than UC, Waddell will be right behind him. I'm sure that by now the people at UC are smart enough to see through his self-promotion. Batman goes nowhere without Robin and Waddell will always be in the passenger's seat.IF Waddell did indeed say what is above, he is truely a jack-ass and I can't believe any of you would want him back. Would the kind of person you would want working for UofA say such a low class thing? The guy has been at UC for how many years now? What the Hell does he know about what is going on?There is an old saying, "Criticism is the price of leadership." Every subordinate thinks they know how to do their bosses job. Surely some of my subordinates have said some really nasty things about me behind my back. I'm sure in whatever fantasy land Waddell lives in, he knows how to be an AD. The problem is that one day you have to lead and you never know how you will respond. So far, every school he interviews with does not believe he can lead. Only some of you knuckleheads on this board believe he can lead. Since many of you are Browns fans and therefore not very smart, I'll side with the "every school he interviews with" group.I don't know if Waddell is smart enough to pick up on it or not, but the momentum of the Motor City Bowl was lost the next year when the team had a losing record and the decline of the MAC was becoming more obvious to anyone with half a brain. Other than buying more billboards (laughing while I type), I don't know how he could have changed that or would have even known what to do to change it.Waddell was nothing but a radio guy who Mike Thomas drug along with him to Akron for whatever reason. When Mack was hired, Waddell was still on staff and made a lot of promises, knowing he was going to leave for UC soon, to fans that were never going to happen. I for one am glad he did not get hired....he wasn't up for the job and still is not up for a job like AD because no other school will hire him.I have met Mack. While I don't know him very well, he seems like a good guy. I can't imagine him leaving UofA and then badmouthing the place after he leaves. He wouldn't stoop to such a low level. I wish him luck in whatever he decides to do.Is the program better off? I would say that given the decline of the MAC in the past few years, the program IS doing well. I do not know exactly how to measure it, but it seems better off now."I say good day sir"....Bobby Hill, King of the Hill.

Excellent point on issue #2. We are probably more guilty of this at UofA as anyone in the league.I'm not certain what the MAC president can do when a member school gets hosed other than telling someone he is really mad. The president has no real power to make the NCAA do anything.Marketing the MAC is extremely difficult because the quality has become so poor and historically has been poor. The MAC has had over 60 years to expose itself to the general public and still attendance is poor. Either there still isn't enough exposure, or people don't like what they see when they go to a game. 60 years of going to market with billboards is a long time. At some point, maybe someone will wake up and realize billboards don't do anything.

All good points. Let's try to look at this also from the new head of the MAC position. What are three things the new president of the MAC can do immediately to improve the league?