GP1

Good find. DrZ always has a good link or two for the board. Can we buy the non Addidas hats at a UofA sporting event?

Like you, I am also excited about the new stadium. However, I'm not sitting around with worms in my mouth.

All of you who are in favor of having the big schools play each other only are 100% correct. Being D-1A for mid-majors has become pointless. Break out the Big Ten, Big East, ACC, SEC, PAC 10 and Big 12 and let them have their own division in all sports and don't let them play anyone outside of their own group. Akron isn't the first mid-major to get screwed this way and it is very likely that many more mid-majors will get screwed even worse in the future as it will get worse and not better.

With the exception of Toledo and Western, the rest of the MAC are a bunch of whores. I guess Toledo and Western are too, only to a lesser extent.Almost everyone has only five home games unless they are willing to find an even bigger whore to play in a I-AA team (Yes, I think we should treat Army as a home game. I wish we could play every game at Browns Stadium). Toledo has seven (if I counted right) but they have also historically drawn well for out of conference games against major conferences.IF the NCAA and university presidents wanted to instill some integrity back into college athletics, they would force teams in the Big Ten, PAC 10, Big 12, Big East, ACC and SEC to only play non-conference games against each other. Who has less integrity, the whore or the John? Answer: Both the whore and John are equal. The mid-majors are the whores and the big conferences are the Johns.Captain Kangaroo's excellent post the other day about the BB team and mid-majors getting screwed really hit home with me. It applies to all sports and not just basketball. Mid-major schools start out so far behind the eight ball that catching up is such an up hill struggle it becomes difficult to enjoy the team or sometimes even to look forward to the future. Why does it have to be so difficult to be a MAC fan?

Almost no influence? I wonder if he could even get UTEP to come play us. By the way, hasn't he been here a year now? Why would UTEP come to Akron to play us when they can schedule New Mexico and Texas Southern at home and Texas Tech and New Mexico State on the road in non-conference games? All of those games involve less travel for all teams/fans and they are regional match ups that include interest for local fans. Does anyone think they would make more money playing UofA than Texas Tech or New Mexico?I'm not here to make excuses for Mack. In fact, they need to change how they do some things. You're right about him being here a year and not much happening that the average person can see. Rasor is right in his post when he says they need to make a splash and soon. His hands are financially tied though and in more than anything, scheduling for football really shows.Personally, I have not been sitting around with bated breath waiting for the UTEP vs. UofA match-up. Mack's influence on the UTEP Athletic Department ended the day he packed his bags and moved to Akron.This year we will play Army, OSU, Indiana and Connecticut. I have no problem with those games. Mack needs to get some influence in conference games so we do not have to play a team like CMU three years in a row. Home and home is enough with the West.

Anyone who schedules a wedding the day of the Akron/Can't game should change the day of the wedding or is not really your friend.

I don't have strong feelings about this schedule either way. On the one hand, we could be 2-2 after the first four games...that would be good. What really concerns me is that we could be 2-4 after the first six games and have our backs against the wall, again, for another forced late season run with games on the road against BG and Miami. I don't like having to go 5-1 in the last six for a +500 record and a chance for a bid to a bowl game if we don't win the division.The game at Browns Stadium is nothing but a positive for the program. The Rubber Bowl is a dump and only idiots (like us, me included) look forward to games out there. Everyone wants the Zips to be NE Ohio's team...well, here is our chance to play on the biggest stage in the area, in the biggest population center with a chance to shine and possibly attract some out of county fans to some Zips games. I don't know if the time is posted, but can you imagine the fun of going to Cleveland and spending a nice summer day in the flats or in the Warehouse District and then spending a fun Saturday night at the game. I don't see how it could be a negative.The other games are as expeced. We alternate home and away with our division each year and we still owe WMU a back end of a home and home. I don't like Connecticut on the road, again. Losing this game will not hurt our MAC record though...if we lose.I also don't like having to play CMU a third year in a row. The CMU game, more than anything, bothers me because we have not played EMU in a while and we should be due for a West cupcake to come to the RB. This is a point where I think we could be critical of Mack's scheduling. He has almost no influence over non-conference games as he has almost no cards to play. No D-1A team wants to bring their team to Akron to play in front of only a handful of paying customers and I don't want to go back to the days of Liberty, Howard and Cal Poly. Conference games are different and this game more than any really sticks out to me as one where the MAC wants to try to stick it to Akron.One blessing is we get to play Temple in lieu of Toledo this year. The addition of them to our league saved us from having to play Toledo again. We do not match up well against Toledo's offense. I'd rather play Temple on the road than Toledo at home. Does this balance out the CMU game?.....I don't know.The week night games blow. I understand the need to get on national TV, but going to the RB on a week night is just depressing.

Thanks Hilltopper. I had always heard that years ago schools liked going to the NIT because it made them more money than the NCAA because it was independent. Must have heard wrong.Just found this. 2005 NCAA buys NIT. http://concise.britannica.com/ebc/article-...tion-Tournament

Nice job CK!With the NIT, it really is all about the money as I believe it is an independent organization that has little to do with the NCAA other than whoring it's members for a basketball tournament.I'm really a cynical guy and it takes a lot to shock me, but I was shocked when I heard we did not get into the NIT. If it was about the money, we could have played all of our games on the road. It really does not make sense.....at all.I'd really like the NCAA to promote some conferences to another level and stop misleading fans of mid-majors to believe they have any shot of winning anything or treating them as equals to the big conferences. They should promote the Big Ten, Big East, SEC, PAC10 and Big 12 to another level and let them have their own playoffs in every sport and continue to rake in the cash like they do now. Those of us at mid-majors could have our own tournaments and I think we would have just as much fun with them as we currently do, if not more. It's the only way to get us away from whoring ourselves to the big conferences every year.Again, I'm just shocked.

This really was the central issue last night as it was something the Zips had complete control over.

I really have to respectfully disagee. One championship is not going to break the culture of freeloading Akron tickets embedded in the people of Summit and Stark Counties and reinforced by decades of giving away free tickets by UofA. It will take years of championships and work on the part of the Athletic Department to break the culture.I guess if there was going to be any positive taken from the game last night, and I'm grasping for straws here, it would be the basketball team taking another step forward. It was their first appearance in the finals. My concern is that they did not win the championship in a year when the MAC is absolutely horrible. For all the talk about the great players is KD is bringing here, with the exception of Ced, there is an alarming lack of athletic talent coming off of the bench. At some point, a coach can't win without talent. It's like trying to coach a dwarf to win the Olympic high jump.Here is a good question for everyone. Is Miami a better team than Akron? The facts would spell out that they are. They won two of three against UofA. All of the games were close but they managed to win. They made plays when they needed to and UofA did not. The fun thing about sports is that you get a chance to play a game to see who is better than the other team. Miami proved they are better than us in head to head competition. They EARNED their trip to the big dance. I have to totally disagree with you on pretty much every point.First of all I think you completely underestimate what winning a championship would have done for attendance. Look at the Ball State game earlier this year where we nearly sold out. Bad opponent, bad weather, but fans still showed up because there was a growing opinion that the Zips were a good basketball team that was going to do some big things this year. Winning last night (and maybe a couple tournament games as well) would have reinforced that idea and it would have lead to more positive results down the road. As far as the recruiting thing goes and getting "great athletes" show me how many "great athletes" Miami had on the floor last night. In my honest opinion the idea that great athletes make great players (in any sport) is the biggest myth in all of sports. You can be blazing fast, leap tall buildings in a single bound, throw the ball a mile with a flick of the wrist and cut on a dime but if you don't understand the game you are playing you aren't going to translate that to success on the court (or field, or diamond, whatever). Give me a team of great players over a team of great athletes any day. As far as Miami being better than us. I just don't know. The records would say that yes, they are. I don't think the records show the whole picture though. The records don't show the absolute screw job that the clock operator and refs made last night. The records don't show that ridiculous overtime loss a couple weeks back. I will say this however. Miami is a lot better (than us and the rest of the conference) at making you play their game. You will never see them get trapped into playing a fast paced, up and down the court, high scoring game with anyone. They are always going to make you slow down and play a low scoring, close, defensive minded basketball game. If there is one thing that they are better at than us, this is it. Good points.We won a football championship and then basically gave away trips to Detroit for a Bowl game and we still had the same crappy crowds last year as in the past 20 years. More season tickets were sold, but my guess is that they were sold to community minded businesses. One championship is never going to do it because most people can't remember what they did yesterday, let alone what happened months before. It is going to take years.The point about having good players and not great athletes is good and I agree to some degree. For example, Milum (sp?) is a great athlete, but he can't play basketball at the level needed to be considered even good in the MAC. However, I don't think we have one single great player on the team and we need to get one. The great player would have great athletic ability and great basketball ability. Lots of good players, but not a great one. I wouldn't even throw Linhart or Rybak into the good category at this point. They are just too slow to even compete at a high level in the MAC and KD gave them scholarships. In the old days of college athletics, guys like those two would be run off the team. My ideal guy would be someone who you could get the ball to at the top of the key with 12 seconds left on the shot clock and have him make something happen. UofA does not have a single guy who can do that.The reason Miami is probably better than us in 1:1 play is because they beat us 2:1 this season. The games are played to see who is better.

I really have to respectfully disagee. One championship is not going to break the culture of freeloading Akron tickets embedded in the people of Summit and Stark Counties and reinforced by decades of giving away free tickets by UofA. It will take years of championships and work on the part of the Athletic Department to break the culture.I guess if there was going to be any positive taken from the game last night, and I'm grasping for straws here, it would be the basketball team taking another step forward. It was their first appearance in the finals. My concern is that they did not win the championship in a year when the MAC is absolutely horrible. For all the talk about the great players is KD is bringing here, with the exception of Ced, there is an alarming lack of athletic talent coming off of the bench. At some point, a coach can't win without talent. It's like trying to coach a dwarf to win the Olympic high jump.Here is a good question for everyone. Is Miami a better team than Akron? The facts would spell out that they are. They won two of three against UofA. All of the games were close but they managed to win. They made plays when they needed to and UofA did not. The fun thing about sports is that you get a chance to play a game to see who is better than the other team. Miami proved they are better than us in head to head competition. They EARNED their trip to the big dance.

KD's legacy is incomplete. So far he shows himself to be a good coach.....good not great. Good does not make someone special because there are a lot of good coaches out there.On the good side, KD gets a group of kids with marginal athletic talent to play hard every night. On the bad side, he gets kids with marginal athletic talent. KD needs to get one great player on this team who can score at will taking the ball to the basket and stop worrying so much about defense or he'll become the Mike Fratello (sp?) of Akron basketball. Defense winning championships if the biggest lie ever told in sports. As far as coaching last night, Miami did nothing special. They played the same borring game they do night after night. Akron played their game with them and lost. To blame the coach alone is not fair after that loss. As much as I like KD, he looked as nervous as a cat in a room full of rocking chairs the last five minutes of the game. Players pick up on those kinds of things and if my memory serves me correctly, we only scored six points in the last five minutes.Late in the game when it was close but UofA was still winning, I told my wife that Charlie Coles has Akron exactly where he wants them. Coles seems know that regular season games in the MAC are insignificant compared to the tournament and his team was the best prepared for the tournament.

I don't see how the Tournament Committee puts an Akron team in with loses to Miami (twice) and UALR and does not put a team like WVU in with a win against #2 UCLA.

Has anyone received a notice from UofA about the possibility of an alumni party anywhere in Cleveland? If so, please tell us what it says. My wife went to Miami and has received an e-mail stating that if they win on Thursday, they will have a party somewhere on Friday before the game.For those of you who want the University to do little things likes getting juiceboxes at games or photos of LBJ with an Akron hat on should take note of this if they have not planned anything. Those are little things and they need to start getting the big things right. Having a pregame get together before a big game is what big time schools do and they are very important. By the way, this should not be a free event.If the University has planned something, good job.

I'm sure that some day when the resume building albatross that is our Addidas contract expires and we move to Nike (hopefully), LBJ would be more than happy to wear one. I don't believe there is any way on God's green Earth that he would rub Nike's nose in shit and wear an Addidas hat regardless of the school he is rooting for.Where LBJ goes, what he wears and everything he does depends upon his contracts and who is paying for it. The guy is a huge enterprise and he is not going to take a risk at a UofA vs. Can't basketball game. If he does, he or someone around him made a big mistake and they will be getting an ear-full from someone down the line.I think the marketing department does a lot of things wrong, but the nitpicking on this board is just silly. They have a lot bigger problems to solve than whatever LBJ is wearing. How does LBJ having an Addidas UofA hat on move the ball forward for the University? If UofA tried to use that immage in any way, there would be an avalanche of letters from lawyers representing LBJ and Nike. It would cause a huge stink and that is something nobody involved wants.We all need to stop worrying about whether LBJ has a UofA hat on or if they are selling juiceboxes at the games and worry more about how the marketing department is going to create mass support for the program around the area. Currently, there is none and that needs to change. I dont' see how getting LBJ involved in any other way than a half assed way helps us. The time he spends at UofA games is probably the only time he has to devote to UofA. Between his business obligations, basketball obligations and having sex with anyone he wants to whenever he wants to, he is probably pretty busy. Half assed efforts get half assed results. We need a whole ass effort from the marketing department.Off to Las Vegas.......Viva Las Vegas!!!!!!

Why would anyone wish going to the Browns on any Zip? I hope AA goes to a real NFL team so he has the chance to grow his career and win something like Dwight Smith did.

My bad. The mods can take my post down if you wish.

bigzipguy made a good point the other day about getting a stretch of wins after the Miami game in order for us to do well in the MAC Tournament. I agree completely and looking at tournament based sports (one loss and you're out) it appears to be very important as well. The old saying in the NFL is that teams who win in December win in January because of the momentum they build up. The NCAA selection committee bases a lot of at large bids on how well a team does late in the season. Here are the questions for discussion:1. Was the win Saturday enough for UofA to shake off the Miami loss?2. Do you fee we have good momentum right now or are things flat?3. Would a loss to the Dukes or Can't or both leave us flat going into the tournament?4. Are there other teams out there gaining momentum faster than UofA?5. Is the idea of momentum going into a tournament being important a bunch of nonsense?Let the discussion begin....

I disagree with the point that this is Akron's best chance to win a title for years to come. The future is too hard to predict. Everyone thought the Colts lost their best chance to win in 2005 season when they lost to the Steelers in the playoffs and James went to the Cardinals. They came back and won this year. The same can be said for the Steelers losing to New England in the AFC Championship in the 2004 season and they won Super Bowl XL the next year. Look at our own history...nobody thought the Zips could win the football championship the year after Blackburn and Frye graduated, but thanks to Biggs they did. Maybe football analogies are not the best, but the NFL runs a tournament playoff system the same as the MAC and NCAA. One game winner take all is hard to predict.

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07057/765094-66.stmThis should not surprise anyone.

I understand what you are saying, but James is with Nike and UofA is with Addidas. Contracts are contracts, and there is only so much UofA can do to promote James under these circumstances. The current Athletic Department staff did not sign the Addidas contract and when it runs out, UofA should run to become a Nike school if they will have us. There is a guy with the initials of KD who may have some influence with a guy with the initials of LJ who could help. I agree with ZipsWin! in that I don't think promoting James is the answer either.This marketing staff does nothing more or less than what we have seen around here for the past 20 years. Billboards, newspaper advertisements, etc....it's the definition of insanity. There is actually an argument for them doing more as they increased football season tickets drastically after years of decline prior to them. I would credit ISP partnering with us for that increase, but it was Mack's decision. BB is not done yet so we can not make a judgement. I think many on this board need to get over the knee jerk reaction to blame the marketing staff for everything. We all know why this is and it is really starting to look silly. If anyone would like me to get into why it is and who is to blame for the Addidas contract and decline in football season tickets, I would be more than happy to debate that.

When I think of KD, I think he could be the Bill Cowher of the MAC. He could be the guy who wins a ton of games for a long time with talent less than other teams around him. As a fan, it is fun to watch, but there is a heartbreak element to it also. He'll come close a lot of the time to winning the MAC championship and fall short because of talent. He will win a MAC championship at some point because he will field good enough teams that at some point all the cards will fall his way and he will win in Cleveland. The question is not whether KD will win the MAC, but when he will win the MAC.The talent level in the MAC can only get better in the next few years so KD is going to need to improve the talent level on the team. This year may be the year all the cards are falling in place. The league is horrible, Akron has a veteran team that plays hard, the players are coachable, they are winning a lot (they need to keep the momentum up going into Cleveland) and on any night a win against one of the better teams in the league is not wishful thinking.Bill Cowher had to win 140 games before winning the Super Bowl and 149 games total in 15 years (more than any other team in that 15 year period). Let's hope KD doesn't take that long.I don't want to anger the Farking Gods, but this really should be the Zips year.

Double A will obviously get drafted 3-4. I think he is one of those players who will not be impacted by his performance at the Combine regardless of how it turns out.Getsy will not be drafted. The only question with him is what team needs a #3 willing to work for peanuts compared to other NFL players.

Akron shouldn't worry about anyone else on their schedule, cautious maybe, but not worried. They need to play like to they are a good team, which they are.