2025-26 Post Mortem and Looking Ahead to 2026-27

[clarkwgriswold]

I'm as disappointed as anyone that the Zips season has come to an end.  That disappointment is enhanced by the current state of college basketball and its impact on programs like the Zips.

 

That being said, I couldn't be more proud of the Zips program for reasons beyond their on court success.  Every player that's exhausted their eligibility in Groce's nine year tenure has left with at least one degree.  Every scholarship player except one who finished his career with the Zips has become a professional basketball player for at least one year.

 

Arizona, Duke, Michigan or another major conference team is likely to continue winning and add a National Championship trophy to its trophy case but I'd challenge any of them to match the above accomplishments.

[ZipForNow]

Article on Eric in ABJ: https://www.beaconjournal.com/story/sports/college/zips/2026/03/21/eric-mahaffey-akron-zips-ncaa-tournament-march-madness-college-basketball-transfer-portal/89242985007/

[tolbob]

On 3/21/2026 at 9:14 PM, Reslife4Life said:

Yes it may be tougher for teams out of the horizon, big west, southland to win. But we have seen some “Cinderella-adjacent” runs in college sports this year with Indiana football and maybe we will see something similar with Nebrasketball

Indiana was Cinderella thanks to fairy godmother Mark Cuban who bought their team.  Too bad Wentz is no Mark Cuban, but then, who is.

[kreed5120]

11 minutes ago, tolbob said:

Indiana was Cinderella thanks to fairy godmother Mark Cuban who bought their team.  Too bad Wentz is no Mark Cuban, but then, who is.

 

It's not even a realistic comparison. If you compare the networth of Elon Musk to Dan Gilbert, Dan Gilbert might look "poor". Now if you compare Dan Gilbert to the average working person he's clearly rich.

 

Even without Mark Cuban's money in this scenario Musk is OSU, Dan Gilbert is Indiana, and the G5 is your average blue collar American. Indiana having success is no indication that other G5 can succeed because frankly Indiana has vastly more resources at their disposal by simply existing as a Big 10 school.

 

Edit: TV deal alone pays each B1G school ~$65 million/yr and that's not including any other league revenue. The next TV deal they negotiate I've heard estimates that it could top out around $100 million per school. Not really relatable to any MAC school TBH.

Edited 2 hours ago by kreed5120