The Schedule

[Captain Kangaroo]

I see all the hubbub regarding the Zips Basketball scheduling and I figured it was worth it's own topic. Unless...people are tired of it. The Very GoodI think this year's schedule is very good. Home games against Wyoming and Temple are great, and the wins will look nice to any selection committee. @ Dayton and @ Winthrop are also great opportunities for high-visibility wins, and a nice home/home addition. We blew it with our chance to play Colorado State, but the game was there for us if we'd have won. The Alaska tourney was a good, early season event. And, it looks like we should have another marquee opponent for the Bracket Buster.The "Decent"NC A&T is a decent team...mediocre record, but a nice win over DePaul to their credit. UIC looks to be similar, with a bad record, but a tough schedule. They have a win over Bradley and a 1-point loss to UNC Charlotte.YSU has turned their hoops program around as of late. They didn't look too bad vs. UCLA, and played Notre Dame within 12. A good local rivalry. I would schedule a home/home with them for the next decade.The "Slightly Bad"Austin Peay looks to be down from last year's 20-win team, but it is a return game for our earlier Bracket Buster. We didn't proactively schedule it. A tough road game.Binghamton is similar. They were a solid team when we scheduled the home/home following the 2005-6 season. But they aren't so hot now. Hopefully we can upgrade that schedule slot next season with a better opponent.The "Terrible"Walsh...but we needed the tune up. And it was a dramatic competitive upgrade over Tiffin circa 2006-7.UNC Central looks to be terrible, but we need a "breather" game or two.Other MAC SchoolsMiami seems to be the only MAC team that really went nuts with their schedule and had any success. And it garnered them wins vs. S. Alabama, Mississippi State and Xavier. They had close losses to USC, Dayton and Louisville that will probably be looked upon favorably by the NCAA selection committee should Miami falter in the MAC tourney. Toledo has been crushed regularly with their "ambitious" OOC schedule.K.e.n.t. scheduled no one of note other than Saint Louis and Xavier.Overall, for where our program presently sits, it is a good schedule, consistent with, and probably better than other MAC schools. It puts us in a better situation for the post season than last year's schedule. If we can take 2-of-3 from the Dayton/Winthrop/Bracket Buster...and finish with the type of overall season we had last year, I think the post season committees can't overlook us. And, I wouldn't trade a 9-point loss to Duke with a 15-point win vs. NC A&T.If Miami is a good as they appear, I think the MAC has a puncher's chance at 2-bids this year. We'll just have to see if the Zips, K.e.n.t., and OU are for real too. And maybe WMU.

[skip-zip]

Yikes....although it is an improvement, the tournament committees are not going to look at us any differently than they did last year, unless we run the table. And we already have a loss to a team ranked far below us in the computer rankings. We simply have WAY too many games against teams in the lower level of D-1. After 30+ years of following Akron Basketball, I have to say that Miami's scheduling is right in line with that I think is the best thing to do to grow a program. 1) A few marquis opponents to get some NATIONAL exposure, increase your SOS, and add some fuel to your recruiting efforts.2) A few games against winnable programs that are somewhat on the same level as they are.3) A few games against lower level teams.Last week (I have not checked this week), Miami was #51 in the Sagarin ratings, yet they've LOST 3 GAMES. If we don't start adding some #1s to our schedule, and play less of the #3s, we'll continue to encounter the same frustrations that we've faced many times in our D-1 era when Selection Sunday rolls around.

[ziptrumpet87]

Unfortunately we need the rest of the MAC teams to schedule tougher schedules to really help us, but we have no influence on their OOC scheduling.

[Zip Watcher]

I agree CK,I think the schedule is a solid one for where this program is at the moment. I think in a few years, when we've had an NCAA win or 2, and are nipping at the rankings every season, then you go back to the high majors & you can get home and homes .. or 2 for 1's .. but 1 off games on the road or 3 for 1's are just not productive.I like the games against Wyoming, Temple, Winthrop & Dayton. I think they're the kind of games that you'll eventually see fill up our OOC schedule. The teams are in the same strata as the Zips and provide good road tests when we go there.I'd like the idea of home and homes with the following types of teams:YSU (local .. generally a win, though they are getting better quickly)Duquesne (for recruiting purposes .. until we can get on Pitt's schedule)Dayton / XavierButlerMissouri StatePretty much any MWC team .. though you need 2 games to make the trip worthwhile, so it would be good to partner up w/ another midwest school to get teams from MWC to make a 2 game swing through the midwest.TempleSome NYC school (Manhattan / Iona / Hofstra? .. another recruiting boost?)I'm ok w/ the current strategy of not selling the team out for a quick payday at a super high major. Until we're at the level where we can get them to come here .. even the Q (as long as it's not OSU or Cincy) .. I say we work to get those teams on neutral courts. As the team improves, perhaps the next trip to Alaska is to Anchorage for the Great Alaska Shootout, rather than Fairbanks. The Puerto Rico tourney a couple of years ago was a good one .. 2 or 3 BCS games on neutral floors.One thing that I overheard leaving the JAR on Saturday is that pounding a MWC team by 35 isn't going to necessarily help bring the next team into the JAR. If the Zips are 43-2 over this season and the previous 3 .. are there any teams who have a better record over that stretch? I doubt it. It's getting to be viewed as a place where the road team loses .. and until the Zips become a "solid road win" for an upper mid or high major .. they're not coming here.All in good time.

[Zip Watcher]

Just did a little bit of quick counting:Memphis has the Nation's longest current home winning streak at 34 games.So I went back to check how they've done overall in the time KD's been coach here:04-05: 14-605-06: 16-106-07: 16-007-08: 5-0Now, I'm trying not to count the C-DOA tournament games that also happen in Memphis, but I do think those are on the Tigers' home court .. so it might be even better than what I counted here.For the Can't State fans reading this, it adds up to 51-7 over the time that UA is 43-2 .. so Memphis hasn't been better .. the Zips may have the best home record since the 04-05 season began.Interesting also that over this span, Memphis has played 13 more home games than the Zips. That further explains that the big schools just aren't going out to play risky games at solid mid-major clubs' gyms.

[skip-zip]

ZipWatcher....I think you're missing the point that you need to upgrade your schedule to GET to that point. You don't have to "wait until we get better, and then schedule bigger teams". You do that now in order to bring your program up to that level. Again, this mentality will continue to be a recipe for disappointment, just as it has been for the last few decades, if we don't change it.You don't need to play top-20 teams every night. But teams of that caliber need to be on your schedule. Miami being ranked #51 in the Sagarin, with a 3-3 record, should show all of us all that we need to know in terms of the level of respect you get when you increase your SOS.

[Zip Watcher]

I'm not missing anything .. I just don't agree with you.Getting into the neutral site games is fine if you can swing it .. but bending over to go on the road for 8 of your 12 OOC games is not good for the team. Everyone hates it in football .. and I think it's a disaster in hoops. See the season 3 years ago when we played Louisville & Cal on the road .. did it help us? ??

[GP1]

Actually, you are all right!Like a Robert Mondavi brand of wine, it is average, but not great. It will provide some enjoyment, but not enough to make the skilled pallets of the powers that be in the NCAA to take a second look come March.skip-zip, the point about Miami is correct, but the final analysis of their schedule is incomplete. At the end of the year, Miami will be better off because of playing a rigorous schedule. The most boring coach in the world, Charlie Coles, knows it's all about preparing for the MAC Tournament and that is what Miami is doing. Coles plays top teams so his team can become accustomed to playing high level competition in the Tournament. Akron, on the other hand, prepares for the MAC regular season. Akron will pile up a lot of wins, but not a lot of people will take a second look at them if they don't win the MAC Tournament. There is really no right or wrong, just a matter of what you think best prepares the team for the MAC portion of the schedule. If Akron wins the MAC Tournament, everything will be fine. If they don't, it doesn't matter because based upon last year, wins are not enough.

[GoZips]

My my, isn't it fun to castigate the team and its schedule? Seems everyone forgot two important facts. Facts that have deeply wounded the Zips. First, Darryl Roberts failed to qualify for college last season. Thus, leaving theZips an excellent point guard short. The hold up this year is not his fault. Blame the State of Ohio. Hopefully this will be resolved in mid December.More importantly was the unexpected loss of Ronnie Steward. Steward is a far better point guard than Steve McNees. This hurt the Zips awful. Honestly, it is not likelythat Steward will play this year. He was walking with a bad limp at the Wyoming game. The Zips are learning how to operate with an improvised point guard (Middleton most of the time). McNees should be decent by conference play. Saturday night the Zips looked like the Zips we all know and love. They stomped a decent team. Tomorrow we shall find out if they can nail a good team on the road. I predict that they will.I think we should stay the course. That is, trust coach Dambrot and his crew to wisely schedule opponents. I realize that some of you have visions of scheduling UNC, PUKE and even OSU in their house and flaming them. Not a chance. The refs would never allow it. Onlyway to do that is to come with far better talent than they have.Stop worrying about RPI, strength of schedule, etc. Just win. That is what it is all about. If the Zips fall short in the MAC tourney and have over 20 wins they are quitelikely to get an NIT bid. Last year's faux pas embarrassed those old coots. They wont let that happen again.

[Zip90]

Stop worrying about RPI, strength of schedule, etc. Just win. That is what it is all about.

That's what I've been thinking all along. We (the fans and the team) need to be of the mindset that....1) The MAC will never get at large bids, and2) If you want to get into the tournament, you MUST win the MAC tourney, PERIOD.If we play with that in mind, then we don't have to worry about all the rest of it.

[akronzip12345]

Um, just a correction to a statement above, k-e-n-t is playing North Carolina this year in addition to Xavier and St. Louis

[RACER]

i like the way kd schedules.if they do not give us a return trip then do not play them.ill take a 26-7 team over a 4-8 team anyday of the week.i am not blaming jd.i am just pointing out what happens when you go on the road to play the bcs schools.you have almost not chance of winning,and help your program to apathey.

[skip-zip]

That's exactly the point....You don't have to be put in a position where you have to win 25+ games IF you play a higher SOS. With the kind of schedule we have right now, we have to win nearly every game to garner any kind of national attention. And we've already slipped once. For 30 years now, I've watched this program face disappointments at season's end from the tournament committees. If we don't change our mentality, we'll keep repeating this misfortune. Sure, the MAC conference affiliation is not helping. So, we need to provide our own solution, which boils down to the control we have over the 10 games we schedule before conference play begins.

[Captain Kangaroo]

Um, just a correction to a statement above, k-e-n-t is playing North Carolina this year in addition to Xavier and St. Louis

My bad, you are correct...K.e.n.t. plays in Chapel Hill on Jan 2nd.

[Zip Watcher]

Since you've stated this, or similar a few times now ...

For 30 years now, I've watched this program face disappointments at season's end from the tournament committees. If we don't change our mentality, we'll keep repeating this misfortune.

Here's probably where our fundamental difference of opinion lies. You're looking at this as 30 (really it's 21) years of frustration since the last NCAA birth .. or maybe you're looking back to the last deep run in the College Division. Understandable .. if I had seen Wyatt Webb's teams play .. I might feel the same long term pressure .. but I've only got about 25 years of Zips watching.My view is this: This is not the same as 18 years ago .. it's not the same as 10 years ago .. and it's not the same as 5 years ago. We can NOT consider this year 21 of the rebuilding process .. or year 30 .. or whatever. I think we can only look at the program in it's current form: KD as head coach. This is year 4 of a program build under KD. He wasn't head coach in 1993, or 2003 .. he's the head coach now, and I think the program now is what we have to look at:2004-05: 19-10 overall, 11-7 in Conference, First Conf. Tourney win2005-06: 23-10 overall, 14-4 in Conference, Reached Conf Semis, 1-1 in the NIT2006-07: 25-7 Overall, 13-3 in Conference, Reached Conf. Tourney Finals.2007-08: 5-1 record thus far.I choose to consider the program's progress on these items alone .. not the 19 years of futility that preceded them. We're not going to wake up tomorrow and be a top 15 team that can demand reasonable game terms from other elite teams. But if we're patient, and support the team, coaches & program adequately, we WILL wake up a few years from now in that situation.This is going to take a little bit. We have to have some continuous improvement and the program will eventually be able to win year after year. JWood is the last player that remembers what it was like before .. and it either motivates him, or he's left it behind. Either way .. only now can you really say that every aspect of the program has KD's mark.I for one am good with what I see ..

[Hilltopper]

Since you've stated this, or similar a few times now ...

For 30 years now, I've watched this program face disappointments at season's end from the tournament committees. If we don't change our mentality, we'll keep repeating this misfortune.

Here's probably where our fundamental difference of opinion lies. You're looking at this as 30 (really it's 21) years of frustration since the last NCAA birth .. or maybe you're looking back to the last deep run in the College Division. Understandable .. if I had seen Wyatt Webb's teams play .. I might feel the same long term pressure .. but I've only got about 25 years of Zips watching.My view is this: This is not the same as 18 years ago .. it's not the same as 10 years ago .. and it's not the same as 5 years ago. We can NOT consider this year 21 of the rebuilding process .. or year 30 .. or whatever. I think we can only look at the program in it's current form: KD as head coach. This is year 4 of a program build under KD. He wasn't head coach in 1993, or 2003 .. he's the head coach now, and I think the program now is what we have to look at:2004-05: 19-10 overall, 11-7 in Conference, First Conf. Tourney win2005-06: 23-10 overall, 14-4 in Conference, Reached Conf Semis, 1-1 in the NIT2006-07: 25-7 Overall, 13-3 in Conference, Reached Conf. Tourney Finals.2007-08: 5-1 record thus far.I choose to consider the program's progress on these items alone .. not the 19 years of futility that preceded them. We're not going to wake up tomorrow and be a top 15 team that can demand reasonable game terms from other elite teams. But if we're patient, and support the team, coaches & program adequately, we WILL wake up a few years from now in that situation.This is going to take a little bit. We have to have some continuous improvement and the program will eventually be able to win year after year. JWood is the last player that remembers what it was like before .. and it either motivates him, or he's left it behind. Either way .. only now can you really say that every aspect of the program has KD's mark.I for one am good with what I see ..

ZW, I agree with you on this approach. It would be interesting to see the history of how Gonzaga made itself into a mid-major power. Did they play all the big west coast programs and take thier lickings or was it a process similar to what KD is doing right now.

[skip-zip]

It's great that we have this board to discuss/debate these kinds of things with fellow fans.I think the point some of you are trying to make is to build the schedule slowly, whereas some of us are of the opinion that each and every year we need to put ourselves in a position to get the national exposure and ranking needed to make a post-season tournament, if an at-large is our only possibility during that given year, because we did not win our conference tournament.On several occassions, just winning was not enough for us. We know that. It's happened now several times in our D-1 era. And this schedule, although it's an improvement, is not nearly what is needed to give us a shot at an at-large. I hate to keep bringing up the Miami example, because I hate those guys, but they seem to have the right mix where they can win enough games, and still have a high enough SOS to get a shot at an at-large. I just want to be in that same position, but this year's SOS won't get that done.

[ZachTheZip]

Here's the catch: If we win every game with our current schedule and lose in the MAC championship they'll say our SOS is too low. If we played a bunch of top-25 teams in place of teams like Binghamton and those North Carolina teams and happen to lose a few of them, they'll say we didn't win enough. You can't beat the selection committee when they are hell-bent on keeping the money with the big boys. The only way in is to win the tournament. Until the MAC stops having half the conference with 200+ RPIs, we'll never make it in as an at-large. Playing EMU, Ball State, and the like only hurts us. I like the fact that KD isn't willing to sell out his players for money, and if you talk to the players they like it this way too. Our scheduling has gotten better over the years with KD. This year is an upgrade over last year in terms of the mid-major competition we play, just like last year was an upgrade over the previous year because of the exclusion of money games. We'll get more respect as time goes on and the wins rack up. Hopefully we'll get teams like Gonzaga to start coming here, and then maybe some weak high-major conference teams. It will take time, and we're a very impatient bunch.

[ziptrumpet87]

Here's the catch: If we win every game with our current schedule and lose in the MAC championship they'll say our SOS is too low. If we played a bunch of top-25 teams in place of teams like Binghamton and those North Carolina teams and happen to lose a few of them, they'll say we didn't win enough. You can't beat the selection committee when they are hell-bent on keeping the money with the big boys. The only way in is to win the tournament. Until the MAC stops having half the conference with 200+ RPIs, we'll never make it in as an at-large. Playing EMU, Ball State, and the like only hurts us. I like the fact that KD isn't willing to sell out his players for money, and if you talk to the players they like it this way too. Our scheduling has gotten better over the years with KD. This year is an upgrade over last year in terms of the mid-major competition we play, just like last year was an upgrade over the previous year because of the exclusion of money games. We'll get more respect as time goes on and the wins rack up. Hopefully we'll get teams like Gonzaga to start coming here, and then maybe some weak high-major conference teams. It will take time, and we're a very impatient bunch.

Yes, they do seem to change the rules when it comes time to do the selection

[GP1]

Good thought out points by everyone. I can't get the following thought out of my head.If UofA loses the MAC Tournament, even with 25 wins, and does not even get in the NIT, what good is the schedule we are playing other than winning a lot of games? If the answer is that they are building the program, the question is then, into what? The Gonzaga analogy is a really good one. However, they mixed in winning their conference tournament with a lot of wins every year. If the Zips want respect, they are going to have to earn it through a Tournament championship either this year or next (For some odd reason, I think it is going to be this year as college athletics have a theme this year of "expect the unexpected"). If not, they will increase the reputation as a program that wins a lot but can not win the big game.Why play one or two big teams early? Sometimes getting your butt kicked is a good indicator of where the program is and needs to go. It can also expose the players to a higher level of play and thus improve the players expectations and performance by putting them in a higher pressure situation. I still believe everything should center around the MAC Tournament and those three days in March. These early season games teach a good team like UofA a lot. From what I read, it seems as if Akron is playing well and should not get run out of the gym by anyone. They need to step up the scheduling to find out how far they have come. KD is a good coach and would have them ready to play against anyone.Again, really good posts everyone.Have a nice night.

[ziptrumpet87]

I like that KD did the scrimmage with Xavier rather than some D-II school. That should help more than a blowout would.

[ZachTheZip]

I like that KD did the scrimmage with Xavier rather than some D-II school. That should help more than a blowout would.

I heard lots of bad things about that scrimmage. Nothing absolute, but it is likely that we got destroyed against them from what I have heard. Good thing it didn't count. Those scrimmages are probably the best thing for the team. Closed to media and fans, they are strictly for the coaches and teams to analyze to see what works and what doesn't, without riuning the season with a loss.It beats a seconf game against a D-II, although Walsh is certainly a better team than Tiffin, and provides a better scrimmage.

[skip-zip]

uakronkid...I understand how you might think that the tournament committees might snub us, whether we win a lot of game, or don't win quite as many and have a higher SOS. That's understandable to feel that way, based on all of the frustrations we've experienced.But the problem is.....we've never tried it the 2nd way. We've never been in a position where we could lobby the selection committees by saying "Hey, we won 20 games, AND our SOS is much higher". I'd gladly give up a couple of wins a year for a higher SOS.GP1...we're pretty much on the same page. I love your point about "what are we building, and what are we really accomplishing by showing that we can win a lot of game?". The answer is nothing, based on how those situations have benefited us in our D-1 era. But besides the "measuring stick" you get when you play a big-time program a couple of times a year, and the experience you get for your players, you also get a TON of exposure, which helps recruiting. I'm certainly not saying that we should not focus on the MAC tournament. But simply throwing away our alternative opportunity to get into postseason play just makes no sense. Replacing just a couple of those games against opponents ranked at 200+, and replacing them with opponents 50 or higher, would certainly put us in a MUCH better position than where we've been in the past.