clarkwgriswold

It's the smell of the popcorn.

Hunter hesitates on an open 3-pointer then travels. It's getting in his head.

If Taylor ever has a son and doesn't call him Opie it will be a great travesty.

Dawson looks to be out of his walking boot. Nice to see him making progress (okay, okay, I am trying to find something positive here). Kinsey is as good as anyone the Zips have seen this year.

The good old boy on color is a hoot. Speaking about Hinter he mentioned how Groce mentioned how well he's shooting in practice he then went on to say he "can't shoot it where you could smell popcorn."

This just in- Kinsey is good.

Yikes, ugly so far.

Queens is Marshall's only loss thus far. Queens is a small university (2300 students) in Charlotte. Their teams play in the ASUN Conference.

Close the sunroof.

I think Tavari is energy and offense off of the bench for now.

Speaking of people on or near benches, where's Gerry?

Marshall picked up another win, 83-59 over Morehead State, on the 26th. 7'1" freshman center Micah Handlogten seems to be coming on as the season progresses. He had 14 boards, 14 points and 3 blocks against Morehead. I think this will be an entertaining game.

My ailing memory recalls that Christian was something like the Director of Basketball Operations last year, similar to what Dan Peters was with Dambrot, where he's not technically a coach but has bench access. His title as Assistant Athletic Director, Basketball Administration likely gives him that same access.

Good call. It has been a little awkward this season explaining to people that the one win Zips were an improvement over last year.

So this is what it feels like the day after an FBS win. Hmmm, I could get used to this.

Mr. Pinky faces one of his mentors, Kelvin Sampson today. I hope they've been restrained in their texting this week as they know what kind of trouble texting can bring.

I'm afraid this view is shared by many fans, especially with basketball up and running now.

The Zips head to Huntington, WV next Wednesday to face the 4-1 Thundering Herd. Marshall opened with a loss to Queens and has since beaten Tennessee Tech, Miami, Chicago State and Coppin State. The Herd was predicted to finish 6th in the Sun Belt Preseason Poll and placed 6'5" 5th year guard Taevion Kinsey on the preseason All-Conference first team. The Marshall game is always a fun one as D'Antoni always has a fast paced offense that scores and gives up a lot of points. The Zips topped them at the JAR last year, 88-86, with Kinsey scoring 30 and Trimble and Freeman combining for 47.

Hoping Tavari can develop quickly into a guy that can consistently and effectively run the point allowing X to run off of picks and look for his shot.

The good news, if there is any, is that Nevada is as good as anyone they'll see in the MAC and they played them even on a neutral floor for most of the game. The bad news is that they again failed to close the deal. I suspect they'll take a lot from this experience.

He and X also very obviously have targets on their backs now as everyone knows they're the lynchpins to the Zips offense and direct their defensive attention to stopping them first.

Nevada comes in at 5-1 with wins over Tulane, UT-Arlington, William Jessup, Grand Canyon, Utah Tech and Cal State East Bay (yikes, that's a murderers row) and yesterday's loss to K State. 6'4" senior guard Jared Lucas leads Wolfpack scoring at 17.5 ppg. FAU transfer 6'6" senior guard Keenan Blackshear kicks in 12.5 ppg while leading rebounding at at 6.8 rpg. They are coached by Steve Alford and were chosen to finish second n the Mountain West. They average 77.5 ppg while surrendering 62.7, but those numbers are a little skewed by their questionable schedule thus far.

I am afraid LSU has shown the world how to defend Enrique. Enrique has great footwork and is good to his back to the basket. To my understanding, the LSU defense was making him turn to the baseline and essentially making the baseline a second defender and it flummoxed him. The result was 1 of 6 from the field. I trust that if that defense becomes a pattern Groce and staff will figure it out, but I suspect the solution will depend on kicking it out for successful threes or Enrique making good passes to cutters.

Me too, but those two things come together about 66% of the time according to a study of NBA games over a 37 year span.

Very happy to not see that back to the basket backing down his defender and then throwing up something weak. We'd be better with him I guess, but I am not losing sleep over his absence.