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(Unofficial) Zeke Appreciation Day - 1/20/14


UAZip0510

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So I was looking at the schedule and noticed the Maine Red Claws - Zeke's D-League team - plays the Canton Charge in Canton on Monday, January 20th at 3 PM. For those that are off that day (MLK Day) and/or can still make it to the game, I think it'd be cool to see a nice Zips contingent there to support Zeke. He represented us as good as any player that's ever worn the Blue and Gold and it'd be cool to give him a nice homecoming of sorts. Maybe we can even get some AK-Rowdies in the house.

As an added bonus the Charge are running a promotion that game - Buy One, Get One free by presenting any non-winning Ohio lottery ticket at the box office.

Go to http://www.nba.com/dleague/canton for ticket information!

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This would be ABSOLUTELY, POSITIVELY, FABULOUS and I know for a fact, Zeke would be SSSSssssooooo grateful, surprised and excited to see his Zip family come and support him. It hasnt been an easy journey, but he is finally settling in. Of course you know I'm there...and if there is anything I can do to help..please hit me up! See you all soon! #Zip4Life

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This would be ABSOLUTELY, POSITIVELY, FABULOUS and I know for a fact, Zeke would be SSSSssssooooo grateful, surprised and excited to see his Zip family come and support him. It hasnt been an easy journey, but he is finally settling in. Of course you know I'm there...and if there is anything I can do to help..please hit me up! See you all soon! #Zip4Life

Any way Zeke could hang out for a few after the game to meet with some Zips fans? I, for one, would love to personally thank him for what he accomplished at UA and for always representing us incredibly. If not I understand...I'm sure they have a tight schedule, especially being the road team.

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Any way Zeke could hang out for a few after the game to meet with some Zips fans? I, for one, would love to personally thank him for what he accomplished at UA and for always representing us incredibly. If not I understand...I'm sure they have a tight schedule, especially being the road team.

On it!. Will get back to you shortly.

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Side note - Zeke is starting to get more minutes.

http://www.nba.com/dleague/playerfile/zeke...game_stats.html

He had a rough shooting night but had 7 rebounds and 3 blocks in 20 minutes against Iowa.

ROUGH is the "polite" way of describing it...his shooting was ATROCIOUS! Couldn't make a basket and got blocked 4 times! Yikes!! Uuhhmm..welcome to the D League big guy! 2 words...PUMP FAKE. :)

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  • 3 weeks later...
Hilltopper and I have bought some nice seats in the 7th row at court center. Looking forward to seeing Zeke on court and also maybe getting a chance to say hello if GameChngr44 has had any luck setting up a few minutes where we can meet him after the game.

Hi Dave, we are working on getting Zeke to come out after the game to spend a few minutes with the zips fans. Hope to see you!

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That was a lot better than watching Zeke on YouTube. The first treat was watching him practicing monster jams during warmups. At the end of the day I'm happy to be able to report that Zeke passes the eye test and belongs in the NBA D-League. He's a lot different from the Zeke we used to see at the JAR and the Zeke who looked a little lost in his first few D-League games. He was way more aggressive and way more confident. He was much stronger boxing out on rebounds and was even better blocking out defenders to clear a path to the bucket for his teammates. He showed great on-court communication with his teammates, especially calling for the pick and roll where he showed good moves to the bucket.

It was apparent watching the game flow today that the Red Claws played better when Zeke was in the game. That was confirmed by the +/- stats that showed Zeke with the highest rating on his team today at +7 (second best was a +2) while starting center Ty Walker ended up at -12. His biggest problem was personal fouls. The D-League is pretty rough, with some contact worthy of an NFL game. But Zeke kept drawing small bump fouls, and eventually fouled out with several minutes to play. He still needs to get a better understanding of what D-League refs consider worthy of a whistle as he did his senior season at UA with college refs. The main thing is that he hasn't stalled out. He's still getting better and may yet work his way up to that next step.

It was almost like being at the JAR, seeing and chatting with Captain Kangaroo, Doug Snyder, GameChngr44 and the rest of Zeke's family, Coach Dambrot, Terry Weigand, Charles Thomas, Steve McNees, Q, Nick, Jake, Aaron and probably some others I'm leaving out. Most of all it was great getting a chance to shake Zeke's hand after the game and tell him "You belong out there."

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