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How are so many players 'in the portal' if it doesn't open until 1/2? Aren't they just announcing their intent to enter once it officially opens? If so, that's likely why tampering feels so rampant.

I hope Miami wins against BG. The better they are the better the win is for us. Would love for it to get flexed but I’m sure Saturday will be crowded with football and other things

Miami is now receiving one vote in the coaches poll. They had previously only received votes in the AP poll, I believe. This week's AP poll is not released yet.

That is why if they do play multiple games against non D1 opponents, one of them should be a noon game during the week and bring out local schools as a field trip. Last night was still fun, but pack in the jar with 3000+ screaming 6th graders

I was impressed by the crowd based on all of those factors also. I don't see an official attendance listed in the box score like usual but it was better than some of the other games. The youth teams and family that were in attendance certainly helped. And I don't think they kids will care who the opponent was, they'll remember the Zips winning by 51.

I feel bad for JoeMo here but this is the new reality of college football. Aside from a few programs, everyone has to rebuild every year, just depends how much.

All things considered he played well & showed huge potential. He probably only finished with 10 points but I actually found that encouraging because even though St. Ignatius is one of the more complete teams in the state, it was obvious from the opening tip that Coach Dru was solely focussed on not letting RJ beat them. STVM has a player named DeCarlo Prince who is 6-4 and supremely athletic & already has a grown man's body. This year & last I'd say DeCarlo has been one of the two best players in the city - along w/ Garfield's Rayshawn Hamilton, IMHO. Anyway, Coach Dru had DeCarlo sticking to RJ like glue all night long. All. Night. Long. Hounding him. Denying him the ball. Fouling him. Any & everything. Played RJ extremely physically all night... literally every second RJ was on the floor. Coach Dru was going to let anyone but RJ beat them. That's the first I'd seen St. Ignatius play and so even though it kept RJ's numbers down I left the game excited that Coach Dru centered his entire defensive game plan on denying RJ the ball. RJ's going to have to add muscle to contribute at the next level as he's still pretty skinny. So he'll almost certainly redshirt next season. But I think most of us expected that anyway. He's a legit 6-6 and can jump out of the gym. He almost had two head-at-the-rim highlight dunks but was fouled pretty hard on both attempts. He can handle the ball & has a left hand & often ran the point & brought the ball up the court to initiate the offense. He didn't shoot a 3 all night, which I wanted to see, but in warmups he's got a smooth stroke. His free throws are kind of knuckle-balls, but they went in. He's a good and willing passer. He's got super quick feet, can move side to side on defense & gets his hips low without effort. (He was also usually assigned to guarding DeCarlo on defense, so those two kind of negated each other). You can tell he's an Akron Zips-type of personality. During warmups & even during the game he was smiling a lot & encouraging his teammates; appears to be super friendly. So John Groce got another high-caliber young man.

BG is at home and Miami is missing a key starter. Not to mention a lot of pro gamblers use advanced metrics or have their own. Looking at Kenpom and NET both are viewed as about equal. On a neutral court it would pretty much be a coin toss.

It's down to -4.5 but even that line surprises me a little.

They do a really good job with youth group experiences. I coached my son's team last season and we did one. They were able to do the high-five tunnel pregame and scrimmage each other at halftime. They all really enjoyed it and the Zips staff was great. I hope they keep looking for ways to connect with kids - it really does matter.

Now imagine having a back on the sideline bleachers, would be the best seat in the house no doubt

I would say it was over 1,000 B.I.S. The announcers mentioned several times they were impressed with the size of the crowd considering * students on break * wintry weather * weeknight * weak opponent Of course the atmosphere is not the same without the students and the live pep band. I sat in the student section and my view was obstructed by some heads in front of me. I now realize I much prefer sitting up in the bleachers with a better view and some elbow room.

For a Monday night, Christmas break game against a D2 opponent, I thought the attendance was pretty good. It was a fun night.

I was not expecting Coach groce to be out there signing autographs but I was surprised to see he was! Not enough good words can be said about him, he was telling all the people in line “thank you for coming out” and was just very appreciative of all the support the fans have for the team

Make our shots and we win this by double digits. Miami doesn't have the horses in the barn to keep up with us.

Wait, what? BG is favored against a top 6 mid major program according to all the "polls"? How?!

For the life of me I will not understand why the program does not go all out game in and game out to embrace the youth especially. They do a great job being a program we can all be proud of, don't get me wrong, but as a university that needs that special connection with the community to stand out, they fall short compared to where they could be in this department. Glad to hear your son and his friend had a great interaction though!

My son and his friend stuck around for post-game autographs and the players were great. Really makes it easy to be proud of the program.

Big Stank looked pretty good when he played at the end. Brisco not so much.

we will find out tomorrow. BG is -5.5 favorites at the Stroh Center.

It will be important that we run them off the 3-pt line. I feel we're the better team, but the 3-pt line is the great equalizer in basketball and they're good enough to make us pay if we leave their shooters unguarded. Especially since this is @ Miami.

The Zips head out to Oxford this weekend to face the Redhawks in a 3:00 Saturday tilt. The Redhawks stand at 13-0 heading into Tuesday night’s game at BG. The Redhawks wins include Trinity Christian, Indiana East, Milligan and Our Lady of the Elms. The Redhawks lost their second highest scorer when Evan Isapro went down last week. 6’8” redhirt sophomore wing Brant Byers leads Redhawk scoring at 14.5 ppg. 6”8’ junior forward Altmar Altason, a Bradley transfer from Iceland, contributes 13.2 ppg. 6’5” senior All-MAC guard Peter Suder is scoring 12.3 ppg. They are shooting an impressive .546 from the field and .436 from 3-point range. We’ll find out Saturday if their strong start has been driven by their weak schedule. It will be interesting to see how the Zips deal with their length and perimeter shooting.

The radio. 😬

Tough to complain about a 51 point win but the 3-point defense tonight was not great.