Zippy87

Looks like senior Night is 3/2; women's team plays at 3 PM, men's team plays at 6 PM (so our last home game will not be senior night).

It will be interesting to see how the rotation evolves over the last five regular season games. T. Johnson, Scott, and Thornton have all had their minutes fluctuate over the last few games and Prather has started to see limited minutes. Tavari in particular looked good against Kent the first time, so I'd expect to see a decent amount of him on the court Friday.

I think Tavari can, too. Just don't think Groce fully trusts him yet.

60 of our 64 points came from Freeman/Ali/Tribble/Hunter. We have zero depth.

Freeman/Tribble/Ali/Hunter have 43 combined points. Thornton/Scott/Johnson/Prather/Dawson have 4.

You have to give up some defense to get some offense sometimes.

Freeman Ali Tribble Hunter Johnson I need to see that five get the most time together the remainder of this game.

Tavari Johnson and Ryan Prather Jr need more minutes and Mikal Dawson needs less.

Where would this team be if Ali's transfer wasn't approved?

This team flops like crazy. Did it when we played them at the JAR too.

We realllllllly need Nate Johnson back.

Sure, but we both know that isn't going to draw recruits. This is going to have a significant impact on college athletics and the teams that get ahead of it will have a huge advantage.

Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) contracts have already changed college athletics, and I'm expecting that to continue in years to come, especially when coupled with less strict transfer rules. We'll never operate in the same as as bigger schools, but I do think the schools that do this well will create advantages for themselves, even at the mid-major level. To this point, I've seen our student athletes connected to Barstool, Zips Merch, Sign Here Signatures, and Hey Dude. I'm assuming there are others I haven't seen/don't know about. Athletics will need to plan to try to connect our athletes to these opportunities as much as possible, as I believe this will be something HS and transfer recruits will look at more and more as time goes on.

Not sure exactly, but I've always heard he still has a great relationship with UA and Groce. Could even create a position for him.

Of the top ten projected picks in NBA.com's latest mock draft, 50% are college players. It was 50% in the 2023 Draft as well. Looking at the drafts from 2021-2023, the G League Ignite have had 10 players drafted and 2 others undrafted who eventually signed NBA contracts. It's definitely changed the landscape since the Ignite started in 2020.

Yes, he's in the final year of his contract. Would not be surprised at all to see him to return to UA in some capacity, but not as a coach.

To me, it boils down to this. Most games, you're going to get 35-40 points from Freeman and Ali. Tribble is going to pitch on 10 or more. After that, it's a huge drop-off. Hunter has failed to hit double digits in 8 of the last 11 games. Dawson has failed to do the same in 10 of the last 12. Thornton's shooting has fallen off a cliff since the calendar flipped to the new year. Scott hasn't been great. Tavari has shown flashes of why we thought he could be special but has been too inconsistent. Good teams will be happy to double Freeman and force anyone else to beat them. Someone or multiple someone's will have to step up. Getting Nate back would be huge, too. Still the MAC favorite in a down year. Going to need some of our role players to grow to have any chance to do anything beyond that.

He's going to come home to UA at some point, but not as coach.

I honestly think loosened transfer rules have hurt him quite a bit and are what will probably lead him to retire after this year. KD is notoriously tough on his players and pushes them quite a bit. Eventually, the players see it's because he's pushing them to be better players, but sometimes younger guys can miss that. I believe Romeo Travis even said he thought about transferring at one point. In an era where you basically need to re-recruit every kid every year, I just don't know that his "tough love" approach can be successful.

100% agree. It's been time. Thornton gives you some solid defense and he can run the offense, but he's too passive, can't penetrate and break a defense down, and teams are fine with doubling Freeman and him shooting it from outside. Rotations with both he and Scott are extra rough. It's been said already bur we need Dawson and Hunter to step up. 1-10 combined from deep tonight.

Maybe his wording wasn't great (I don't remember the exact quote) but at the time he was 100% correct that the A-10 historically had much better odds of teams getting selected for at-large bids than the MAC. Even in our best conference years, we're always a one-bid league. It's been BS some years, but it's been reality.

It's not uncommon for players to follow the coach who recruited them. Michael Hughes and Tavian Dunn-Martin, who were both freshmen, were pretty much it. Antino Jackson, Noah Robotham, and Aaron Jackson went elsewhere. Isaiah Johnson and Kwan Cheatham had just graduated. It was going to be a retooling year no matter what.

Whatever happens, I just hope if he does choose to leave that we wish him well and appreciate his time here. I'll never understand the KD-haters.

EMU is up on Toledo late...

Tavari Johnson is playing fantastic. Earning more minutes.