Dave in Green

Aw, @Z.I.P., I am so disappointed. I thought you paid close attention to all of my posts. You must have totally missed this one: The key word is "preseason." Once the formal NCAA basketball season begins, a freshman player can't play a single minute in any game, including exhibition games, without losing the ability to redshirt that season. The only way we see any of the Zips freshmen play again this season is if they give up their eligibility to redshirt. Additional note: This is why BJ Gladden and Aaron Jackson didn't play in the Malone game. Even though it was an exhibition game, the regular season had already started, so playing in that game would have burned their redshirts.

I posted some info on Richaun Holmes in a couple of threads last season here and here. Looking back at those threads, I had strong feelings that Holmes would be one of the better players in the MAC this season while others thought he might just be a role player. Through BGSU's first 9 games this season, Holmes leads his team in average per-game shot blocking (3.1), rebounding (7.7), field goal percentage (57.1) and free throw shooting percentage (74.4), and is second in scoring (13.7), just a tenth of a point behind Spencer Parker's 13.8. In other words, Holmes is a complete player.

Nik's monster game:

Major counterpoint in those two stories on the relative impact of the show-cause issue vs. the severity of Petrino's transgressions.

@Buckzip, another feature of newspaper journalism is that local stories are written in a way that they can be picked up nationally. So Akron Beacon Journal and Cleveland Plain Dealer stories are written according to the AP Stylebook for potential national distribution. Therefore, they will continue to identify Jim Tressel as the former head coach of tOSU football even though most people in Akron and Ohio are already well familiar with this. You appear to be especially sensitive to this one particular example, but it's common to all newspaper stories.

@Buckzip, as a journalism grad and former newspaper reporter, I can attest that @zippy5 has nailed it. A news reporter's bible for questions like the one you pose is the Associated Press Stylebook. As I recall from my earlier years, standard procedure in a news story was to always identify famous people by what they were most famous for. So, until he does something that makes him more famous, Jim Tressel will always be identified in news stories as former head coach of the Ohio State Buckeyes. A few people may be bothered by this for various reasons, but most people will read right over it without giving it a second thought. @Captain Kangaroo, obviously you already know that to most people in the country, being LeBron James' ex-HS coach is what makes Coach Dambrot most famous. That's why he's identified as such in most national news stories and probably will be until he leads the Zips to an upset win over the #1 team in the country in the NCAA tournament championship game.

Jim Tressel's role at University of Akron expands as presidential search continues

@KC4three, I believe that Coach Dambrot didn't play Kwan in the last game against Cleveland State because he thought it was more important for the team to be focused on experimenting with different combinations of veterans. In addition to Kwan not playing, Big Dog only played briefly in that game. I think you can count on seeing both Kwan and Big Dog playing longer minutes in this Saturday's game. The key to getting playing time from Coach Dambrot is to perform well on the defensive end, hustle all the time and mesh with the veterans. Most freshmen have more trouble on the defensive end than on offense. As Kwan improves his overall game, he will get more and more minutes as the season goes on.

They beat up pretty badly on Trinity Baptist and Trinity College, so thank goodness we're not Trinity Akron. I took a quick look at all their team and player stats, and none are worth mentioning. I apologize if anyone suffers from DiG stats withdrawal prior to this game.

@akronzips71, I have no earthly idea how the D-League player pool works. If it works like other professional leagues, I'd expect they'd have rules that don't allow teams to just reach in and grab whatever player they want whenever they want. It may be that the Reno Bighorns had first dibs from the player pool and picked the player they thought they could get the most for in trade. If anyone has a better idea of how the D-League player pool operates, please help educate the rest of us.

Right, Zeke was apparently selected from the D-League player pool by the Reno Bighorns, and then traded to the Maine Redclaws before playing in a game. Assuming that Zeke sticks with the Redclaws, we'll get a chance to see him play in Canton on Monday, Jan. 20, when the Redclaws visit the Canton Charge.

@MaxZIP, I'd like to see you try to explain to my wife than an anniversary is an arbitrary date based on a personal whim.

2020 is not an arbitrary date, but a date clearly chosen to align with Vision 2020, the previously produced overall strategic vision plan for UA coinciding with its 150th anniversary in 2020. It's a longterm plan leading to where UA will be on its 150th anniversary. It doesn't mean that nothing will be done until 2020.

@skip-zip, I completely understood your points and was merely offering some preliminary data that supported one of your points. As far as I can tell we don't disagree on any of this.

@skip-zip, it's perfectly valid to make that shooting percentage comparison for perspective within the context of the overall point that Pat and Big Dog so far this season have been reliable inside scoring options when given the opportunity. The only way to know if they can maintain that shooting percentage for the season is to continue to feed the ball to them and give them opportunities. This is all in agreement with your original statement that Tree should "get more confidence that Big Dog or Pat can finish plays for us with an extra pass down low."

It doesn't specifically point out which customer satisfaction index will be used to measure whether or not they've achieved the goal of providing the best customer-service recreational experience in Northeast Ohio. I'm sure that ZN.o members won't be shy about helping inform them with comments about whether or not we see progress in improving the many criticisms regarding Zips athletic event attendance that have been previously cited here.

Word: Bowling Green coach Dave Clawson to replace Jim Grobe at Wake Forest

So am I the only one reading all the fine print in this document? Another important statement that no one has yet commented on is the following: That's a huge commitment to make, especially in light of the many criticisms we've seen posted here about the bad experiences in ticket lines, concession service, etc., etc. If UA operates like the corporate world, when you go on record committing to a measurable goal like this, your job performance rating is tied to the results. Either UA operates under the principle that you can blow all the smoke you want without having to deliver, or the athletics department has just signed up for making a monumental shift in the way they cater to their customers. It will take some time to see how this plays out. But it's now formally presented in an official document that we can all go back and measure against actual performance.

@1981grad, glad to see you thought the good things outnumbered the bad. GT just posted some good post-CSU info in his Zips Sports Notebook. One item of interest is that Coach Dambrot will use games over the rest of the month to decide who he wants to have on the floor at the end of games: A funny item in the story is that Can't is now going to copy the Zips' early scheduling gap:

@GP1, I appreciate that last link. I like to read the results of a lot of different studies from a lot of different viewpoints. Sports junkies often have a point of view that sports are like a golden pixie dust that you can sprinkle on anything and make it better, and can cite studies that support their view. On the other hand, academicians often have a POV that sports are harmful to the purist world of education, and they also cite studies that support their view. From my perspective the answer is usually somewhere in the middle of the opposing POVs. I think if sports can be kept in perspective that they can be an appropriate part of education, from grade school through college. But sports can become addictive, and addicts make bad decisions. Ideally, UA will take a path somewhere in the middle of what the sports junkies and the anti-sports academicians wish for.

@1981grad, sorry you had such a bad experience on the seating. Hope that didn't adversely influence your evaluation of the Zips' play, as you've only cited a few bad plays. Did you see anything you liked about the Zips' play, considering that to win on the road you generally have to do a lot more things right than wrong?

Of course. But the combined 63% of Pat and Big Dog is way above average even for post players. Of the 5,000 or so D1 players in the country last season, only 41 shot 63% or better (Zeke shot 66%). So when the Zips' starting and backup centers are shooting 63% combined, there's absolutely no reason for Tree not to have confidence that they can finish plays for us with an extra pass down low. If Tree doesn't understand this, he needs to be reminded by the coaching staff. The Zips have two quality centers with an average height of 6-10 1/2 and an average weight of more than 260 pounds. Most teams the Zips will face this season cannot match that size and talent level at center. As a team, the Zips need to take advantage of that. The more Pat and Big Dog score inside, the more things will open up for Tree.

Exactly. You can't compete where you're not allowed to compete. You can only compete at the highest level where you're not deliberately excluded. And speaking of exact wording, @Legend Of Zippy, there is no specific date given or implied for creating and implementing a master facilities plan. It doesn't take 6 years to create a master facilities plan, especially when you're already working from a general outline. I expect a master athletic facilities plan will be announced sometime within the next year. From a cost standpoint, the only major missing element right now is the basketball arena. So it's not as if they have a lot of major facility planning to work out. Implementing the plan will depend on funding, which is addressed elsewhere in the document.

Absolutely, and there's no reason not to have confidence in Big Dog and Pat. Combined, those two have hit 22-35 of their field goal attempts for a 63% shooting average -- close to what Zeke averaged last season. But Tree also needs to be able to knock down short jumpers in the paint when he's open, as he did late in the second half when CSU was making a run.

One of the interesting points about the game was the Zips' shot selection. The Zips were shooting blanks from outside for the first 15 or so minutes, but had a lot of success when they pounded it inside. The first 5 field goals scored and 7 of the first 8 were layups. That opened things up on the perimeter, and the Zips then hit 4 of 5 mostly open 3-pointers in the final 5 minutes of the first half. They followed that up by hitting 5 of their first 6 3-point attempts in the first 10 minutes of the second half to take over the game. I would expect the Zips to follow up on that success by trying more in upcoming games to establish the inside game in order to create more open looks from beyond the arc.