Dave in Green

Zips up 1-0 on a Brenes goal, assist by Quinn, at 6:06.

Stream link.

@Captain Kangaroo, now I get your point. I'd forgotten how the Zips have owned Mississippi State over the years.

Coach Bowden's just-announced 2-year contract extension suggests that UA is pretty satisfied with the coaching improvement.

Tree remembers that game better than you do. It was his first D1 game in a Zips uniform. He only got to play for 8 minutes, scoring 2 points and grabbing 2 rebounds, but he got to feel and taste that confetti. He wants to make it happen again, as do all of his teammates, all of his coaches and all Zips fans. How to make it happen is the missing link.

@B4110, since you were the first to post about Tree being away from the team, I trust your latest update. @zippy5, personally, I don't believe that Tree thought he was quitting on his team. I believe he considers himself a team leader, that he was deeply frustrated by the Saint Mary's and Middle Tennessee games and that he had difficulty reconciling that frustration with his passion for winning. I believe that he wanted to take the team on his shoulders and carry the team to victory and was frustrated that he couldn't do it by himself. I believe that if Tree learns from this experience that he will become a much wiser person and much better player, both as an individual and within the context of team. I can't think of a better person to help Tree through this development process than Coach Dambrot.

I haven't seen you posting on ZN.o recently, so you may have missed it. But we've been discussing Zeke's development in other threads. If you have so much evidence to contribute to the discussion, a new thread on the subject is definitely in order. Would you like for me to start the new thread for you?

@skip-zip, it may help improve your understanding of the situation if you read the full text of the NCAA report as it relates to penalties:

You should start a new thread on this theory. I'm sure it would start a lively debate that would go far beyond Tree. Maybe you can even start describing in your first post in the new thread what evidence you have to back up this claim.

@skip-zip, reality check time: Jim Tressel is VP for Student Success at UA. We want success for a UA student named Tree.

@UAZip0510, you have a way of coming through with just the right perspective at just the right time. Before seeing this thread, I made a post in the other thread that fits in with what you have said here. So I'll just say that I completely agree with everything you've said and add a link to my other post.

It's good to see such strong passion from Zips basketball fans. Tree is also passionate about Zips basketball, and passion can sometimes boil over. We've discussed here recently how Tree may have a shot at the NBA if he keeps developing throughout his college career. We've discussed in the past how Coach Dambrot is toughest on his most talented players, because he knows how good they could be if they applied themselves to the game in the right way. Coach Dambrot was never tougher on any player than he was with LeBron James, because he knew that LBJ had the potential to be the best if he put all he had into the game. I've watched and listened at many practices as Coach Dambrot has applied tough love to talented players who were not playing up to their abilities, or who were trying to play their own game instead of the game the coaches were trying to teach the team. I've also seen Coach Dambrot off in a corner with his arm around a player's shoulders, speaking words of encouragement in a soft voice. Overall I think Coach Dambrot does a great job of reaching each player in the most appropriate manner for that particular player at a given time. But player psychology is more of an art than a science for coaches, and the results are not always 100% predictable. As I said before, these things happen all the time on teams. In the good old days, we never heard about most of these minor incidents. With social media today, everything is more out in the open and magnified into something larger than life. Understanding Tree's passion for basketball and Coach Dambrot's history of forgiving and forgetting, I'm confident that whatever happened will blow over. I believe that Tree will take time to think it all over and come to the understanding that Coach Dambrot wants only the best for Tree and the team.

I'm not going to panic over what may be a minor issue that blows over in a few days. We're still more than two weeks away from the next real game. Tree is an intense guy who very badly wants to play basketball, and the team wants him to have their back.

There are always issues on teams. Fans just don't hear about most of them.

Just to avoid any wild speculation, my best understanding of Tree's situation is that it does not involve any legal or academic issues. Whatever the exact situation is, it's apparently one that's possible to be resolved without a major impact on the team if everyone takes the appropriate action in the best interests of the team.

Updated GT tweet: No @Tall_ass_tree at @ZipsMBB today.

Can't scored again, and OU apparently lost a point , so the score is now 31-13.

I hope you're not implying that Coach Dambrot shouldn't have recruited Zeke. That's what I said. Zeke was never developed to the fullest because he self-admittedly resisted being developed to the fullest until late in his college career "Almost impossible" is a stretch. While 7-footers have an advantage in making the NBA, they don't get a free pass. Zeke still has a shot at the NBA. But he has to make up for his previous lack of focus on basketball that stunted his development. He has to prove to NBA teams that he's serious about developing his game to the best of his ability, which he hasn't done to date. It's good to question everything, especially internet forum posts. In this case, I've seen way too much evidence to suggest that Coach Dambrot is one of the few people in the world who LBJ comes to for advice on improving his game to doubt that it's true.

It's pretty easy to sit in front of the computer and speculate about all kinds of things while enjoying your favorite beverage. I should know; I do it all the time. Speculating about how well Coach Dambrot develops players can be entertaining. We can pick out various examples and discuss for hours. Zeke is a good example. He came to UA highly rated but underdeveloped, and it was expected that the Zips coaching staff would develop him into a star. Yet there was very little development from Zeke between his freshman and sophomore seasons. Why not? If Zeke had never addressed it himself, we'd still be speculating. But we know from Zeke's own mouth that he didn't have a passion for basketball. He was just going through the motions and coasting on his size and athletic ability to have fun blocking shots. Zeke has told us that he didn't really start developing his own passion for basketball until sometime in his junior season. He then made a major leap in development between his junior and senior seasons. Lesson? You can lead a horse to water but you can't force it to drink. LBJ is another good example. He had a passion for basketball from an early age and wanted to be developed. He connected with Coach Dambrot in a youth basketball clinic and was put on the path to good development from the earliest stages, continuing on into high school. LBJ has developed into arguably the world's best basketball player. But he's never satisfied and continues to want to develop. Who does he turn to for development advice? We don't need to speculate because there are stories written every year about how LBJ still relies on Coach Dambrot to help his development. Lesson? A thirsty horse doesn't need to be led to water. So toss the above observations into the hopper while speculating about whether or not Coach Dambrot has the ability to develop players who are willing to be developed, and whether or not it's realistic to believe that any coach can force development on a player who's not willing to put in the hard work required to develop.

@skip-zip, I got that specific information from someone very close to the team. I was told at the time to keep it confidential, and I always honor confidentiality agreements. I feel free to mention it now because it's more in the historical context. Besides, it's fairly obvious. The Mississippi State game was the Zips first of the season. Coach Dambrot knew it would be a huge win for the program if he could bring it off. I suspect that most underdog mid-majors that open the season against big-name opponents make similar special preparations. @taxpayer, when you're only reporting facts as you just did, ignore criticism from anyone who says you're only making excuses. Hilltopper and I have been attending Zips basketball games together for many years. I can recall year after year at the end of the season when we'd say, wow, the Zips are really lucky to have had everyone healthy all season and no player suspensions. It all caught up with the Zips over the last couple of years when there was a long list of one thing after another with injuries and suspensions. It was especially damaging that the Zips' only proven PG suffered from a knee injury and mid-season surgery two seasons ago and a severe ankle sprain early last season followed by a departure from the team at tournament time, topped off by leaving the Zips without a clear primary PG this season. Ouch!

The committee should not have considered the MAC's strength as a separate factor because SOS is already factored into RPI, which provides the sum of conference and non-conference schedule strength. The NCAA posts two measurements on its website -- RPI and coaches poll. The Zips rank much higher than 24th on both. That's two years in a row where the NCAA's unpublished measurement has screwed the Zips.

@skip-zip, while casual followers of college basketball may look at how that season ended for Mississippi State and conclude that they weren't such a hot team, I knew that you would have a full appreciation for the talent level on that team and how good they were early in the season when the Zips upset them. MSU entered the 2011-12 season loaded with talent and projected to vie for the SEC championship, and I cited their early season success in my previous post. They entered the AP and Coach's Top 25 polls on Nov. 21 and remained there through Feb. 13, rising as high as #14 in the country, even after losing to the Zips. Arnett Moultrie, a 6-11 junior on that team, was a major talent, leading the team in both scoring and rebounding. Zeke was the only player all season who shut him down. Moultrie declared early for the draft at the end of that season after MSU imploded and was picked in the first round by the Philadelphia 76ers. They just exercised their third year option on Moultrie despite the fact that he's been out after undergoing ankle surgery. He's a solid NBA power forward. Dee Bost, the 6-2 senior PG, was the team leader. After graduating, he played pro ball in Europe. He was signed by the Portland Trail Blazers earlier this year but just released last month. He's now playing in the NBA D-League with expectations that he'll get another shot at the NBA. Rodney Hood was a 6-8 freshman small forward. Rivals ranked him the #5 best HS small forward in the country and #16 overall in his national graduating class. He was the team's third leading scorer and rebounder as a freshman. Like Moultrie, he ditched MSU at the end of that season after the team self-destructed and transferred to Duke. This season he's the starting small forward and team captain for Mike Krzyzewski's latest powerhouse team. NBA DraftExpress projects Hood as the #30 pick in the 2014 NBA draft even though he's technically a redshirt sophomore. Renardo Sidney, an exceptionally talented 6-10, 300-pound junior power forward/center, was MSU's resident head case. He never lived up to expectations, but expectations for him had been sky high. Out of HS, Rivals gave him identical ratings to Hood -- #5 best at his position (power forward) and #16 overall in his national graduating class. Though he never worked to get into good playing condition, he was still the team's second leading rebounder and fourth leading scorer. Like Moultrie, he ditched MSU at the end of the season to declare for the NBA draft, but went undrafted. He signed with the NBA D-League but never played a game -- a great talent gone to waste for lack of effort. Rick Stansbury, the ninth winningest basketball coach in SEC history, was MSU's coach that season. He announced his retirement at age 52 after the team collapsed and lost seven of their last nine games. Most everyone believes MSU forced his "retirement." Stansbury took lots of heat for not maintaining better discipline on the team and letting it slowly drift out of control. Several disgruntled players, including Sidney, kept the team in a constant state of turmoil later in the season, which disrupted the team and dropped it from #14 in the country to first round NIT loser. It's really a shame that few Zips fans will ever have a full appreciation for just how talented and good that MSU team was at the time the Zips played them. That's why I've taken the time to thoroughly research and post this. Coach Dambrot spent weeks drawing up a special plan to beat MSU, and the players executed it to perfection. It was the perfect example of what the Zips are capable of doing when they are at full strength with no injuries, illnesses or missing players. It was arguably the Zips most impressive road win over a major power team during the Coach Dambrot era if not all-time.

There's no better wakeup call than a slap in the face from the NCAA. Time for the Zips to hoist a big chip onto their shoulders, carve through the field and thoroughly humiliate the NCAA.

So if Coach Bowden builds the Zips into the strongest team in the MAC, does the MAC start favoring UA as the most likely bowl winner over the rest of the teams? Or does the MAC's inherent dislike for UA trump that and they still try to screw UA? I'm having a hard time keeping up with all the byzantine sports politics and family feuding around here.

@Ada Zip, yes, I remember all those games from the start of that season, including the losses to West Virginia and Middle Tennessee. Do you recall any of the details that contributed to those early season losses after the Mississippi State win -- injuries, suspensions, etc.?