Dave in Green

@ZachTheZip, I didn't notice Melo getting treatment because I was too focused on game play. All I noticed about Melo was that he subbed in and out in the second half at regular intervals. I sure hope he wasn't suffering from leg cramps as he did last season. If Melo was hurting, that would be an additional reason to have Nyles in the game at the end. My opinion remains that Nyles earned that trust by taking good care of the ball prior to his stint in the final few minutes of the game.

@skip-zip, good question. I accidentally left a word out from what I was thinking. I intended to say that there was a good reason why Coach Dambrot would put Nyles into the game at the end. Coach Dambrot said after the game that the reason he didn't play Kwan more than a minute or Big Dog at all is because he wanted to make sure the Zips won this game, i.e. winning was more important than testing the new players. He stuck with his veteran players with the single exception of Nyles. Despite Nyles' lack of experience with the Zips and in D1 game situations, Coach Dambrot trusted Nyles to run the point in crunch time over his other options. Even the times Nyles couldn't inbound the ball or got trapped in the corner he was smart enough to call a quick timeout rather than trying to force a pass that may have resulted in a turnover. I'm pretty certain that the decision to trust Nyles as the best option to ensure victory related to him having shown that he could make good decisions and protect the ball better by virtue of not having a turnover up to that point. But I couldn't prove it without specifically asking Coach Dambrot.

At 6-9, 260 pounds, the Gaels' Brad Waldow is a junior who really knows how to throw his weight around. Various listed as either a power forward or center, he's going to be a handful for the Zips in the post as he outweighs Pat by 20 pounds. Waldow was virtually unstoppable around the rim in last night's LTU game, hitting 9-11 from the field. It would be great if the Zips could count on 305-pound offensive guard Big Dog to be the immovable object to counter Waldow's irresistible force. But that would be a heck of an imposing challenge to a true freshman's first few minutes of D1 college play. The other starting forward is 6-7, while the three starting guards are 6-2, 6-3 and 6-4. So overall the Zips will have a height advantage. But this is a well-coached, highly skilled team that plays well together. As mentioned in the original post, all five starters played 30 or more minutes against LTU, so they are also apparently pretty well conditioned. The Zips will need strong play from everyone in the rotation if they hope to wear down the Gaels with frequent substitutions.

There's a good reason why Coach Dambrot put Nyles into the game to run the point for the crucial final 5 minutes. Up until then, Nyles and Melo had each run the point for about 15 minutes, with Melo having 4 turnovers and Nyles 0. When you're nursing a narrow lead at the end of a game, turnovers are a killer. Nyles did have 1 turnover in those final 5 minutes, but that was under intense pressure from a desperate CC. Nyles having just 1 turnover in 20 minutes of play in his first D1 game may be the single most promising event of this game. If Nyles can maintain that level of ball protection while improving other areas of his game (like defense), he's going to get a lot of minutes at the point.

Would have been hard to wrap our heads around losing the MAC regular season championship after unofficially winning the Big Ten championship. Coach Embick wasn't kidding when he said, "We're a dangerous team right now." Believing in yourselves that you're never out of it is a great team attitude to have at tournament time.

Clutch.

Now updated to show Zips still leading 1-0 at the half. Derschang subbed out after yellow card. Zips lead 8-4 in shots and 5-0 in SOG. Another yellow card for the Zips early in the second half on Stevenson, and 12 fouls total on the Zips to 11 for WMU.

Tough second game for the Zips, especially with the 3 a.m. EDT starting time. The Saint Mary's College Gaels should not be confused with any of the lesser Saint Mary's teams across the country. The Gaels are Gonzaga's primary challenger in the WCC, and beat them for the conference championship in 2010. Saint Mary's is considered along with the Zips to be one of the top mid-major programs in the country over the past decade. They've been in the NCAA tournament four of the last six seasons, and have won three NCAA tournament games in that time, so they're ahead of the Zips by that measure. In last night's home game season opener, the Gaels beat visiting Louisiana Tech University 83-70. LTU is close in overall strength to the Zips. LTU had the second longest D1 winning streak last season, just one game behind the Zips, and were rated close to the Zips in the polls. LTU returns comparable strength to the Zips this season, so their loss to Saint Mary's is a warning that the Zips will have their hands full. The Gaels relied heavily on their starters (three guards and two forwards), with all five playing 30 or more minutes. Star forward Brian Waldow scored 28 points on 11-13 shooting and guard Stephen Holt added 18 while playing 36 minutes. TeamRankings predicts that this will be the toughest game currently on the Zips schedule, with only a 15% chance to win. The next worse odds for the Zips are predicted for the following game at Middle Tennessee, with a 35.6% chance of a Zips win. So winning the Saint Mary's game would be a major upset and early indicator of what the Zips are capable of accomplishing this season. There's a lot more to discuss about the Gaels, so please share your thoughts on this important game.

Assuming that BJ and Aaron redshirt, adding Kwan and Big Dog to the mix gives the Zips 11 scholarship players vying for PT -- 8 with D1 experience, 1 with JC experience and 2 true freshmen. Presumably Big Dog and Kwan will start off vying for 10th and 11th on the depth chart. How long they remain at the bottom depends on their progress. It's hard to see them getting thrown into the fire in the next two really tough games on the road against Saint Mary's and Middle Tennessee. By the end of the season the regular rotation should consist of a minimum of 8 players with 9 realistic and 10 possible. Should make for lively ongoing discussion here as various fans promote the merits of their favorites.

I thought you were kidding about GoZips.com not having anything up about today's huge WMU game. But it's obvious that someone missed an assignment as a little more than an hour before game time there is absolutely nothing. The WMU website has today's game featured prominently, as it should be on GoZips.com.

Are we allowed to talk about the officiating without the AOCL (Anti Officiating Criticism League) trying to stifle our free speech? For the benefit of AOCL members reading this, the following does not represent an "excuse" but just simple observations. I do believe the officials assisted CC's comeback by allowing them to play more aggressive defense without calling fouls on more physical contact than the Zips were allowed to use on defense. In a closer game against a better opponent, it could have cost the Zips the game. But it would take an analysis of the game film to verify that I saw Zips players literally being knocked off their feet with no calls while at the other end of the court light touch fouls were being called against the Zips. That does have a tendency to shift momentum.

@ZachTheZip, yep, most modern arenas are designed with running lights on all pathways to seating areas, like the aisle safety lights on airliners. All arenas, theaters, etc., are required by safety regulations to keep seating area pathways lighted when the main lights are out. The JAR is being patched up as much as possible with limited resources. It's never going to match a modern arena. I appreciate that they're doing the best they can with what they have to work with.

Safety regulations require some lighting in seating areas, where some fans are still walking to and from their seats during intros. Even movie theaters can't go pitch black when the movie starts.

@GoZips, the new lighting replacing the old metal halide fixtures over the court looks to me like T5 fluorescent, not LED. There's no question that watching game play was easier on my eyes and improved my game experience. I also thought the ability to turn off the new lights for player intros added a lot to the show. It had more of a bigtime feel than with the previous always-on metal halide warehouse lighting. But I agree things could get even better by adding more special effects LED and/or laser lights in the darkness during the intros. Just keep improving one step at a time.

No question that Coach Dambrot only put Kwan in the game to thumb his nose at me and the few other disbelievers in Zips world. Coach is obviously still stuck on last season's marketing theme of Think Bigger. Kwan just keeps growing Bigger and Bigger every week. Now Kwan has to step up and prove that Coach Dambrot's faith in him to catch on quickly and produce quality minutes by the end of the season is not misplaced. As impressed with Kwan's upside as I've been from watching him scrimmage, he now has to quickly catch on to D1 college defense. I suspect that when he gets more than a minute in a game that we'll see some of the problems that Nyles had on defense in his first D1 game. Best case scenario is that Kwan has the longterm potential to rebound like Tree, drive the basket like Nick and shoot 3s like Reggie and Jake. The biggest question is who will he defend like? The grand experiment is on.

@Quickzips, good summary. Conditioning obviously played a big role in some of the performances. Q played 31 minutes of flat-out effort in his first real game back after a year off, and he was absolutely gassed at the end. It will take him time to get back into game shape. Nyles appeared to run low on gas pretty quickly, so I'm not sure that he was ready for the transition from JC to D1. It took him awhile to start adjusting to the speed of the D1 game, but he did show some potential on offense, though not so much on defense. Melo appears to be in better physical shape, but was not brilliant on offense. As you said about Pat, he was more effective overall than last week, but trying to swat away too many shots and missing most of them. While he had two blocks, he just needs to learn to be more selective in which ones he leaps into space for and which to position for the rebound instead. I do feel a little better about the center position after watching Pat play a full 28 minutes tonight. He just needs to keep improving. If Pat focuses more on rebounds, the Zips do much better than outrebounding a 3-guard team by just a single rebound. Tree played 35 minutes, which I don't think was in the game plan but turned out to be necessary because the Zips couldn't put CC away. He was trying to take over the game but his shots weren't falling. His 8 rebounds led the Zips, but were a bit lower than expected for Tree in 35 minutes. Harney was 9-10 from the field last week against midgets but had trouble with the swarming CC defense tonight. Overall the Zips would have done better with trying a little harder to find the open man. Speaking of open men, Jake and Reggie saved the day by knocking down their open shots. By the end of the season I expect that Kwan and Big Dog will be producing quality minutes off the bench to give the frontcourt starters more relief. But the backcourt is looking a little thin right now and in real need of a primary PG stepping up and taking over.

@zipdiehard, I was just trying to cover for Coach Dambrot who may have accidentally let out his own secret. Look for Big Dog's to go next. The Zips are going to have a lot of depth with their bigs this season.

I tried to keep the secret ...

@akronzips71, I figured it was either sarcasm or possibly concern that I may have caught wind of a similar situation developing this season. Just playing it safe to ease your mind in case it was the latter. After all the adversity last season, let's hope that things even out this season with no unpleasant surprises.

CBS Sports computer pick here says Zips win 80-67.

@akronzips71, it was just one of many possible examples of things that can and have gone wrong. We usually learn from our mistakes and are less likely to repeat our most recent mistakes. But new ones that we haven't even imagined will pop up. The point is to never trust that anything that could go wrong won't.

I don't trust that any coach will always make the correct decisions on every issue from player recruiting to training to game play calls. I don't trust that every player will always take personal responsibility for working to be the best they can possibly be. I don't trust that every player will always make every right personal decision and remain on the team when they're most needed. I don't trust that clerical errors won't happen that temporarily make key players ineligible. I don't trust that every player will go injury-free all season. I don't trust that every player will avoid a case of food poisoning before key games. I don't trust that everyone will appreciate or acknowledge that things can go wrong even under the best of circumstances. After nearly a decade of watching Keith Dambrot grow Zips basketball from irrelevance into a nationally respected, sustainable winning program, I do trust that Coach Dambrot does a better job at managing all the basics, variables and intangibles than virtually any other coach who could reasonably be expected to sign up for such a longterm commitment at UA. I do trust that some will never appreciate or acknowledge this.

Don't know what's more interesting tonight -- #10 Oklahoma getting rolled by #6 Baylor 34-12 early in the 4th quarter or #3 Oregon getting mauled by #5 Stanford 20-0 early in the 3rd quarter.

The MAC Preseason Poll also picked Toledo to win the MAC West, and many are giving Toledo a chance to win the MAC tournament. So how did the Rockettes do in their yawner exhibition game against D2 Hillsdale? Junior guard Julius Brown hit a floater at the buzzer to lift Toledo to an 85-84 exhibition victory in overtime against Division II Hillsdale College on Sunday, Nov. 3, 2013, in Savage Arena.

Uh oh. Baylor bashing Oklahoma, 24-5 at halftime.