Dave in Green

@akronzips71, I love your enthusiasm for Zips basketball. You're not alone. I like Zips basketball so much that I'm actually looking forward to sitting in the JAR. With the loss of Zeke and three other key players, the Zips are once again underdogs in the MAC. I love it. I can't wait to see the return of Q, the power of Tree and all the other magical tricks that Coach Dambrot is going to pull out of his hat.

@Lee Adams, I think you may have misinterpreted what I took to be a civil question from @Crew8.

The small parking lot by Olin off of Buchtel is Lot 15. Looks like it's free parking for basketball games:

In more recent interviews like this one Zeke has made it pretty clear that he enjoys playing basketball and has developed a real passion for it.

@Zipmeister, let's just say that all but a few insiders are making assumptions about where Zeke actually is. Circumstantial evidence suggests he may not necessarily be in Europe. That's all I can say without having access to more data. It will be interesting to eventually learn why so much secrecy.

@Zipmeister, that ABJ story was written before Zeke checked in with his second pro team. I suspect the reference to Europe was related to previously being with the Polish team. The second team could be in Europe, but could also be in a variety of other places where pro basketball is played, such as Israel, Australia, China, etc. Since Zeke has now been with his new team for a week with no news showing up anywhere, and since Euro basketball transactions are generally well publicized, I'm guessing the second team is outside Europe. Wherever he is, he seems to be doing well according to this tweet exchange:

So Zeke has been with a professional basketball team for almost a week now, and there's still nothing on the internet about it? Not even WikiLeaks has it. Is there a pro basketball league in Antarctica that we haven't heard about?

I assume the result you're happy with is the 1-0 Zips win. That was huge.

Wow, 7-0-5 = undefeated + 58% winning percentage. Trying hard to wrap my mind around that equation resulting in a #2 ranking.

Screw Queen's English. We got Zips' English right here.

Based on past performance, Javon McCrea will be #1 going into the MAC season on most everyone's list. It's up to Q, Tree, Harney or any other Zips player to outperform McCrae and end up with a better ranking at the end of the season. It's not likely that any Zip will outscore him, as Coach Dambrot's teams feature balanced scoring. But they could outperform him in other areas, such as Tree outrebounding him. Harney has tons of unrealized potential. But irregular brilliance may not get him ranked very high in preseason all-star predictions. Ultimately, the most important thing is leading your team to the championship. Q, Tree, Harney and other Zips will have to consistently perform together at a high level to get that done.

Considering that Q was MAC 6th Man of the Year as a junior and Tree was MVP of the MAC tournament as a sophomore, they both belong in the top 10. Since the guys making the selections are actually fairly knowledgeable about the MAC, I'm somewhat optimistic that Q and Tree will get reasonable respect.

This should be interesting to follow over the next 25 days: 2013-2014 MAC Basketball Top 25 Players Countdown

It's hard to get excited about any kind of stat while you're still mostly losing. But someday maybe we can look back on this season with at least some sense of pride that the Zips lost to two Top 25 teams by a total of only 11 points in the midst of their transformation from perennial football losers to perennial football winners.

Coincidence alert: Checking into our hotel in Illinois today for my high school class reunion, the first thing we notice on the bulletin board is a schedule for the Zips football team breakfast this morning. Turns out we're in the same hotel where the Zips stayed last night before today's game! Getting on the elevator with us is a gentleman all dressed up in Zips gear. I tell him I'm a season ticket holder and ask him if he goes to all the games. He says, yes, his son is on the team. I ask who and he says L.T. Smith. As we get off the elevator, I tell him his son is one fine player and wish him luck today. His dad smiles and we shake hands. What a nice gentleman, and what an unexpected coincidence.

Holy crap, it takes the first two goals ever scored by Zips freshman Adam Najem to beat Cleveland State 2-1. Talk about living on the edge ...

@GP1, I agree. The only reason football players bulk up like sumo wrestlers is to have a physical advantage. The bulking up is bad for their health, and the result of the collisions is bad for their health. It's a lose-lose situation for everyone. The bulking up is not necessary to have great football. Set reasonable weight limits and let them bulk down to reasonable, healthy weights. If the current trend continues, football players will average more than 400 pounds and have an average life expectancy of about 40 years. Stupid pursuit of winning at any cost, as long as it's their body and not mine.

This is ZN.o at its very best. Keep the great posts coming.

@akronzips71, you and I usually agree on a lot of things. But I thought that what I said was a little different from what you said. Maybe we're just stating the same thing a little differently.

If everything that ever got a bad news story or two failed, nothing in the world would ever be successful.

@Big Zip, so you're now the champion of etiquette on ZN.o? @GameChngr44, you go ahead and use all the all caps and exclamation marks you want to on ZN.o. We understand that's the way you are in real life, and we love you for it.

Just a couple of observations: Most 7-footers come nowhere near averaging 20 points per game in college. Zeke led the Zips in his senior season with more than 13 points per game. This is a typical high scoring average for a Keith Dambrot-coached team, which favors balanced scoring and focuses more on defense. Zeke may have averaged more points in a different system with a different coach. Nicknames don't come from fans. They come from teammates and coaches in the same way that fighter pilots get their call signs. Anyone who doesn't like the nickname Big Dog is going to have to learn to live with it for the next four seasons. Isaiah Johnson is Big Dog to his teammates and coaches.

It's pretty obvious that @GameChngr44 is trying to share as much information about Zeke as she's free to share at this time. It appears that the Momager has managed a better overseas business arrangement for Zeke than the one he had with the Polish team, hopefully one with a better path to the NBA. We need to be understanding of her dilemma of wanting to share news with Zips fans without violating whatever contractual obligations have been signed relating to making the news public.

A couple of days ago I heard part of a TV interview where it was stated that over the past few decades, scientists have calculated that due to football players becoming so much bigger, stronger and faster that the energy in player collisions has roughly doubled. Even with better physical conditioning, that's led to more frequent serious injuries, including cumulative brain damage.

@zippy5, you never know for sure when comparing players from different conferences. But from what I've researched in the past, the level of competition that Zeke and Pat faced in HS was not terribly different. Zeke was recruited by Pitt and Pat by West Virginia. By the way, one interesting item I ran across in my research is that Pat was the 2010-11 Associated Press Northeast Inland All-District Player of the Year in D-I. He was joined on the first team by none other than Nyles Evans. Pat averaged 22.5 points per game and Nyles 21.9.